Back to the lake before returning home

Up by 6, into the car by 7.  There was no dilly-dallying around this morning.  I cranked up the bialetti, moved all of my remaining bags out onto the picnic table, pulled down the mosquito netting, gulped down my espresso and began the final half-mile hike back to the car.  It was really cold, and I could see my breath.  The steam was beautiful as it rose off the lake and I scared the large birds on the lake one final time as I lugged all of my remaining gear to the car.  Thud, thud, thud from the birds wings echoed over the silent lake.  Its pretty cool to be the only human up and about and have the whole Harlow Lake area to yourself.

There was frost on the windshield when I got to my car.  I dug around for my ice scraper, but it wasn't a very hard frost and most of it dripped down the windshield as the car was warming up.

I stopped at the rock outcropping one last time for a quick pic before hitting the road.  Its amazing how much the leaves began to turn colors during my short week. This area must be stunning during peak colors in fall.

The sun was rising over Lake Superior as I approached Lakeshore Dr.

As I was heading towards Munising, There was a thick frost where the fog had hit some of the pine trees.  Unfortunately the camera just couldnt pick up how cool it actually looked.

For all of the times that we have referenced the "Seney Stretch", I didn't realize it was an official name.  

Passing over the bridge about 930am, foggy here too!..Just a beautiful morning!

Crazy puffy clouds greet me has I head further downstate towards the cottage to help my mom close up.

Heading to town / last day wrap up

Woke up early as it was really cold outside and in the cabin.  There were a few coals left in the wood burning stove, but not enough to take the chill off the morning.  Overnight I had opened a few handwarmers and stuffed them into a sock that I cuddled all night.  They helped a lot!  But now I had to get busy and begin to pack up.  I had some souveniers to pick up in Marquette, most importantly, a trip to the Ore Dock Brewery, which opened at noon, so I had plenty of time to pack up all items that wouldn't be used over the next 24 hours, get the cabin cleaned and swept up, and take a couple of trips to the car with all my gear.

 As I was leaving for town, I noticed this huge nest up in one of the trees along Harlow Lake Road.  Not sure what lives in there, but there were a lot of large crane-type birds living on the lake.  I could hear them batting their wings a couple of times early in the mornings and again, as evening fell.  It was a loud thump, thump, thump sound that took a couple of days to get used to.  At home, blue herons live up in large nests like this, but I have no idea what lived up in this nest.

Ore Dock Brewery was easy to find and had a great vibe to it.  Lots of locals were in for lunch.  I picked up a few 6 packs and made some sampler packs to take home to my beer friends and family.  It was kind of funny walking around downtown with a case of beer in my arms.  I went to a couple of other shops and used the restroom in one of the cute t-shirt stores.  This was my first time in front of a real mirror - ick!  I certainly looked like I had been in the woods for several days - hopefully I didn't smell like it too!  I tried to make a point of boiling a pot of water each morning to "bathe" with, but according to the reflection staring back at me, I missed a few spots!

I made another stop at the Picnic Rocks to check in with everyone and observe a crazy seagull party going on.  Then continued down to road, back to Presque Isle park for one last afternoon of rock hounding.

It was a beautiful, but chilly day. Due to limited time, I drove to the "sunset" side of Presque Isle to get straight to rock picking.   A local artist was working with pastels along the path.

A little further down the path I found what I considered to be the sunniest cove with rocks and climbed down.  Today was the first time I didn't put my bathing suit under my clothes - it was just too cold.  But soon, I was warm with the wind blocked, and began to peel off some layers.  I was wading in the water, up to my knees, with my butt to the lake when a huge wave crashed over me.  I was absolutely soaking wet and spent the next hour or so drying in the sun, digging in the dry rocks.

There were some small openings in the rock wall where people had lined up larger rocks like books on a shelf.

I was losing daylight and still had a lot to do, so back to the campsite.  This was the first day where the water really left me chilled, so I stripped off the damp clothes and put on several layers before lighting my last campfire.  The winds began to die down as the sun set.  It was cold enough that the butter was solid.  I made some toast over the fire and opened a packet of chicken and dumplings.  I did a final washing of all of my dishes, prepared the bialetti for a final espresso before leaving in the morning, and consolidated the water that was left to make sure the fire was put out for good, before heading to sleep.

I lit one last fire indoors.  I had checked the weather while in town earlier and it was the first night that we had a freeze warning.  I knew I wouldn't be throwing an extra log into the wood burner in the middle of the night because I needed the embers to be out before departure, so I found my last handwarmer and tucked it into bed beside me.  This came in handy at about 3:30 in the morning!  I ripped it out of the package, stuffed it into a sock and cuddled it until I finally got out of bed around 6am.

Wetmore Beach

Wednesday I woke up slow and sore.  I had performed a successful test the night before and the embers in the wood burning stove were still hot, so I dug those out and made sure I wasn't going to set the cabin on fire while I was out for the day.  The plan this morning was to hit the trails around the cabin.  There was supposed to be a trail which began across the road from the Cabin 4 & 5 trailhead that led to the "Top of the World" and looked to be about 1.5 miles to the top.  I had watched bikes go down the trail on a website, so I was pretty excited to reach the overlook at summit the second highest peak in the state.

