Day 19, Weds, Sept 21: Twelve Mile beach Campground in Pictured Lakes National Lakeshore.
A very windy day…white caps on Lake Superior…a slight shake in the Entegra.
We wondered weather we saw northern lights last night (2am) but in the end we think it was more lightening off in the distance because we later heard thunder very far away. Other than a strip of clouds on horizon it was a clear, starry night.
Each days brings as many as 20 backpackers that go through the campground. They are hiking the north country trail which extends over 4000 miles from Vermont to North Dakota? (it follows lakes to some degree thus the mileage). These are mostly not hardened hard core hikers travelling 10 or 20 miles per day. There is a reservation system that you must participate in to stay at one of the backpacking campsites. The beauty of those sites is that they are close together… from POINT .9 miles to 4.4 miles to the next backcountry campsite (primitive). THIS makes it accessible to MANY people. We saw all shapes, sizes, ages of people walking this trail. I saw an elderly but fit lady by herself…which greatly impressed me. A safe trail with lots of people on it throughout the day…go girl! With Michigans MANY MANY national forest campgrounds, its easy to get outside here. DUNES? Yep they have them too to play in with your OHV. WHO KNEW? Michigan!
Walked the two mile White Birch Trail that started and finished in the campground. David lied and told me it was 1 mile…it was the longest 1 mile I’ve ever done until I got to the end and it was 2 miles….pretty though. Collected some birch bark from down trees for fire starting. Skinny trails here/single file and LOTS of ferns covering trail so that you can only see about 20 feet ahead of you. The clue that tells you where to go is the trampled down path…with waist high ferns. MANY mushrooms that I wish I knew if they were edible or not.
Siesta.
It was really windy today so we took a ride to Grand Marais (our go to place because it’s the closest town and rather charming in its own way). We caught up on emails, phone chats, etc. Decided last minute to try the food truck in town Iron Fox?. David got chicken ranch sandwich and I got Whitefish dinner. $41 ouch but okay I didn’t want to cook. It was a good meal. We rarely eat out….
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