Hatchet Lake

Quiet on Isle Royale is rare thing, a treasure to savor when it occurs. Typically, there is always something breaking the silence, be it natural or not. Either the wind is blowing, the waves crashing on the shoreline, the birds singing, the crickets chirping, the mosquitoes buzzing or people chatting. Although the natural sounds are pleasantly tranquil, it is nice to enjoy the noiselessness.

I thoroughly enjoy one of these rare moments, while eating my lunch at Ishpeming Point (point #87). Only the slight breeze and an occasional birdcall interrupt the stillness of the late summer afternoon. Although I would rather linger after lunch, the late hour urges me to repack everything and start the second half of my day’s hike down to Hatchet Lake.

The trail continues up and down, within an open forest dominated by paper birch, with much red spruce, quaking aspen and sugar maple mixed in. The open nature allows many understory plants to flourish along the trail, including the thimbleberry, bracken fern and beaked hazelnut, among others. Too bad, the thimbleberries are berryless, probably picked over by the hikers passing this way before me.

When not within the open forest, the trail weaves its way through rocky, open ridges, much like encountered along the Minong Trail. Unlike those ridges from earlier in my Isle Royale trip, forest surrounds these ridge tops, offering no views whatsoever.

Section Stats:
Date: September 8, 2011
Length: 4.5 miles (8.3 total daily miles; 93.3 total trip miles)
Difficulty: Moderate

This alternating between forest and rocky/grassy clearings continues for a couple miles, uninterrupted by any other interesting feature or situation. Finally, this rather long and monotonous section ends as the trail starts a consistent descent (point #89) as I approach the intersection with the Hatchet Lake Trail intersection.

One of the larger clearing along the descent offers an overwhelmingly beautiful and expansive view of Siskiwit Lake to the southeast (point #90). Using my binoculars, I can clearly see the lake’s many islands, as well as the thin stretch of land occupied by the Malone Bay Campground, separating the lake from its larger cousin, Lake Superior. Beyond, smaller islands and a lighthouse lay out in Lake Superior, and if I am not mistaken, the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan is far in the distance.

No matter how many pictures I take of this view with my camera, they fail to capture the sheer overwhelming nature of what I am seeing, with water dominating a great amount of my field of view above the treetops. I linger here, despite the lateness of the afternoon, enjoying one of the most breath-taking views on the entire island. While enjoying the view, two American kestrels continually fly around me, screeching their displeasure with my presence. Perhaps, they just want the romantic view to themselves.

The descent through the open, grassy clearings continues, sometimes descending steeply, until reaching the rocky intersection with the Hatchet Lake Trail (point #91). The cloudless sky, late hour and high temperatures, prevents me from lingering at the intersection long. The thought of lounging around in a Hatchet Lake campsite, or at the shore of a pretty lake, compels me onward, despite the screaming of my throbbing feet.

The Hatchet Lake Trail steeply descends initially through an eastern white pine forest, which quickly transitions to paper birch. The attractive paper birches almost lead me to forget my protesting feet, almost. The chalky-white, exfoliating trees dominate the surrounding forest until arriving at another intersection, almost at the water’s edge (point #92). Continuing east leads back to the Minong Ridge Trail, a last chance to bail from completing that trail after leaving Todd Harbor.

Proceeding west a short distance along Hatchet Lake’s shore, I reach my feet’s salvation at the campground. Now all that remains is to find my home for the next twelve hours or so, and then I can replace the overly confining hiking boots with my comfortable, and comparably heavenly, Crocs.

Siskiwit Lake from Greenstone Ridge

Siskiwit Lake and beyond

With my sore feet, I waddle through each individual and group site, all of which are open and yearning for occupation. I am not overly impressed with group site #1, despite all the kudos I heard while chatting with the two hikers on the Greenstone Ridge Trail earlier in the day. After walking through almost all the sites, I finally decide upon individual site #3 (point #93); it is the only one with a lot of grass in one of the tent sites, as opposed to all the others, which are on bare and dusty ground.

My campsite consists of several different tiers, two of which are suitable for tents, while the middle one contains several large paper birch logs. The logs lay around a single log set up on its end, making a small table in which to cook my dinner. The campsite, situated within an attractive paper birch forest, is surrounded by many young quaking aspen in the understory, with plentiful ground level seedlings creating an impenetrable ground cover.

