View of Washington Creek from shelter #3

The Minong Ridge Trail is over. Completed. Done. Kaput. Now only the Feldtmann and Greenstone Ridge Trails are left for the final week of my Isle Royale Trip.

After a morning of ascents and descents, followed by an afternoon of repeated ridges overlooking beaver-created wetlands, I finally make it to the Washington Creek Campground. It is time to wine, dine and recreate. In reality, the best I can hope for is beer, junk food from the Windigo store and plenty of time to rest my blistered feet.

First on the agenda is finding an attractive campsite so I can put down my backpack, and give my shoulders a well overdue break. A brief look at the campground map indicates shelters dominate here, with only a few tent sites being wedged in where space allows. Tomorrow’s rest day insists on obtaining a site with a nice view, but if not possible I can always move to another site tomorrow if necessary.

A single, narrow foot path runs behind the shelters, with the man-made structures aligned facing toward Washington Creek. The creek is more like a river here, wide and swiftly flowing, bordered thick with cattails. A couple wider, truck trails leave the narrow trail and head back to the main road-like trail, which eventually arrives in the vicinity of the Windigo Ranger Station.

Section Stats:
Date: September 3, 2011
Length: 1.0 miles (11.4 total daily miles; 47.8 total trip miles)
Difficulty: Very Easy

I proceed along the footpath behind the shelters, looking and listening for occupancy. The first open one is too limited in view of the creek, the second too crowded with a picnic table inside (how did they get it through the slim doorway?), while the third one, shelter #3 is just right!!

Luckily, the shelter is nice enough that moving tomorrow is completely unnecessary. The door is the shelter’s only downside, and probably the reason for its availability. It refuses to close the entire way, and half of the bottom of the door is worn away, and no longer flush with the frame. Could an animal have gnawed it that way? A vision of terrified campers huddled in the far side of the shelter as some giant creature tries to chew its way in fills my mind. Like something out of Attack of the Killer Shrews.

A stick should be able to adequately close the door and stuffing some small branches and a rock or two may prevent any mischievous animals from entering under the door. The last thing I need is to have a red squirrel squeeze through the crack and gaining access to both my food and equipment. The red squirrels seem to have it out for me on the island, especially the rock-throwing incident at McCargoe Cove.

My first order of business is getting my aching feet out of my damp hiking boots, and into my nice, comfortable Crocs. The toe blisters are largely intact and only slightly larger than yesterday, but those around my heel are open wounds now, despite being covered in multiple layers of bandages. I decide to leave them uncovered for now to air out, despite the likelihood of them getting dirty. Since a shower is in my near future, I’ll bandage them up afterwards. Maybe.

It only takes a few short moments for the shelter floor to be completely covered in equipment, as if a gear bomb exploded in my backpack. The damp equipment gets hung out on my clothes line to dry, while I set up my sleeping bag, inflate my Therm-a-Rest Prolite and unroll my cheap, lightweight, blue, closed-foam mattress in anticipation of their use later this evening. Finally, I stuff what is left of my food into my large, black bear bag and hang it from a nail in the middle of the shelter.

Now I am ready for a trip to Windigo, with its promise of some tasty food, and a short, but hopefully, hot shower. It will be my first shower since I left Copper Harbor nearly a week ago. Placing my empty water bottles, extra clothes and shower supplies in one of the many plastic garbage bags, I depart from my shelter home and head to Windigo.

Back tracking a little along the narrow foot trail behind the shelter, I proceed to take the first wide jeep trail the short way back to the main road to Windigo. Two small tenting campsites are located all by themselves along this jeep trail, while a water faucet is located at the corner with the main road. I fill my single old Gatorade bottle for the trip into Windigo, the others can wait for the return trip. Although my filter may get lonely the next two days, I look forward to being able to get clear, cold, drinkable water here, instead of having to filter it.

The roadway to Windigo is wide enough for a vehicle, which is apparently its purpose given the two parallel ruts running along its length. To the right are frequent views of Washington Harbor, sometimes obscured by the shoreline shrubbery. The left side is mostly forested, but at one point a mowed plot of grass on a hillside appears. As I proceed down the road, the left side transitions to mostly shrubby vegetation, with the exception of a single road up to the staff residence.

Washington Creek Campground

The road became more gravel and road-like as the main Windigo dock approaches. Up the hillside from the dock are several structures. The smallest is the restroom, showers and laundry facilities, followed by the large Visitors Center, and farther up the hill and through the trees, the store.

Stopping at the restroom to use a flush toilet for the first time in a week is a true treat. Based on the crowd, the facilities building appears to be the most popular place in Windigo. After taking care of my business, I get reacquainted with some of my Minong Ridge friends, Jesse, Lee, and, Tim and Shelly. In all the catching up, someone notifies me that the rangers have been asking around about a person expecting a large resupply box. This must be me!!

