Porkies 2026, Day 4: Lily Pond to Mirror Lake, and a hotel

Last time: A rest day of hiking at Lily Pond

Lily Pond, a little moody

Tuesday May 26, 2026: We slept in "late" -- 8:30 am -- after our night of failed stargazing. The night had been pleasantly cool, but the morning had warmed up enough to promise an even hotter day ahead of us.

Today we would leave Lily Pond and head just a few short miles to Mirror Lake. Over oatmeal and tea, I filled one of the last pages in the log book. I was responding to a weird collection of recent entries, all very proudly giving bad advice. My (correct!) advice included:

• Keep food inside the cabin -- don't hang a bear bag! (What do you think all those walls are for?!)
• You can keep wood inside the cabin, too -- there's a whole section of each cabin called the "wood room" for that exact purpose! (I never did figure out what those folks thought was bad about bringing in firewood.)
• Filter all water, even from the legendary spring across the lake (the log book was filled with stories of people trying to find it -- and some had even succeeded -- but many expected it to be filter-free).

Not wanting to arrive at Mirror Lake too early, we read and lazed around until noon. After that we packed up and headed out on a remarkably flat and easy (by Porkies standards) section of the Little Carp River trail, covering the last 2-ish miles to Mirror Lake. The trail was only mildly muddy, and that was firming up from the warm and dry weather.

Along the way, I kept my eye out to my left -- west -- for those high points I'd noticed yesterday. In my copy of Jim Dufresne's Porkies trail guide (I have an older 3rd edition), I recalled reading about a trail heading up to a lookout point on one of these "mountains". For several trips, I'd kept an eye out for such a trail, but never noticed so much as a game trail in that direction.

As I was keeping my eye out, an enormous roaring sound came over us. It sounded like a jet, flying low and fast from the southwest. Then another one, from the same direction, and a few seconds later a third, from the northwest. They were so loud that I dropped my hiking poles and covered my ears, while frantically trying to see anything up in the tree-blocked sky. Then just a few seconds later, everything was silent again. The memory of the jets rang in our ears.

Sarah and I looked at each other with confusion. What had just happened?! The thought of fighter jets scrambling overhead cast a pall over the rest of our hike: Why were they needed?

A few hours later, we found a story about a similar event from last year in the Mirror Lake 4-Bunk cabin's log book. That helped me feel a bit better -- at least this wasn't unprecedented. Several day later, in a hotel room, we searched and found a number of other stories of similar events from across the years. Apparently there's a lot of unrestricted air space across the UP and northern Wisconsin, making it a good place for fighter jet training exercises. I had never encountered such a thing before.

Mirror Lake 4-bunk

We continued onward, and soon enough found our way to the Mirror Lake 4-Bunk cabin. This is a true old-fashioned log cabin, backing up against one of the Porkies "mountains" and fronting on the lake. On my last visit I thought the cabin felt dark and shaded. This year, in spring, it felt much more exposed, with a brighter and more pleasant interior.

We got unpacked and then set up our camp chairs down near the lake. As we sat down to read, we could hear campers at the South Mirror Lake sites loudly talking with each other, all in a similar style to the backpackers from yesterday on Summit Peak. Sarah looked at me and said "There sure are a lot of bros in the woods."

On the upside, there was also a loon somewhere out there on Mirror Lake, and it soon started making its haunting call over and over. I can never get enough of loon calls (or loons themselves -- they're gorgeous!), so I sat back and soaked it up, relaxing from the hike and the shock of the fighter jets.

But, as you may have gathered, sitting in one place for a long time is not one of my strengths. Soon enough, I got the itch to get moving again. My target was those high points along the end of the Little Carp River trail. I packed up a light daypack, turned on my GPS, and headed back down the trail -- and then, as soon as I saw the hills rising up above me, I headed off-trail.

An important disclaimer: I have a long history of bushwhacking through the Copper Country. It's something I've always loved to do, not least because there are so many abandoned mines and long-forgotten sites scattered about the countryside. So a quick disclaimer: This is a story about doing something where I have years of experience and took lots of precautions (including a GPS, a manual compass, a map, basic survival equipment, and a lot of knowledge). It's easy to get seriously lost even a little distance off trail -- don't try this on your own!

This was relatively easy as far as Copper Country bushwhacking goes. For one thing, there wasn't much brush this early in the year. Many parts of the hills were totally clear under the dense shade of huge stands of ancient hemlocks. The terrain itself was steep uphill, of course, but that's just to be expected. I first skirted around the base of one hill, hiking beneath vertical walls of bedrock. At the base of one of them -- could it be? -- it sure looked like the remnants of a mine exploration. Or maybe it was just the rock cracking through millions of years of freeze-thaw cycles, I couldn't be sure. On the off chance that it was a bear's den, I decided not to poke my nose in too close.

"View" from the western hill, looking towards Correction Line

Next I bushwhacked to the top of the eastern hill, finding exactly no viewpoints -- not even something that might have once been an overlook -- and no hints of old trails either. The upper reaches were densely shaded by hemlocks, except for a thicket of young maples where a fallen tree had opened some daylight. Neither left any chance of a view over Mirror Lake. I came down on a saddle between the two hills and followed a razorback ridge leading up towards the top of the western hill. This hill was more deciduous, with some leaves not yet unfurled, which left a tiny sliver of a view. I could see late afternoon sunlight hitting the tops of another line of hills... wait, I thought I was supposed to be seeing Mirror Lake? That's when I realized I was looking north, to the high hills along the end of the Correction Line trail. It was a lovely glimpse (and I bet those hills would be fun to climb, too!), but not what I was looking for. I slowly made my way back down, following a tiny stream, thought I caught a glimpse of an old mining road, discovered that I was seeing nothing at all, and finally found my way back to the Little Carp River trail.