Hatchet Lake

After setting up the tarp and unpacking my stuff, I take a well-earned rest on a nearby log. Several bumblebees fly circles around me before landing on the ground nearby, crawling under a partially upturned stump. The stump is all that remains of a once massive birch tree, now functioning as a resting place for my sweaty rear end. Once cut, the stump must have fallen back in place, leaving a sliver of an opening in the ground, a perfect location for a bees nest.

Lucky for me, it is late enough in the day that the bees are less active, as they prepare for their apparently much-needed rest. If I stay away from the stump, and not stumble upon it late at night during a pee run, I should avoid being stung. I just need to be careful tomorrow during my breakfast.

While looking for an ideal place for obtaining water to filter, I find a set of stone steps leading down to a rocky shoreline. At the base of the steps, most of lake is visible, the surface as smooth as glass, and twice as lovely. Unlike the typical Isle Royale lake, surrounded by mostly coniferous forest, Hatchet Lake’s perimeter is almost exclusively paper birch.

Although Hatchet Lake is a decent-sized lake, it cannot compete with the immensity of Lake Desor. Unlike the larger lake, Hatchet appears totally devoid of water birds. In fact, the wildlife in the area is pretty scarce. There is not a single loon, gull, duck or anything else, for that matter. Where is everyone hiding? Must I enjoy this beautiful site without the company of my wild cousins?

Tarp at campsite

Central portion of campsite

At the shoreline is a large rock, flat enough to stand on, providing a prime place for obtaining water to filter, as well as for observing the lake. Swimming around the rock is a school of small fish. I take care not to scoop any of them up while obtaining filtering water, although some sardines might make a nice appetizer before dinner.

After filtering water, I prepare some dinner back at my campsite. While devouring my Mountain House Beef Stew dinner, a red squirrel runs through my campsite several times. Each time, either I run after the little rodent until it scampers off into the surrounding understory, or I land on one of my blister sores, grimacing while holding back multiple curses. After a few scares, the squirrel fails to show up again, it must have heard about what I did at McCargoe Cove.

Stone steps

After finishing dinner, I sit at the lakeshore for a while, before retiring for the evening. The lake is strangely quiet; the only sound is that of an occasional fish breaking the water’s surface. The school of small fish around the large rock remains active, as they were before. I toss small cracker crumbs in the water, and watch the fish fight over the little morsels, not knowing how healthy cracker crumbs are for the little buggers. When I can, I catch a mosquito and toss it in the water, augmenting the fish diet with a little protein.

There are few large trees near the shoreline along the lake. Instead, the larger paper birches grow back some distance from the water’s edge. This suggests the lake may have had a resident beaver at one time in the past, the closer trees harvested as food, or materials for a dam. I watch the lake’s surface for evidence of an active beaver, but I see nothing to suggest there is one here now.

One creature evident along the shoreline is the mosquito, and there is no lack of their numbers. There seems to be more mosquitoes per square inch of my exposed flesh here than any other place I stayed while on Isle Royale thus far. The few colder days earlier in the week must have inspired them into action, in search of some warm blood before the colder weather socks in for good.

Although I get to watch the sun sink below the lake’s eastern end, the intensity of the mosquito horde eventually forces me to retreat to my tarp for the evening. The mosquitos’ intensity is lower at my campsite, yet they are still bad enough to deter me from remaining outside my tarp for long.

Rock at Hatchet Lake shoreline

No other hikers are staying at the campground tonight; I have it all to myself. This is the first night on Isle Royale where I am completely alone at a campsite for the night. Last night, I was virtually alone at South Lake Desor Campground, with just two other guys in a group site, so far away I could not hear them. Tonight, the quiet is complete, except for the drone of the mosquitoes.

Just after getting under my tarp, a yodel of a common loon in the distance breaks the silence. It appears to come from the east, back toward the Greenstone Ridge. With the surrounding hills, it is possible the loon could be calling from any direction. It might be just flying over too, although I did hear it call in the same direction several times.

During the night, I hear at least three different great horned owls hooting in the area. I try to mimic their calls in a futile attempt to lure them in closer. The effort proves to be fruitless, as the owls never seem to move any closer. On the other hand, perhaps the whole thing is just a dream, as I slip in and out of the land of dreams.

The rest of the evening remains quiet, allowing for a much-needed restful night, especially after the headache-disrupting night before at South Lake Desor. Just as I said before, the quiet on Isle Royale should savored, especially when a full night’s sleep in so sorely needed.

Dusk at Hatchet Lake

Sunset at Hatchet Lake

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