First things first, I head up to the store to get something to eat. From what everyone told me the store is no longer selling fresh foods like sandwiches for the season, only some leftover food remains. When I hear mention of apple pie slices being available, I nearly sprint directly for the store, the resupply package can wait; it has no pie!

The store is located at the top of the hill, surrounded by trees just uphill from the Visitor Center. The store is a little shop with mostly knick-knacks and some assorted camping supplies. Although they typically have a more extensive food menu, only a few leftovers remain in a small refrigerator now. A sign indicates the store’s inevitable closure for the season after Labor Day.

After perusing their inventory for a while, I select a small container of apple juice, a slice of apple pie, a bag of Reese’s Pieces and a vanilla pudding cup, along with some new batteries and a Flash drive for my camera. The largest Flash drive is 32 MB, and I cannot remember how this compares to the two I brought with me. Since one is already full, and I am not even half-way through my trip, I have no choice but look for other options.

The woman waiting on me smells of smoke and is none too friendly, so after making my purchases, I head out onto the porch to eat my food in the fresh air. It takes me only a few short moments to gobble up the tasty morsels, the apple juice and apple pie being especially tasty after almost a week of trail food.

On my way back, I stop at the Visitors Center to check on that resupply package. The center is much larger and attractive than the little one at Rock Harbor. The building is constructed entirely from knotty pine, with high ceilings and numerous displays of the islands cultural and natural history. In the back is a small area with Isle Royale related paraphernalia.

Ranger Cindy Crosby greets me warmly from the desk in the back of the center. She becomes very excited when I ask her about my resupply box. She seems impressed by my ingenuity and forethought with regards to my resupply for a rather long and solo adventure. This is surprising given all the information about sending packages in DuFresne’s book and the Isle Royale forum website.

She vanishes for a while and returns with my large box, no worse for wear after traveling across half the continent. After receiving the package, I stay and chit-chat with Cindy for a while, my arm becoming increasingly tired from holding the heavy box. Rather than leave the box on a bench while showering (and possibly getting it preyed upon by hungry and desperate hikers), I head back to my shelter before performing my highly anticipated personal hygiene.

When I make it back to the shelter, I drop off my resupply box and walk back to the nearest faucet to fill up my water bottles. Already hungry again, despite just eating a snack up at the store, I decide to eat dinner first before heading back to take my shower. How I can stand the stench, I will never know.

With enough water to last until tomorrow, a Backpacker’s Pantry Shepherd’s Potato Stew w/ beef is on the agenda for dinner. The meal is large and delicious, and due to my earlier snack, hard to finish. No need for any dessert tonight!

Unable to leave the resupply box alone, I cut it open with my little jackknife. I pull out everything and look for any possible damage. This is only the second time I mailed a resupply package for a hike, the first being when I hiked the Northville-Placid trail through the Adirondacks solo. That box was nearly ruined when the bottle of hiking boot cleaning shampoo cracked open and the contents spilled out on the other contents.

Luckily, the contents of my current box are relatively unscathed, including the single 25 ounce can of Foster’s Lager. Unfortunately, I am too tired and too full to drink any beer tonight; it will have to wait until tomorrow.

Finally, I head back to Windigo for that overdue shower. When I make it back to the shower building, I find out the tokens have to be purchased from the store and it is very close to closing time. I hustle up and pay the outrageous $6 fee for only a mere 5 minutes of water!!. The shower is nice and warm, although the facilities lacks any ambience, especially with the mildewy cement floor.

By the time my shower is concluded, the sun is nearly down, and the air temperature is lowering. As I dry my hair with my backpacking towel, I notice a mouse running from the nearby shrubs to the building. In a few short minutes, it runs back to the shrubbery, only to repeat the whole journey a few minutes later.

Sometimes the mouse runs behind the garbage can, while other times it runs directly into either the laundry or the shower room. It continues this activity repeatedly, back and forth, totally ignoring my presence. Is it bringing stuff from the shrubs or taking stuff out to them? After a while, I realize there is more than a single mouse, as two nearly collide, with one rushing to the building while the other hustles from it. Who needs TV!

With my shower over, my teeth brushed and deodorant applied (as if this will last long on the trail), I head back to my shelter for the night. I sit about reading at the picnic table for a while, going through copies of the DuFresne book’s relevant pages and writing up some of my trail notes.

Washington Creek Shelter #3

When my hair is pretty much dried, I head off to my sleeping bag without bothering to tape up my blisters. Since it is not necessary to wait for my resupply box until tomorrow afternoon, as originally planned, I can start out on my return trip to Rock Harbor tomorrow. After mulling this idea over for a while, I decide it is best to take a rest day, for the sake of my battered feet. Instead, my itinerary tomorrow consists of laundry and repacking my resupply box.

The spiritual, if not quite actual, halfway point of my Isle Royale trip has now been reached. After tomorrow, I will start the long trip back to Rock Harbor, even though the first two days indirectly so as I journey along the Feldtmann Ridge Trail. I drift off to sleep with a feeling of satisfaction that all my planning went off without a single hitch.

Or so I thought…..

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