Training Log Archive: runninghils

Day 4: Coves to Potato Patch

We got an early start today for the long return back in a longer day than we'd initially planned (due to campsites being full) It ended up being fine. We got one long last view of everything. It was a calm day, and there were lots of people out on the water in kayaks and on paddleboards. I want to try that one day. We stopped at Mosquito River for lunch again and watched the people come in, refilled our water, and wasted time before the last 1.5 hours of trekking to what we knew would be a mosquito-filled site.

Lake Superior water is awesome! It tastes really good and is super clean. Of course, we treated the whole time, but it was nice for it to at least look clean when you scoop it out.

We got to our site, set up camp quickly, and I convinced dad that we should take all our non-camp stuff (food, swimsuits, etc) down to the shore at the bottom of the cliff - the same one he'd struggled with the first day. It was a good move - only an 11 minute walk. We got to go for one last swim, eat dinner on the lake, and avoid the mosquitos. There were stable flies, but they weren't as bad as the mosquitos. When the sun started to go down, we hiked back up the hill to our site. I heard someone speaking "my language" at the campfire (talking about chemicals, blowing things up, you know...) so I jumped in to the conversation. Turns out that he works at Dow Corning too. Small world!

Started raining a bit in the middle of the night, but not too bad. The wind was fierce in the treetops and sounded much more dramatic than what we experienced on the ground.

Day 3: Chapel to Coves

Oddly, my calves were tight/sore this day. Dad was hurting from the previous two days. We were looking forward to an easy day hanging out in the park. These were the last 4 miles of cliffs in the park. Past Coves, it's dunes and woods. Those are nice, but we were here for the cliffs!

Lots of great views on the way from Chapel to Coves. We definitely took our time on this one with lots of stops to admire the scenery. There were lots of really steep sections on the trail - 18"+ steps in some places. I was glad to have my trekking poles. We got to the site early and set up camp. We went down to the beach, which was even nicer than the previous beach - perfect and sandy as far as the eye could see. Is this Michigan and Lake Superior or the tropics? You knew once you stepped in the water - it was cold, but refreshing. We had both lunch and dinner on the beach and watched the sun set. Beautiful! Looking out at the waves with really nothing to do put me into a philosophical mindset. It was nice.

Day 2:
Potato Patch to Chapel Beach/Rock. Today, I took the tent and the camp stove so I'd have most of the heavy stuff. I tried to reduce the log recorded time to account for stopping and looking at cliffs, taking photos, eating lunch, looking at plants along the trail, etc.

This trek started off rough with HEAVY mosquitos for the first hour or so. Then, they went away and the scenery got awesome! They call them Pictured Rocks for a reason. The cliffs are super beautiful. Also, the water below in Lake Superior was a lovely tropical color with shades of aqua and teal, which was especially noticeable with the sunny, cloudless sky we had. The temperature was perfect - warm but not too hot. We spent lunch on a big rock at the halfway point where we laid out some of our wet clothes and shoes to dry. When we arrived at our campsite at Chapel, it was right off the beach. Down at the beach, there were views of the rock faces, and a great opportunity to go for a swim and get cleaned up. We cooked dinner on the beach and basically spent the rest of the day hanging out at the beach, looking at all the tide-tumbled stones, and relaxing. I wanted to take home a whole bag of the stones for my aquarium, but (a) I don't have an aquarium and (b) I didn't want to add several pounds of stones to my pack.

Overall, this was a much more relaxing and fun day than the first and the views were spectacular - that's the whole reason we were here!

Pictured Rocks backpacking trip with my dad.

Day 1: Munising to Potato Patch campground. We got started around 4 pm thinking "OK, at 3 miles per hour, we should be at our campsite by 7 pm." Well, the trail wasn't really that hard, but it was really rooty, which slowed things down with a full pack. 10 minutes in, it started raining. It rained almost the entire trek out there with hail occasionally peppered in there. We pulled out our lunches with about 1.9 miles to go at Miner's Castle. It was a nice break in the rain and Dad got a few good photos - really the only scenery on the first day other than a cool waterfall shortly after the stop. We continued on, and I was getting nervous because it was looking like we wouldn't be in by dark - we were moving a lot slower than anticipated! The last thing was a big climb to the top of the cliff on a steep trail. Dad was really struggling due to pretty much not training at all, so I ran ahead to drop my pack off at the campsite and then ran back to get his. Chatted with the park ranger for a bit on the hill. He was impressed with how I moved both with the pack and without and said that he wanted to recruit me as a park ranger! Ha! I told him about adventure racing and he was totally interested. There was just enough light for me to find my headlamp once we got to the site. We set the tent up by headlamp and pretty much went right to sleep at 9:15 pm after killing dozens of mosquitos that got into the tent.