Hiking the North Country Trail Through the Porkies

“Jane, why did you agree to this? Why didn’t you say, ‘Let’s go shopping and see a movie?’” I asked my hiking buddy as we slogged up a steep, muddy, rooted death-trap of a hill. Checking off all of the North Country Trail miles in the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park had seemed like such a good idea when I was planning it from my couch in March. Now, the reality was upon us.

Six of us had met at a backcountry campsite near Lake of the Clouds on Wednesday, using it as a base camp for a day of slackpacking Thursday. The campsite had monster trees, and was a ½ mile hike down from the scenic overlook. Our first night there was an easy evening of catching up, discussing our hiking plans for the coming days, and comparing dehydrated meal fixings.

Thursday morning we drove to Lost Creek trailhead to hike the 10-mile stretch of NCT back to Lake of the Clouds. This hike began at the eastern border of the park, where I had embarked in the opposite direction a few years earlier to backpack the Trap Hills. Today, we would be heading westward, eventually taking the Escarpment Trail up the ridge along Lake of the Clouds. 

We encountered a fair number of tourists as we made our way along the trail–there were several places along the road where other trailheads allowed access, so while we had many beautiful views, there wasn’t much solitude. There was a lot of mud, and a lot of elevation. But, it was a sunny day, not too hot, and the bugs were not terrible. We lunched at Trap Falls, and came to our highest elevation at Cloud Peak, 1506 feet above sea level.

As we approached the end of the hike, we began to discuss retrieving the vehicles that we had  left at Lost Creek, and I mentioned that when I retrieved mine, I planned to stop for a swim in Lake Superior. Nothing like getting cleaned up a bit, and an ice bath for my achy joints! The rest of the group approved of this plan, so when we ended the hike, we all headed first toward a little campground store for cold drinks and snacks. Their choices were limited, but my Dr. Pepper Cream Soda and Lay’s chips tasted like food of the gods. And then the lake… I was in heaven!

The following morning, I hiked up to the overlook early to catch the sunrise, and the rest of the group joined me shortly after. Jane commented that thought she had seen a bear on her way up the path. “Something black and shaggy ran into the woods, and when I asked the couple coming down the trail if they had a dog with them, they said ‘No.’” This was the first of three times someone in our group had that experience over the next three days. 

We left a couple cars at Lake of the Clouds, where our hike would eventually end, and headed for Presque Isle campground on the western end of the park. When we checked into the campground, the guy working the post at the park entrance was like something out of “Deliverance.” The worker shortage is real… 

We left cars in the trailhead parking lot and drove back a few miles to the CR-519 parking lot, where I had ended a previous hike. From here, we were going to hike six miles to the campground. Sounded easy, but the bugs hit hard immediately, and we hiked fast to avoid the mosquitoes swarming us. Except, it wasn’t always clear where the trail was… there were many blow downs, and often we were just hiking blaze to blaze, without a noticeable trail between them. I’m guessing this stretch doesn’t get a lot of traffic except from through-hikers. Our first uphill was steep and muddy enough that metal fence posts had been installed, with heavy nylon rope strung along them to provide a hand-hold.

As the miles wore on, we varied between picking our way through overgrown forest “trail” to clawing and sliding our way up and down steep, muddy slopes. I was so glad we were slackpacking and not wearing full backpacks with all our gear! Eventually, as we neared the end of the hike, the trail began to run along the Presque Isle River, and was not only beautifully scenic, but in much easier terrain.  It began to rain, but we were sheltered from most of it by the giant Hemlock trees. The boardwalk along the Nawadaha Falls provided gorgeous views, and we relished the scenery as we plotted an escape from the rain in a picnic shelter at the end of the boardwalk. No sense in setting up our tents in the middle of a downpour!

