Isle Royale - Day 12

Key statistics:
Total miles hiked: 87.9
Total miles paddled: 0
Total moose seen: 12
​Total foxes seen: 3
Total days with no cell service: 11

​With the weather offering a cold and blustery wind, we left Siskiwit Bay at little disappointed. It clearly was a beautiful beach and had endless potential for fun and exploration, but not in 38 degree windy weather, so we packed up and pushed on to do a double mileage day. 

​With the forecast for more rain and even a thunder storm, we wanted to get to Lake Desor to minimize the number of times we had to setup and tear down in the rain. That would put us 24 hours to Malone Bay’s shelters and out exit for this section of our trip. We were happy for the 17 mph wind all day as it kept the mosquitoes at bay in most of the areas we hiked. It was a hill day with 90 percent of our hiking being up and out of the bay and to the ridge of the Greenstone Trail. We pushed at a quick pace and were in good spirits wandering along a small creek and following a brushy, grassy incline for hours. The undergrowth kept most of the muddy sections calm and so we did not have as much scrambling to do. The rocky, rooty trails were also behind us for the day, so we were able to quicken our pace and save our feet, even while going uphill. A stop at Island 

Carnelian Beach, along Siskiwit Bay, Isle Royale

Mine for lunch had us exploring the tailing piles and checking out the campground. It was an interesting area, most unlike a lot of the campsites on the island. It was deep in the woods off any lakes and the high canopy with lush short undergrowth made it quaint in its own way.
We pushed on to the Greenstone, the backbone of Isle Royale and then felt like we were absolutely flying. There we found wide, clear trails with gentle rolling ups and downs and the breeze kept us cool and moving our fastest pace of the trip thus far. It is apply named as there were numerous put stops on large stones, and we were constantly surrounded by a sea of green undergrowth and high birch and aspen white trunks.
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The last .3 of a mile into South Desor felt like the longest stretch of the day, and we were happy to have solitude until another party of 3 strolled in after 9 p.m. and accidentally walked right up on our tent. We had been asleep and got quite a startle as they clambered around. However, in the morning, we had a nice chat with them and could clearly tell they had a rough day and were considering turning around and calling it quits back to Windigo. The water at Lake Desor was once again terrible. It had a mildew smell and was unpalatable by my standards. We had carried extra water anticipating it and boiled all water longer, but were still clearing that taste out of our filter for the next week of the trip. A light rain fell on us in the morning, but didn’t make packing up too bad. It was another happy reminder that we were glad to be headed to shelter at Malone and out of the thunderstorms that were upon us. It was to be yet another long day of hiking to end our 2nd weeklong stretch in June.

The steam hoist at Island Mine, Isle Royale

Our pace increased on this easy section of the Greenstone Trail, Isle Royale