Grand Island Hike – Oct 2014
I had wanted to hike on Grand Island for a year or so now
and this was going to be my 3rd attempt at doing so. The first time I attempted to go, the
government was on ‘shut down’ and unbeknownst to me, that meant that all
National Forests and Parks were closed while the government got their heads out
of their butts. So, I had driven 6 hours
North only to discover that the one place I was planning on hiking was closed.
The 2nd time I attempted to go to Grand Island,
it was in the winter and I was planning on walking across the ice with a couple
of friends. Of course, my Jeep battery
starts dying on me, so I had to bail on the trip (See the Winter 2013 BOW blog
for that story).
In October of 2014, I had decided to try and hike one more
time on this stupid island. I decided to
go the very last weekend that it was open for the summer. On Thursday the 2nd, I drove up to
Munising. My plan was to just crash for
the night at this little campground that was right next to the boat launch for
Grand Island. By the time I had arrived
to the campground, it was around midnight and pouring rain. I found an unoccupied spot to park the jeep,
I used their bathroom to get ready for bed, and I slept in the back of my jeep
for the night. The next morning, still
pouring rain, I made a little breakfast with my stove under a pavilion in the
park. This little old lady, who I think
was a semi-permanent camper, stopped by to chat with me and ask me what I was
up to. I think she thought I was insane
to be going out to the island to hike for the weekend. Anyway, after my little hot meal, I got my
stuff around and drove over to the ferry dock.
Now, when I say that ‘I took the ferry to Grand Island’, what I really
mean is that a guy drives a pontoon back and forth between the mainland and the
island for about 15 bucks (which includes the round trip and your camping fee). I took the noon ‘ferry’ over to the island
with one other guy that I think lived on the island. They looked at me like I was an alien! They were just floored that I was going
hiking by myself. They asked me if ‘I
was one of those people with Type A personality’ and they said ‘wow you must
really like adventure’ and on and on.
Anyway, once they dumped me off on the island, I just told the main guy
that I was planning on catching the Sunday noon ‘ferry’ back, and that was
it!
The entire weekend wasn’t too eventful. I managed pretty well without burning down
the forest or even setting myself on fire.
There are bears and coyotes on the island, but I didn’t see any the
entire time. It rained pretty much the
entire weekend, but the leaves were pretty and it was a good challenge to hike
in the cold and the rain. And best of
all, I only ran into a few people biking and hiking the entire time.
The only really hard part was setting up camp for the second
night. It was raining a lot and I hate
setting up camp in the rain. Once camp
was set, then I wanted to eat and get in my tent. Since it was raining, I had no cover to set
up my stove and eat. I literally was
debating going into this outhouse nearby to cook my food! Pretty gross, but
desperate times call for desperate measures.
Luckily, I was camping in an area with a little park that had grills and
picnic tables. I took one of the
handicap tables (the ones with one long end that extends out from the benches)
and tipped it up so it was leaning on one of the grills. Then I took this tarp that I had and draped
it over the picnic table. I had made a
little dry spot under the table that was big enough for me to use my stove and
sit and eat. Afterwards, I cleaned up,
hung up my food, and crawled into my tent.
It was still pouring outside, so I really didn’t have anything to
do. I had enough battery left on my
phone that I watched a movie all snuggled up in my sleeping bag.
The next day it wasn’t raining anymore and I packed up my
stuff and walked the 2 miles to the dock.
There were 8 or so people there waiting for the ‘ferry’. I was surprised how many people were there
because I had not seen any of these people except for a group of 3 guys
hiking. The ferry guy showed up and took
us back to the mainland. I loaded up my
stuff and started the long trek back to Holland.
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| Map of island and my route |
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| My first night campsite |
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| Cemetery on the island |
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| A squirrel with a nut! |
Winter BOW – February 2015
I decided to attend another winter BOW this year. Meghann couldn’t go again, but her friend
Kate from high school was able to go and we decided to ride together. So, Thursday, Feb 26th, I left
work early, grabbed my stuff, and headed up to Mount Pleasant to meet up with
Kate. We met at her friend’s house,
piled all her stuff in my jeep and took off for Munising. We made it to our hotel around midnight. We were exhausted from the ride, but we got
hot showers and we got a good night’s sleep.
The next morning, we headed downstairs for some breakfast
before heading out to Chatham to meet up with the girls to go see the Eben Ice
Caves. We get to Chatham around 10am and
realize that the bar that we typically meet at is closed. I had no one’s phone number and my internet
connection was sketchy at best. So, Kate
and I decided to just go to the caves and hope that we ran into our group
there.
We pulled in to the lot, and all of the girls that we were
meeting up with had just arrived as well.
There were about 12 of us that took off on the short hike to the caves.
After we were done, we all headed to a small café for lunch,
then we drove up to Big Bay to check in for the weekend. We had a few hours before the first
announcements of the weekend, so Kate and I borrowed a couple pairs of snow
shoes and headed down to Lake Superior to check out the ice and snow. Around 5pm, we headed back up to the main
building for announcements then dinner.
After dinner we just headed to our room to relax for the evening.