 I did the usual morning gathering of water and wood, snapped a couple more pics of the weird mushrooms growing around the cabin and shared a quick breakfast with my chipmunk friends.  This day, one of them stole a couple slices of bacon.  I tossed some left over cornbread to them and that seemed to keep them out of my way while I made preparations to leave for the day.

Besides the chipmunks, I didn't see much wildlife around the cabin - no squirrels, no deer, no bunnies...nada.  But, each day I would see rather large prints along the path to the cabin.  This one was near the trailhead.  I didn't hear coyote singing at night, so I don't know what this print belongs to.

I packed some small, cut pieces of bright orange yarn to mark the trails so I wouldn't get lost at any junctions.  I was hoping to find rocks along the trails and made sure there was room in my backpack, so I left the camera equipment locked in the car to take to the beach later. There was a long stretch of trail that had old railroad ties (i think) and spikes under all the leaves and gravel.  There was some hematite and slag along the way, too, so there must have been some mining going on in these woods.  I found some beautiful rocks - pretty large ones too, but mostly granite and they were pretty heavy so I left them along the trails in the hopes of picking them back up on my return down from "Top of the World".  Unfortunately, I never reached my destination, nor came across those rocks again.

My first attempt seemed to be going well, but after over a mile of hiking, I came to a small creek by a green metal gate that was near a parking area off CR550 for Harlow Trail day hikers.  The forest was so dense that I couldn't see any high elevation in my immediate area, so I back tracked a bit and then met up with the North Country Trail, which I took for a couple of more miles in the opposite direction.  I came upon a sign pointing to Little Presque (to the left) or Harlow Lake (to the right), so I took the path back to Harlow Lake, just wishing I was at the beach by now.  This led to Cabin 6 (which I didn't even know existed) and from the trail map, looked to be near the intersection of Harlow Lake Rd. and CR550...another wrong path.  I found another trail that seemed to backtrack and luckily came across one of my orange pieces of yarn at an intersection, so I was able to make my way back out to the trailhead for Cabins 4 & 5 and back to my car.

I had spent way more time hiking than I initially planned, so I didnt go back to the cabin.  It had been a chilly morning so I was wearing my long johns under my shorts to both stay warm and keep the bugs off my legs.  I quickly changed into my bathing suit at the car (even though the high temp was only supposed to be around 60, I still hoped to find a warm cove along the beach) and threw my clothes back on and hopped into the car and headed to Wetmore Beach.

When I arrived there was no one on the beach and the waves were even larger than the day before.  The sky was clear and the winds really blowing hard.  I walked all the way along the beach with my feet in the water.  It was definately one of those days where the water feels like bathwater each time you go in because the wind is so dang cold.  And when Lake Superior feels like bath water, you know its a cold wind blowing!  I found some rocks to climb and there was a nice area in the sunshine that was blocking the wind and had some gorgeous veins running thru the rocks.  Waves were splashing over the edge keeping a good portion of the rocks wet, so it was really pretty being able to see all of the colors.  There were some large pieces that had chipped off the boulders, that I stashed in my bag, but otherwise no real rock hunting on this end of the beach.  I closed my eyes and stayed in my little nook for a while longer before heading to the opposite end of Wetmore beach.

Temps had been staying in the low 60s and the winds continued to pick up throughout the day, so it was feeling like it was getting colder.  As I walked along the shore, still with my feet in the water, I began noticing the UP version of driftwood washing up along the shore.  These were full logs or tree trunks that the waves kept slamming against the shore.  Long and heavy enough to knock you over if you weren't being careful!  An older couple came down to the lake all bundled up in their hoodies and rolled out some blankets and sleeping bags and proceeded to take a nap, cuddled up together, in the sunshine.  I kept on going, and in the bend that leads to the point, I found my spot.  There was no wind, lots of sun, tons of rocks and the rest of the afternoon to dig.

At some point the clothes came off and I took a very quick dip.  There were helicopters flying up and down the coastline due to "no swim" warnings due to the high waves and rip currents, so I figured I would be a good girl and stick to wading.  A family tried moving in on my little stretch of wind-blocked beach while I was in the water, and of course the kids wanted to swim too.  After plenty of whining, the parents finally caved in and allowed them to go in, up to their knees.  In the end it was way too cold for them and they got out of the water quickly. HA!

This section of beach had huge rocks, half buried in sand, along the shore and in the shallows.  I wish I could have taken every one, but they were much bigger than I needed.  I would dig around these large rocks and found some beauties buried in the sand around the edges.  If I had more time, this would have been my go-to spot the rest of the week.  And I will certainly be back here in the future!

The sun was low and the winds shifting again by the time I bundled up and headed back to my car, taking the long way via the North Country Trail.

Back at camp, I was getting ready for the coldest night so far.  The winds had shifted and were blowing more directly towards the front of the cabin.  I made a dinner of gnocchi and used the hot dog buns to make toasted bread to go with my meal.  Each night I would make some chai tea and add a few splashes of Chila to "warm up" and this night I left a cup constantly simmering over the fire, and later the wood burning stove.  The next day would be my last full day and I needed to get organized so I could pack out enough gear so Friday, my departure would be as easy as possible.