Creating an Itinerary

Planning for Success

Planning a backpacking itinerary on Isle Royale has a few moving parts that you have to accommodate. You also need to estimate your stamina for this particular terrain. Many people think that the lack of elevation (the max is about 1400 and the minimum is 600 ft. above sea level) means that it is a walk in the park. It is a walk in the park, but it’s not an easy walk. The ruggedness and repeated small elevation changes make it challenging, especially for planning as a first-timer.

Let me start with a few of caveats: (1) there will be variations, (2) you can’t avoid the weather, and (3) boats have fixed schedules that vary by time of year and they fill fast.

Step by step, you should think about when you are available for an excursion, decide your level of challenge, and set to planning. Remember, the posted trail mileages are estimates. Because of trail maintenance and rerouting, they can vary from 1/2 to a couple miles, depending on the length of the trail and the needed changes in the route caused by natural disruptions, such as new beaver dam creation and an emerging need to protect a natural feature of the land.

We always plan 10 days and 9 nights for a Minong Ridge or Greenstone Ridge trail from end to end. It doesn’t take this long to get across the island, but we plan a weather day as no one wants to hike the ridge in a thunderstorm. Also, unless you are an advanced backpacker, you likely don’t want to go out on the Greenstone and come back on the Minong, so there are hops involved.

We plan 6 days and 5 nights for a Chippewa Harbor hike, coming into Rock Harbor on the Queen IV and including a hop on the Voyageur II. The route is to stay the first night in Rock Harbor. We use this to hike the Stoll Trail. The second night we spend in Chippawa Harbor, exploring the ridge, the schoolhouse, and Lake Mason. If you don’t stay the night, you can likely spend a night at Lane Cove, but you miss out on exploring the beauty of the Chippewa Harbor surroundings. On day three, we hike to Moskey Basin with a stop at beautiful Lake Richie. On day three, we hike to Daisy Farm, four miles, with an optional day hike up the Daisy Farm Trail to the Greenstone Ridge and to the lookout, which is about 3 miles round trip.

From Daisy Farm on day four, we can go on the Rock Harbor Trail for four miles to Three-Mile Campground if necessary, but we plan for seven miles by taking the Ojibway Trail to the Ojibway fire tower on the Greenstone Ridge, along the ridge to Mount Franklin, down the Mount Franklin Trail into three mile. The Greenstone Ridge provides great views and is preferable for that reason. However, if the backpackers want to minimize the rigor of this part of the hike, the direct route on the Rock Harbor Trail affords lovely views of Lake Superior. If weather is an issue, we stay off the ridge and take the Rock Harbor Trail to Three Mile or go all the way to Rock Harbor where we can spend the night, eat at the restaurant, and catch the Queen IV the next day.

Planning to stay overnight at every campground along a route is prudent. That doesn’t mean you have to stop at every campground; however, in our years of planning and hiking with first-timers, we have discovered that they almost always find the distances more difficult that they had thought would be. When given the option, they almost always choose to stop at every campground. This is especially true when hiking from Windigo with plans to skip Island Mine. This leg is only six miles, or so, which most people think they can do. It goes uphill steadily for six miles, and the miles do not traverse a nicely graveled path.

Even when planning to go to South Desor Lake Campground on a Greenstone Ridge crossing, most first-timers divert to Island Mine. If you do find that you can get to South Desor, you simply have an extra day to use later in the trip, so plan to stop, but do as you can when you get there. If you skip a planned overnight when hiking from Windigo to Rock Harbor, you just opened up the ability to stop at Lane Cove or Moskey Basin for the night. So instead of shorting yourself by not giving yourself enough time, plan prudently and hope that bonus days appear if you do more than you planned to do.

Hops are moving parts that impact the day you can go out and catch the hop ferry the subsequent morning. If you take the Queen IV on Saturday or Monday, you can hop from Rock Harbor on Sunday or Tuesday. If you are coming into Windigo, your ferry comes into Rock Harbor on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, so you can get off in Rock Harbor and hike from there, or you can hike into Rock Harbor and hop back on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday.

Stay limits also create moving parts. If you take the Ranger III on Tuesday, you have to hike to Three-Mile for the night and back to Rock Harbor for the night to catch the hop on Thursday. For the Friday Ranger, the same applies to catch the Sunday hop. Keep in mind, the Voyageur does not move on Friday, and the Queen IV doesn’t move on Wednesday. The one night stay limit in Rock Harbor complicates the matter significantly.

To be safe, open the apps for booking your transportation and check availability before solidifying your plans. These are the transportation sources: Isle Royale Queen IV, Voyageur III, Isle Royale Seaplanes, and the Ranger III. If you are hopping, open both boats’ apps and verify that they will coordinate before you pay for anything. Go right to the booking calendars and check availability, literally. If you need help, you can reach out to us and we can walk you through the process.