Yes, folks, he's back!
Isle Royale was terrific. Everything I expected, and more.
I met my hiking partner at the docks early Sunday morning and we
rearranged our packs to share things like a tent and fuel for
the cooking stove. I had stopped at a store on the way north to
acquire some silk undies--actually a couple of coolmax garments
to swap out some heavier clothes. As I'm repacking my backpack
it starts to rain--DOWNPOUR! I'm wondering if it's an omen.
The boatride from Grand Portage to the island was uneventful, if
you consider six foot waves and a nicely pitching boat
uneventful. I finally dozed (only a couple hours of sleep the
night before) while others were puking their socks up. It was
foggy and raining--nothing to photograph.
Once we arrive on the island and retrieve our packs we have to
listen to a ranger giving instructions (be nice to the island,
pick up after yourselves, don't feed the animals, etc.) while we
freeze in the wind. We both were very tired and felt rather
unambitious so we decided to camp out in one of the shelters at
the Washington Creek campground. Glad we did. It was a very
wet evening/night.
I came down with a cold and was running a major fever that
night. I took a couple of tylanol, bundled up in the thermals
and crawled into the sleeping bag. I woke up at midnight
completely drenched. The wicking properties of the sleeping bag
were working well and there was standing water on, around and
under my sleeping bag--and it wasn't from a leaky roof! Changed
into my coolmax t-shirt and running shorts and slept the rest of
the night with the sleeping bag open.
Monday morning we pack up and hit the trail by 8:20. Destination
is Feldtmann lake. My lung capacity is severely diminished, I'm
weak and I'm now on day two of my migraine headache. We arrive
shortly after noon, setup camp, eat some munchies and rest for
awhile. I'm sitting on the shoreline of the lake, just a few
meters from the tent when it starts to thunder and rain. Into
the tent we go and don't emerge, except for a brief bladder
break, until morning. Can't say enough about the excellent
construction of "Mountain Hardware" tents. My headache is now
on day three and is bad enough that I'm about to puke.
Remembering that I packed some teabags, I make a tall cup of
very strong tea. The caffiene kicks in and I'm headache free
within an hour. (long story, but Migraines have been a battle
for many years). Sunrise was absolutely georgous, but I had
been feeling so bad that I couldn't even manage to pull out a
camera.
We hit the trail by 8:18 and make our way up Feldtmann Ridge. By
the time we get to the firetower the wind is blowing strong
enough to mess up your balance. We find a sheltered place a
little bit beyond the peak to sit down and rest/munch for a few
minutes. The last mile to Siskiwit Bay was pretty miserable.
Oh, the trail was fine, but the body was just plain shot.
Between the cold, the headache, the pack, poor eating, and the
trail, I was scratching to make it to the campsite. We were
setup by 1:00 pm. I slept for an hour or two, read more of my
book and looked forward to getting the cameras out during
"golden hour".
The rest was helpful, I was able to mosey around taking lots of
pictures. My right knee expressed displeasure by restricting my
movement to a mosey-drag. Mosey with the left leg, drag the
right leg, mosey with the left, drag the right... Made for
strange tracks in the dirt.
Down at the firepit (communal firepit), were the rest of the
campground occupants (all five). I briefly talked with them,
finding out where they hailed from when one asked me if I was a
photographer. DUH! Let's see, I'm using a mammoth Monfrotto
Monopod, have a couple cameras out and lenses. "uh huh".
One guy leaps up looks closely at my camera (OM-2S, 50/3.5) and
says "Doesn't look like much". "Does the job" I respond. At
that he heads back to his tent, grabs some form of low-end
wonderbrick and proceeds to shadow me for the next half hour.
Whatever I photographed, he photographed. He stayed out of my
way, but it's a bit disconcerting to be creating a nice shot
when you have somebody looking over your shoulder and copying
your every move. He finally gave up and headed back to the fire
when I took a picture of a pile of MOOSE DUNG. Hey, you gotta
do what you gotta do.
After sunset, and when it was getting quite dark, I was just
finishing up my supper when I heard a grunt a few meters behind
me. There stood the BIGGEST bull-moose I've ever seen.
Our eyes lock...
AG-Schnozz
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