Location

It seemed like not long ago I was preparing for my first real backpacking trip to Isle Royale. A 3 day journey by plane, unsure of what to expect, but excited and ready for adventure. Now planning, gear, routes and distances are a bit more familiar and although it’s an entirely new location, I think we’re going to be ready. For this backpacking trip, we chose the Porcupine Mountains in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We chose this location for several reasons.

• The location is close enough to where we all live that we can all make it there in a half day’s drive.
• We don’t need a plane or any other form of transportation except a car, so cost is lower than our last trip.
• The Porcupine Mountain trails form a big loop, which was one of our requirements when looking for what trails were available to us. It allows us to start and finish at the same location, thus no need for a bus or pickup.
• Being along lake Superior is always a bonus and should give us some great scenic views on our last day.

Route

Once we pulled the trigger on Porcupine Mountains, we needed to decide how many days we’d be backpacking, and what route we’d be taking. After a bit of deliberation, we chose to backpack for 4 days. This gave us plenty of time to make our way around the State Park.

Now for the route. As you can see in the above map, there are numerous routes that can be taken, weaving all over. One of our backpackers formulated 3-4 potential routes and eventually we settled on what you see below. In order by day, we will be hiking Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, and then in the morning of the last day we have a short hike back to the vehicle, Purple. These are, in order, 6.63 mi, 7.05 mi, 8.25 mi, 6.36 mi, and 2.45 mi.

Commentary

There are some further benefits of this location and route over our previous trip to Isle Royale. One advantage is that we can reserve/book camp sites, which was not possible on Isle Royale. This seems like a small advantage, but this allows us to take our time hiking, knowing that our site will be there and open when we arrive. On Isle Royale, we made a habit of getting up early and hiking relatively quickly to ensure we had a spot to stay at our destination which honestly sort of burned us out quicker. At the Porcupine Mountains we are allowed to have fires (also not allowed at Isle Royale). Having a fire really makes the evening much more pleasant, and we found ourselves going to bed early simply because of the darkness on our last trip. Last but definitely not least, you’ll notice at the end of our day 2, we’ll be right back where we started, which will allow us to resupply food and clothing, essentially allowing us to only carry 2 days of food/supplies at any given time.

Next Up

I’ve been busy checking out my existing gear and acquiring some new, planning meals, and getting my clothing in line, so you can expect to get details on that in the days to come.