The next morning my first class was skijoring, which is
basically a combination of cross-country skiing with dogs pulling you. Kate had that class with me, so we both
headed over to the class together. The
first portion of class, we went over commands and basic skijoring
information. You are supposed to do most
of the work skiing, but then the dog is supposed to pull you along so that you
can ski faster. Then we went out to
team up with a dog. The girls that were
running the class had about 8 dogs to choose from. I had my instructor choose a dog for me. We hooked up to our dogs and each took off
one after another. I was last in
line. My dog was so excited to run, that
I used every bit of energy to try and slow him down. This dog was running at about 100mph with me
being dragged behind him. I had my skis
in a snow plow formation and was digging in as hard as I could, yelling ‘whoa!’
to him and pulling as hard as I could on his harness and I still could not get
him to slow down. He was going so hard
and fast that I literally was getting sling-shot around corners and into snow
banks. After about the 10th
time that I fell down, the poor dog wouldn’t pull me anymore. He just trotted along beside me as I skied on
my own power as if to say, “I’m just gona go at your pace since you suck at
this”. In the meantime, Kate and her dog
were like two synchronized swimmers.
They were in perfect harmony, gliding around the track together as one
united human-dog team.
When me and my disappointed dog got back to the start of the
track, my instructor decided to switch out dogs, thinking that maybe another
smaller dog would be good for me. So, we
switched dogs and tried again. However,
even though this new dog was smaller, she was full of energy and
excitement. Once again, this dog was
dragging me around the track like a rag doll.
After about the 3rd time that I fell, I swear this dog looked
at me as if to say, “I am so done with you slow human!”. As I am trying to get up, I see her do this
butt-wiggle thing and the next thing I know she has wriggled out of her harness
and is shooting like a bullet down the track to catch up with the other dog
teams. A moment later, one of my
instructors skis by me and says, “where did your dog go?”. I yell, “She went that way!”. With my head bowed down in defeat, I walk
back to the start of the track with my skis and empty harness.
When I got back to the start of the track, the other
instructor hooked up to her dog, grabbed my harness and took off to catch my
escaped dog. A few moments later, here
she comes with both her dog and my dog pulling her back to the start. Everyone was laughing at me and my little Houdini
escape artist.
After class was finished, we headed back to the main
building for lunch. Usually, during
every meal they have some kind of announcements and they do this thing called
the bandanna awards. Each instructor goes
up in front of the room and gives an award to one of their students during the
class. Well, apparently me losing my dog
was bandanna-worthy, and my instructors told the story and gave me the
award. However, since my class only had
3 people, they gave the other 2 girls bandannas as well for being good sports
during the class. At least I didn’t have
to stand up in front of the room and receive my ‘award’ alone!
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| Me and my little Houdini |
After lunch, my next class was ‘advanced snowshoeing’. There were about 15 of us that were in that
class. We drove to this location to
snowshoe on a trail through the woods.
At first, I was getting pissed because a few women complained by saying
“how much longer”. I thought for sure
they would just be a pain in the butt the whole time. But shockingly, everyone did really well and
there was minimal complaining! We ended
up hiking for 4 miles! Even I thought
that was a long ways and it was hard in certain areas, but everyone was a
trooper and finished the trail.
Afterwards, we drove back to the camp and met in the main building for
dinner. After dinner, I met back up with
Kate in our room. We were both so
exhausted from the long day out in the cold, that we both just collapsed in our
beds for the evening.
Kate and I had to share a room with 4 other women. One pair were these overweight, loud, beastly
women that would not shut up. They
yapped all evening about the most mundane things. Kate and I really hated them, but we couldn’t
talk about them, since they were sitting right there. So, the entire evening, while she was reading
and I was watching movies on my iphone, we texted back and forth complaining
and giggling about these two all evening.
The next morning we had our last class of the weekend. I had cross-country skiing. We met up for class and were taken to some
trails not far from camp. The guy that taught
our class looked to be about 100 years old.
However, once we got out on the trails, he actually surprised me with
his athleticism! We did some simple
loops for a while, but most of us were pretty bored. So, we decided to follow a longer trail that
went off in the woods. Just then, one of
the ladies started complaining that her fingers hurt so bad from the cold. The old man that was teaching the class just
looked at her and said, “well if your cold, you better get skiing to warm
up’. This guy’s tough love made me like
him even more! However, her frozen
hands were so bad that she just couldn’t go on, so one of the other instructors
skied back to camp to get the van and come back so she could sit in it. Giving her the benefit of the doubt and
knowing how painful that feeling can
be, I remembered that I had one of those
instant hand warmer things in my backpack.
I gave it to her and then said, “oh wait, I’ll open it for you because I
know it’s hard to move your hands when they are that cold”. She looks at me and kind of annoyingly takes
the hand warmer from me and says that she’s fine and can open it. So, basically she was just being a dramatic
woman that feigned a fake condition so she didn’t have to ski anymore. I should have known! Anyways, the rest of us had fun skiing thru
the woods and I had fun listening to the old man tell stories while we
skied.
After class, we just met back up at camp, had our final
lunch, packed and started our long journey back downstate. Before we crossed the bridge, we made a quick
stop in St. Ignace to see if the ice was frozen enough again to form the
Christmas Tree bridge. It was, so was
watched a few snowmobilers cross the ice.
Once we made it over the bridge, we made one final stop in Mackinaw City
to stock up on fudge. Overall, it was
another great trip to the UP for a fun BOW weekend.