We arrived at the picnic shelter and tried to prop up our raincoats to dry, but the wind had built up to the point where we really needed to wear them to stay warm, and they would have blown away if we hung them up on our trekking poles. Another couple with a small dog joined us, and we discussed the weather until we were interrupted by two small boys being dragged by pit bulls through the grass. The pit bulls were interested in the little dog, which the owner scooped up. The little boys were unable to hang onto the leashes, and the dogs came barreling into the shelter. While I love dogs, I was terrified that these dogs, who were already keyed up by the yapping of the little dog, might consider us a threat to the boys. I tried to calmly ask the boys to pick up the dogs’ leashes again, and they were able to keep a hold of them once they weren’t sliding around on the wet grass. Their parents arrived a few minutes later, with a toddler and an infant, and chaos ensued.  “What is happening?” Sarah asked, and I, honest to God, could not say. The rain continued, and I wondered how long we would be trapped in this situation. After what seemed like an hour of trying to control my resting bitch face, the others designated someone to fetch their vehicles, and we were eventually alone again to wait out the rain. 

The rain finally subsided, and we unloaded our gear and made our way to the walk-in campsites. The Porcupine Music Festival was going on (or rather, likely canceled for the afternoon because of the weather) so the campground was pretty busy. We set up our tents, looked tentatively at the sky in anticipation for more rain, and cooked dinner. We were treated to some strange interactions, including a shout of, “I found her! She bit me!” which left me wondering what kind of messed up game of hide and seek was going on. Turned out it was a lost cat.

The others chose to go for a walk on the beach after dinner, but I was feeling the effects of too many people, so I opted to stay behind, get organized, and go to bed. Not too long after I fell asleep, I heard the rain begin again. I was snug in my tent and slept reasonably well.

In the morning, I swapped out my wet Big Agnes for my dry Lanshan, and changed into clean clothes. I packed some clean layers into the dry bag and cinched up my backpack, leaving my wet day pack, tent, and dirty laundry in Jane’s car. (Sorry for the stench, Jane!)

We paused on the suspension pedestrian bridge for a group photo (in which I look like the Hag of the Woods–how is it that everyone else looks so cute?!) We crossed over a dry branch of the Presque Isle River, where we could look straight up at the falls. I bet that crossing is tricky (or impossible) in the spring snow melt.

The trail began to meander uphill, and the weight of my full backpack began to register. Eight miles today, give or take a little–our longest day of backpacking. Much like the day before, we were treated to numerous mud pits, and slippery ups and downs. At one steep stream crossing, I opted to drop my pack down about ten feet rather than try to navigate down the muddy slop with its additional weight. Some places I had to turn around and go down backwards, so I could hang onto roots and tree trunks with my hands. We encountered a few bridges over higher and bigger stream crossings, and in some cases, logs that had been cut in half served as bridges. I tried to manage my fear walking over these bridges by focusing on the couple of feet ahead of me, and not looking down into where I would fall if I slipped. After crossing the Little Carp River, we began to encounter signs for Lake Superior backcountry campsites. We were staying at LS-10, and we began to get excited as we came across LS-1 and 2. We stopped at Pinkerton Falls to soak our feet, filter water, and chill out for a bit, with another mile or so to get to our campsite. 

As we continued along, every uphill seemed daunting, every log-crossing seemed nerve-wracking, and I wondered how much further along the trail this campsite could be. Eventually, we spotted it, down another steep hill. Ugh! We arrived to our lakefront campsite to discover the wind had really picked up, and the sky threatened rain, so we pitched our tents as quickly as possible. The Lanshan trekking pole tent is still pretty new to me, and pitching it in 20-25 mph winds seemed like a recipe for disaster, but I got it up. The wind lessened for a bit, and we enjoyed the protection of a wood and stone wind break that protected us as we ate dinner. The waves rolled in, and the sun lowered in the sky. We could see rain sheeting down in the distance on the horizon, but we were dry for now. We discussed an early departure in the morning if the rain held off, in order to avoid as much mud and slippery stream crossings as possible.

In the night, I was awoken by the wind howling. It had picked back up again, and I wondered if my tent would hold up. Sleep was impossible, as the rattling of the tent fabric was too loud to ignore, and the worry that it (or a tree or branch) might fall on me was a bit scary. I dozed on and off until about 4:30, when my trekking pole fell, collapsing half of the tent onto me, and then it started raining. I tried to get my trekking pole back where it belonged, but the wind was so strong I had to hold it up. I tried to pack up my gear with my other hand, reasoning that if my tent failed, I didn’t want my gear getting wet. After I had gotten everything into a dry bag, I sat cross-legged on my sleep pad, wearing my raincoat for warmth, wondering how long I’d have to sit like this, holding my tent up. Eventually it began to get light, and the rain stopped. Rebecca came to ask for my help in getting the food bags down. I left my crumpled tent, helped with the food bags, and we set about waking everyone up so we could get an early start. I was dreading the climb back up out of the campsite, the mud, the slippery logs…  But, today’s hike to Big Carp 4 campsite was only five miles… I hoped it would be a good five miles. 

