I surprisingly made it through the night with very few wake-ups, eventually rousing to sunlight, which came about an hour later than it would have in Central Time. The sun wasn’t particularly bright, however, thanks to the dark overcast skies hanging above us. The possibility of rain loomed as we packed up our gear.
After working a summer at a Cub Scout camp, I had picked up a knack for assembling and disassembling tents fairly efficiently. As proficient as I claim myself to be, I struggled mightily getting our tent back into its bag. The bag seemed to have been designed by a company that specialized in corsets or extra skinny jeans. After a mighty battle, the tent finally made it into the bag, and I grunted at the thought of having to repeat this process six more times.
After throwing our things into the back of Brian’s parents’ car, we made our way into Munising for one final cup of proper, percolated coffee. The coffee shop we stopped at was the kind of place I could have happily spent all seven days in. It was connected to a bookstore and doubled as an ice cream shop. Along the back wall sat hundreds of customer coffee cups. The highest number I saw was #473, which seemed pretty wild for a town with a population of around 2,000 people.
We then pulled into the National Park parking lot and had an eclectic breakfast consisting of summer sausage on Ritz crackers with cheese, Noosa lemon yogurt, blueberries, and buckeyes, which are basically peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate.
As the skies had warned us, it did begin to rain. Not a complete downpour, but enough to make us dig through our bags and put on our raincoats. Inside the park office, we picked up a map, although we quickly realized we probably wouldn’t need it. Almost the entire trail followed Lake Superior’s coastline, and even directionally deficient people like me should be able to figure that one out.
We hoisted up our bags, buckled our straps, and began our seven-day hiking adventure by descending a very wet set of stairs. The first day turned out to be the hilliest and muddiest of the entire trek. Progress was slow, but at the beginning I still had confidence, patience, and stamina in full supply.
Lionel needed some help figuring out where to put his feet, especially through the root-filled and muddy sections. After two and half hours of walking, we had made it about 3.1 miles.
That was when I began doing some math. I realized that one mile on this trail was roughly equivalent to four miles on a road in terms of time, and about ten miles on a road in terms of energy. I thanked the heavens that we had changed our goal from 100 miles to 100 kilometers. This hike was going to be plenty challenging enough.
Our campsite was still another two miles away, and my backpack was beginning to dig into my back. I tried tightening the straps, something I probably should have done about three hours earlier. The pain subsided for about 20 minutes before returning to remind me that I had made poor packing decisions.
After five miles, we finally reached the sign marking our campsite, appropriately named Cliffs. Getting to the campsite proved to be another challenge. A large tree had fallen across the trail leading to the site. The way the tree landed created a little archway that we could crawl underneath to continue up the path.
Unfortunately, the archway was positioned directly over a sizable puddle of mud and the clearance wasn’t particularly high…especially when you had a 45 pound backpack on.
You didn’t quite have to army crawl underneath it, but the adults in our group had to get down on all fours to make it through. Lionel, being considerably smaller than the rest of us, was able to sort of limbo his way underneath.
We finally arrived at the campsite about four hours after we started. The rain had stopped somewhere along the way, although the skies still looked like they were considering another round. We immediately started setting up the tent. Unfortunately, we still needed to walk another 2.2 miles to get to drinkable water and then walk the 2.2 miles back. On the bright side, we could leave our backpacks behind, and the walk went considerably faster.
Somewhere along the trip to get water, Lionel’s enthusiasm for the adventure began to ebb slightly. About half a mile from the water retrieval spot, however, he discovered the magical powers of Sour Patch Kids. After sampling one of each flavor, Lionel reported that his strength and vigor had returned to approximately 99%.
Apparently, Sour Patch Kids are an acceptable replacement for proper nutrition. We played Harry Potter guessing games for the rest of the walk until we reached Miner’s Castle, another National Park Service area. There, we refilled all of our water bottles along with a four-liter water bag.
Lionel also made use of the flush toilet. This would be the last flush toilet available to us for the rest of the trip. Once filled up, we headed back the way we came, stopping once more for the energy boost that only Sour Patch Kids can provide.
Almost immediately after arriving back at the campsite, the rain started again. Rather than firing up dinner, we retreated into our tents and waited to see if the rain would pass.
While sitting in the tent, I got dangerously close to zonking out. I probably managed to grab about 40 winks before coming back to consciousness. Lionel was also drifting in and out of consciousness.
Waiting in the tent for the rain to stop.
For about 30 minutes, we existed somewhere between awake and asleep in our own little Twilight Zone. Eventually, the rain stopped and I heard the zipper on Brian’s tent open, and the promise of food was enough to lure me out of my sleeping bag.
Lionel, however, remained in his trance-like state while Brian and I started cooking dinner and organizing our supplies into the bear box. Fortunately, every campsite had a special lockbox to keep bears from getting into our food. This meant we didn’t have to dabble with questionable knots, bear hangs, or whatever other methods people use to convince dissuade a bear from stealing their food.
For dinners, I bought a pretty wide variety of dehydrated meals, which is surprisingly possible considering the selection available. I bought from four different brands and tried not to buy the same meal twice, although some meals were sold in two-packs.
That night’s choices were American Buffalo Goulash and Chicken Pesto Penne. Brian cooked them one at a time and by the time the Buffalo Goulash was ready, Lionel was not. Brian and I scarfed down the goulash, partly because we figured Lionel probably wasn’t going to care much for it anyway.
The Chicken Pesto Penne wasn’t nearly as appetizing by comparison, but by the time Lionel finally sunk his teeth into it, he had very few complaints. After finishing his dinner, Lionel drifted back toward his tent once again. Considering all the wood was wet and everyone was thoroughly exhausted, we decided not to bother with a fire.
After cleaning up the dishes, I went to the tent to convince Lionel to come out and brush his teeth.
“After,” he announced with a yawn.
“After what?” I asked.
“After, AFTER!”
I decided to let sleeping dogs lie.
The weather began to drizzle again, so I climbed into the tent and did a little reading.
About 30 minutes later, Lionel suddenly sat up, stretched, and said, “Finished.”
I asked, “Finished with what?”
There was no reply.
He just sat there with his eyes open, slowly blinking, while his brain was clearly still asleep. A minute later, like a fallen tree, he collapsed onto me, folding his body into the shape of a letter C.
I repositioned him so he was lying fully out, and he was sound asleep for the rest of the night. I, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as fortunate. While parts of my body repeatedly fell asleep from being pressed against the hard ground, I spent most of the night shifting from my side to my back, then back to my side, trying to find a comfortable position that apparently did not exist.
Sleep was limited. This was somewhat troubling because Day One had already been a long, arduous walk, but Day Two was going to be considerably longer.
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