Approximate route - bushwhacking in red

I must admit that while I was just now reviewing the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park guidebook description for the first time in many years, I discovered that all that Jim actually says is "The trail then rounds the base of a 1,600-foot high rocky knob that hikers can scramble up for a view of the Mirror Lake area." I suppose I technically found that. Was there a mention of an old trail in earlier editions? Who knows!

Although not exactly what I expected, I did thoroughly scratch my old bushwhacking itch. I also got enormously sweaty. The weather had warmed up, and bushwhacking is hard work! About 1 mile of my 2 mile hike had been entirely off trail.

I was also reminded that, as much as I love my lightweight trail running shoes for backpacking, they are not good for bushwhacking. That calls for traditional hiking boots, with stiffer soles and thicker sides.

Back at the cabin, feeling sweaty, tired, and refreshed at the same time, I took a shower with our solar shower. I washed my face and my feet, got thoroughly wet, and also felt thoroughly better. To dry off, I took a short walk around the cabin area and enjoyed the slow start of the sunset over Mirror Lake.

Mirror Lake near sunset

And now the story gets weird.

Next it was dinner time, which was Peak Refuel Chicken Pesto Pasta, which was merely OK. Shortly after dinner, around 9 pm, I was standing at the cabin's counter, cleaning up the water pot and moving things back into the mouse-proof cupboards. As I did, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned and looked and saw two shiny eyes looking up at me from a crack behind the countertop. Yep: a mouse.

Then things got weirder. The little critter, almost vibrating in my headlamp light, ran out onto the countertop and just stood there, looking at me. I waved at it, and it moved back about one step. I shouted at it, and it scurried back behind the counter, but kept looking out. Was it vibrating with fear... or in anticipation of the goodies that humans bring with them?

By this time Sarah was up and looking at it too, clearly not excited about this too-bold, clearly-habituated-to-humans mouse. I checked around and found one of the omnipresent mouse traps left in these cabins. Using a small bit of a peanut-butter rice cake, I carefully baited and set the trap and put it on the counter. The mouse made a beeline for the trap, sniffed, and then... showed that it knew exactly how to get food off of a trap without setting it off. It sat there, eating its treat, and staring directly at me.

That's when the second mouse appeared. It crawled out from behind the counter and scurried right up to the trap, also sniffing and looking for a treat.

I looked underneath the counter and saw a surprisingly large hole chewed right through the floorboards. This was clearly where the mice were coming in. I went outside and found a chunk of cinderblock used in some previous construction and used it to cover the hole. But it was too late: The two mice were here, they were smarter than the traps, and they definitely weren't going away.

Sarah and I held a council of war, with the enemy watching us from their perch on the counter. We could keep fighting the mice, but it didn't look likely to succeed (and who knew how many other ways they had of getting in). Neither of us enjoyed the prospect of a night filled with mice pattering around and most likely investigating us in our bunks. Plus, I could already tell that I wouldn't be sleeping at all.

So we decided to leave. Call us wimps if you want, but we're well past proving that we are badasses (or even OK-asses). There was no way we were going to be comfortable in the cabin, and we had a way out, so we took it. The car was just a few miles away at the top of Summit Peak, conveniently relocated during yesterday's hike.

We packed quickly by headlamp light, undoing all of the work we'd done just a few hours ago. We were ready to go by 10 pm, with bug nets and headlamps on our heads. 

The almost-full moon guided us as we headed to the South Mirror Lake trail, the shortest route to Summit Peak. The trail, which had been widened into a small road to aid construction in 2021, was a wide, rocky, and muddy mess, one that I will not voluntarily choose to hike again if I can avoid it. Near the SML campsites, we noticed a pile of telephone poles, probably hauled in along this very road, probably to replace the quickly decaying bridge over Mirror Lake's outlet into the Little Carp River.

As we briskly hiked in the dark, we kept up a constant patter of conversation -- partly to keep us awake (although adrenaline was helping with that), partly to alert bears to our presence. We talked about plans and options -- where would we go? The closest hotel was an AmericInn in Silver City, which seemed like a good first choice. Would we come back into the woods tomorrow, or just cut the trip short entirely? We decided not to decide until we had a night's sleep behind us. 

After what felt like a ridiculously long amount of time, we huffed our way up a long hill and stopped for a water break just below the top. Sarah wondered out loud how long we had to go before we could turn up toward Summit Peak. I checked our location on my phone-GPS and saw that were were just a few feet away from the turnoff to the Summit Peak side trail. Sure enough, just at the top of the hill, we found signs pointing us towards Summit Peak and its lookout tower.

The Summit Peak side trail starts quite flat and wide, but eventually turns into a steep and rocky climb. This trail really began to wear on us, but we pushed on, knowing that we were within a fraction of a mile from the top.

We finally reached the top at 11:30 pm, 1.5 hours and 2.7 miles after we had left the cabin. It felt like much more. But it also felt like a real accomplishment -- I've done some night hiking before, but definitely never night-backpacking.

We got in the car and drove to the Silver City AmericInn, where the parking lot appeared to be completely full. Nonetheless, the night receptionist found a room for us... slowly and deliberately... but we were in a clean and comfortable room by 12:30 am. I was pleasantly surprised: As basically the only hotel for miles and miles, the AmericInn could have been a lot more expensive and a lot less nice, but it was in fact quite reasonable on both counts.

We each took a shower, and were in bed by 1 am.

Next time: Our heroes return to conquer the wilderness, but not until they have a nice breakfast.

Miles hiked: 6.9, including 2 miles of bushwhacking

Total miles: 16.2

If you liked this post, check out this list of all of my backpacking blog posts.

Day 4's route in teal, not including bushwhacking