We drank our coffee, ate our oatmeal (or in Rebecca’s case, curry soup opened by mistake), and got organized. As we climbed the hill out of the campsite, I realized it wasn’t quite as bad as I had built it up to be in my head. At the first log crossing, I quietly sang aloud, making up lyrics to keep me on pace and distract myself. Before long, we were back on the NCT from our detour on the Lake Superior Trail to get to our campsite. Today’s trail followed the Big Carp River, and was scenic with moss, boulders, and little waterfalls and eddies. The hiking was relatively easy in comparison to the days before, and I was feeling at ease. As we came down a hill, we saw a group of men crossing a stream. I could hear one of them lamenting that he should have just worn his shoes across, and I took note. While I had water sandals with me, by the time I took off my pack, changed footwear, crossed the stream, then repeated the process, a lot of time would have passed. And, there were two stream crossings today, so I figured I was destined for wet feet. 

We took a break before the stream crossing, eating some snacks, and chatting with the guys, who had stayed near where we would be camping today. They let us know there was water access from the camp site, which was great news. They took off up the hill, and we headed across the stream, which was only about shin deep.

We continued on, and encountered another hiker, right at a map and trail marker. The trail marker warned that there were no water sources ahead, and we found this odd given the information we had just received from the people at the stream. We chatted with the hiker, who told us he was nearly finished hiking the NCT in the UP. We extended congratulations. His face looked familiar, and I wondered if I had met him on a chapter hike somewhere, so I asked his name. “Larry Bell,” he responded. Bell’s Brewing Company makes several of my favorite post-hike rewards, and I thought it quite cool that we had run into a Michigan celebrity on the trail! We continued on our way, and he on his. 

Our next stream crossing was a little more exciting, as the water was over knee deep, and the banks a little slippery, but we all made it across without incident. My shoes were squishing out water with every step, my leggings were wet to mid-thigh, and I couldn’t wait to set up my tent and change into some dry clothes!

The campsite was idyllic–totally protected from the wind, now that we were off the lakeshore, along the stream, and canopied by giant Hemlocks. We set up camp, changed clothes, and prepared to make lunch, but it started to rain. We all retreated to our tents, and I think that most of us enjoyed the best nap of our lives. When I awoke later, I had no sense of how much time had passed–it might have been tomorrow! The lack of sleep from the storm the night before had definitely caught up with me, and the nap was much needed. I sat in my chair and watched the river, took some photos of the lovely moss, and chatted with the group. Eventually, we cooked dinner. Debbie reported that as she had walked down the trail up above the campsite, something shaggy and black had run away into the woods. 

That night, the weather stayed dry, and we enjoyed a peaceful sleep. Early in the morning, I heard something big splash into the stream, and then plod through the water down the creek bed. I assume it was a bear.

We packed up, in preparation for our last day of hiking. I cringed to put my wet hiking shoes back on. We had five miles to go to the Lake of the Clouds parking area. It was a cool, dry morning, and in spite of the sporadic rain the day before, the trail was pretty dry. My feet warmed up, and I think my shoes actually dried out a bit. I had assumed I would just be dunking them in mud puddles the whole way out today, but we were blessed with reasonably dry trail. The moss and morning light were magical, and eventually gave way to elevation gain and rocky outcroppings, as we neared Lake of the Clouds. We began to encounter day hikers. Coming back to the “real world” always seems a little strange. I could smell the fabric softener and other scents of civilization as we began to pass people on the scenic walkway, and I hoped they couldn’t smell us!

Back at the parking lot, we said goodbye to Debbie and Sarah. Jane, Rebecca and I headed back to Presque Isle campground in my car to pick up their vehicles, about a 40-minute drive. We changed into clean clothes in the deserted parking area, and began the trek home. I was thrilled to have completed another good-sized stretch of original NCT miles, and glad for the company I’d had doing it.