Last Wednesday morning me and Alyssa got up bright and early to drive up to the Porcupine Mountains in the upper peninsula. we were armed with our toasted everything bagels, iced capps from tim hortons, and a sense of adventure. We were also aware that the weather forcast for the week was 40% chance of thunderstorms or higher for everday we were going to be there. but we still made the 10 and a half hour drive up to the porkies.
When we arrived at the park, we chose a campsite near the woods and were instantly swarmed with bugs as we exited the car. we set up the small two person tent and after 10 minutes of deliberation decided we had put it in a low area of the campsite and had to move for fear of being flooded in there.
We crawled into our sleeping bags and prepared for sleep. which for me, didn't come until 4 am when I individually put on every single layer of clothing I brought with me trying to warm up. Yes, it was a chilly night.
Despite the chilly and damp night prior, we prepared for our 30ish mile hike through the back country of the park. Packed our bags and headed off starting at lake of the clouds lookout point. The first day we did ten miles, rugged terrain, hills, roots, lookout points, rivers. It was a great day. We spent a lot of the miles singing because you're supposed to make a lot of noise to make sure you dont surprise a mother bear and her cubs. There was one river crossing that we had to do where we had to wade across the river. the water was SO COLD that my feet were in pain for minutes after exiting the water. At our lunch spot we got to watch salmon struggling to swim upstream to their breeding grounds.
Our first campsite was on lake superior next to a tent with three college age looking boys. We busied ourselves by pitching the tent, making tea and filtering water. Then we collected our packs to hang them on the bear pole. (you have to hang up all your food or else hungry bears will come ripping through your tent and whatnot). The problem was that the pole used to hoist up your bag of food was heavier than our bag. Together we struggled to lift our bags on the pole high over our heads to hook it on the small hook about 10 ft high. each time we tried we were unsuccessful and therefore ended up dropping our packs from a high height to the ground. Luckily the guys next to us took pity on us and let us put our food in with theirs. we spent the rest of the evening hanging out with them around their fire swapping stories.
This night was no better than the last temperature wise, in fact Im pretty sure it was a lot colder. I was shaking so much i felt like the entire tent around me was vibrating and didn't start to doze off until dawn. It didn't help that the waves from the ocean sounded like a bear breathing outside of our tent.
The next morning we awoke and saw a bald eagle land in a nearby tree. everyone rushed over and watched it as it perched there surveying the scene. It was so awesome to see it out in the wild as opposed to captivity. after a few minutes and us trying to inch closer it took off and circled the area a few times before disappearing into the woods. AWESOME.
The hike was much colder on this day and what seemed like infinitely longer. The first half of the hike was pleasent with nice scenery. but then we entered into the swamp/bland woods area that seemed to stretch for miles and miles but was only about 5. We had to maneuver our way around swamps and mud and fallen trees and walk through the blisters we had gotten the day before. moral was low. We were still singing but this time it was pain by three days grace as opposed to zip a dee doo da that we had been singing the day before.We went a little over 11.5 miles on this day.
At camp the only bear pole was directly in the middle of a deep swamp. We cursed our bad luck and went to work trying to stretch over the distance of the swamp to hang up our food. Everytime, we were dangerously close to it falling into the water and nowhere near close to hanging it on the pole. So for fear of our food getting soaked, we abandoned this effort and walked back the 1/4 mile to the rustic cabins hoping someone would take mercy on us and take in our food for the night.
The next day was our shortest only about 5 miles long. We hiked through the (much prettier) trail and arrived back at around 2 o clock. We counted 23 obstructions on the path in this short day and we both fell a couple of times in the steep downward slopes. But it was all very rewarding when we arrived at the top and to our car.
We headed up to the nature center to buy patches and brag to anyone that we could find that we had just hiked more than 30 miles. We realized that no one really cared and hopped in the car to head over to pictured rocks!
we didnt get there until late and we knew we had to find someplace to sleep for the night. we went to a couple of campsites but they were horrendously overpriced for being a patch of grass and a picnic table. so we decided it was a good idea to sleep in our car. we went to three different parking lots trying to find out which would be the least shady/get us in the least trouble if we were caught sleeping there. we finally decided on a parking area where you can drop your boat off. We got cozy in our sleeping bags, reclined our seats and tried to go to sleep. We were rudely awoken by a light shining in our car and a police officer tapping on our window. we tried to come up with a quick story in our groggy just-sleeping-nearly-upright state. But he provided it for us. "just taking a nap?" he said "staying here all night?' when we said yes to both of these things, he said alright just checking and left. I said not a single word in this whole exchange. And this whole time we thought we were committing some crime and being very sneaky when we were really only just sleeping in our car.
The next day we did some short hikes at the pictured rocks and saw several beautiful waterfalls. We didn't stay too long but headed home at around 2 pm. We saw most of the famous sites though and did a couple miles of the trail.
At a gas station on the way home a lady came out of the building as I was washing the windows, looked at me and exclaimed "oh hi Helen!" I looked at her perplexedly but she just kept walking closer and smiling. When it was clear that she still didn't understand that I wasn't Helen I gave her an awkward little hello. When she was right next to me she said "oh your not Helen. I'll have to call Helen and tell her I met her twin!" And with that she dropped her can of pepsi, which sprayed everywhere, and walked away. ah the encounters you have at gas stations...
