A Week on Isle Royale | Travel Series | Finale EP. 06

previously on a long time coming. Isle Royale has sat at the pinnacle of our bucket list since the days of traveling in the Honda Element back in 2012. When it came into our sphere of consciousness, it was the least visited national park in the lower 48. All of our research told of legendary hiking, moose around every corner, and a roving isolated wolf population. So clearly we needed to see it. So much so that it wouldn't be a stretch to say that we planned this entire summer to help facilitate a trip to Isle Royale National Park. I think we're ready. Hopefully the salad dressing's good. It's kind of nice eating something super green before eating a bunch of super dehydrated food for the next couple of days. Got it. Bye baby girl. Ah 38. 28. Okay that's not bad. That plane was going to fly us 50 miles over Lake Superior to Isle Royale National Park. We planned to through hike the island over the next six days covering roughly 70 miles before flying out of the opposite end of the island. It felt incredible to be back in a float plane as it's an epic way to start a new adventure. But this wasn't just any backpacking trip. We were finally on our way to see this fabled island for ourselves. Isle Royale is an archipelago made up of more than 400 small islands. Its sheer isolation from other landmasses protect it from outside influences and has created a unique environment for subspecies of plants and animals to develop having long been cut off from their mainland counterparts. All of which sparked our imagination making Isle Royale's call to us even stronger. While registering our hike with the park's office we were warned of crowded camping conditions due to a surge in park visitation, deadly algae blooms in a few of the interior lakes, and a wildfire burning on the eastern end of the island. We shrugged, chalked it up to nothing we couldn't handle, and turned to head down trail. Thankfully we made it to our first campground and grabbed the last available campsite. As day turned to evening we sat and watched a quiet and poetically brief drama unfold. A mayfly hatch. As the mayflies attempted to lift off the water and take flight for the first time cedar waxwings and seagulls hovered above methodically grabbing them right off the water. We ended up sharing our campsite with another couple that night. They too planned to hike 14 miles that day and then camp at Hatchet Lake. As they headed out I joked that if they got to camp before us they should save us a spot. We all laughed nervously and hoped it wouldn't come to that. Congratulations on accomplishing our longest day. Oh wow it's already over. Yeah nice. Easy peasy. Yeah not too bad. We found the campground already full. While looking for a place to set up our tent we ran into our neighbors who kindly offered us a little spot tucked into the bushes behind them. Their spot wasn't really a spot which made ours even less of one, but beggars can't be choosers. Down on the edge of Hatchet Lake hoping to rinse off the sweat and humidity of the day Owen stepped into the water briefly. When he got out he had no less than 12 leeches on his feet. After seeing that there was no way I was getting in that water. So we filled our water bottles and wiped down the best we could from shore. Hanging around Hatchet Lake we started to catch word that most of the hikers were headed to the same campground the following day, ourselves included. Over dinner we hatched the idea to do two days worth of hiking in a single day. The 18 miles would put us on a less crowded section of trail and get us back down to the coast at Siskiwit Bay. To reward our efforts we would then take a zero day to recover. Dessert in bed. Rain was imminent. We had a lot of miles to cover so we got an early start and headed down trail. What followed was one of the most miserable days of hiking we've ever had. Look at you filmmaking. It's worse every time I put this on. Our saturated clothes and packs became heavier with every step. By the time we finished the 18 miles we had reached a special kind of exhaustion. So glad I don't have to hike tomorrow. What do you know our hard work was rewarded with our first private shelter. After seven painful yet meditative hours of silence on trail we individually came to the same conclusion. We weren't falling in love with the island like we hoped we would. We'd built this place up in our minds for so long that I don't think it ever stood the chance of living up to our expectations. Experiencing Isle Royale was a long time coming and yet our guilt over this place not turning out how we hoped had quickly become the thief of our joy. In that moment we realized that we came out here with the wrong objective. This didn't have to be our favorite place on earth but we did have the choice to appreciate it for what it was. Just being on Isle Royale meant that we had seen a goal no better yet a dream to completion. That alone is worth celebrating. We were hiking across a remote island in the middle of the largest lake in the world for god's sake. All of a sudden things weren't so bad. So those two bays that we walked are called Carnelian Beach. Actually things were pretty great. It feels good to put on your lap little incubator. It might hurt your hands though. It's that one. It is slimy but I like it. Is that good? Yeah. It says this is not a salt pile or space food promise. Are you gonna turn it into a salt pile? What do you think? Do you think it needs one? We woke up feeling like new people. The shelter and the zero day gave us the much needed opportunity to take a step back and soak in the realizations of the day before. Turns out that taking the day off from hiking was the best thing that we could have done for ourselves. We felt like we had recovered physically and mentally and we were ready for whatever Isle Royale had left in store for us. Home sweet home. We made it. After setting up our camp we made a short trek out to the coast to do a little bit of this. It was our last day on trail and we had just a few miles to make it to Windigo where we'd stay the night before catching our float plane back to the truck. The end of our stay on Isle Royale also marked the end of our summer. It was time for us to head out west and to catch a plane to South America for a few months. There's molten lava in there. Our time on Isle Royale seemed to be a microcosm of our whole summer. We wanted to race to a bunch of parks in hopes of seeing as much as we could in a short time. We wanted Isle Royale to be the perfect ending to our summer and this series. But what we needed was a lesson in enjoying what was right in front of us. Ultimately the quantity of the stops isn't what we'll remember. The quiet still moments. The slow moments. That's what resonated most and that's what we'll remember. In the words of a song we can't afford to license you can't always get what you want but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need. Ocean, ocean, will I get it right this time?