The Blissful Hiker is reminded that backpacking is her favorite activity because she is at her most mindful and feels closest to the Goddess, a spirit guiding her to see the beauty in all things, even rain and leeches!
In this episode:
MUSIC: Surveyors - Eagle Flies Away for horn and mixed media by Eric McIntyre(used by permission)
The Blissful Hiker is reminded that backpacking is her favorite activity because she is at her most mindful and feels closest to the Goddess, a spirit guiding her to see the beauty in all things, even rain and leeches!
In this episode:
MUSIC: Surveyors - Eagle Flies Away for horn and mixed media by Eric McIntyre(used by permission)
My final night. My final morning. The rain stopped at some point as it got light and the then, the wind picked up. There’s something to be said for not having to pack a wet tent, but from my little rock seat at Lane Cove, I see “charging white horses” in row upon row of waves.
Today is a rewind and it’s always curious to me that things are never quite the same on repeat. Distances are fluid and pace, deceiving, almost always causing me to wonder if I’d walked this way before. Moving backwards, as it were, I notice different things, ones I might have walked right past since they were behind me on my way here.
There’s that great Rashida Rowe quote where she says, “Rewinding time is not possible, but do-overs are, sometimes we get another chance to do something right the second time that we got wrong the first time.”
Cedar gives away to birch, mud, and planks over mud. A pileated woodpecker lets out its hysterical laugh, and as though a punch-line, a massive moose frightened off by little ole me, crashes through the undergrowth in a hasty exit deeper into the woods.
There’s one long boardwalk above a stream of unknown depth. Some kind soul has left a note inside plastic bag affixed to a branch with a twist tie presumably to keep it dry. It reads, “BEES UNDER BRIDGE!” in all caps. Underneath someone adds the comment, “no joke, where (w-h-e-r-e) long pants.”
Already dressed in long pants and long sleeves, I shuffle across, reminded of some good advice I read recently “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast: if you move slowly, you’ll likely make the right decision and it will ultimately make you faster.”
I hardly see any buzzing about as the wind seems to have kept them close to their hive, a hive well hidden below the boards. Emily Dickinson wrote, “To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And reverie. The reverie alone will do, If bees are few.”
I feel in a reverie as I push up the steep switchbacks, following a black fox who popped out of the brush and onto the trail just above me a few dozen feet, his paws light in the dirt as he trots up. I wonder if he’d agree it’s always easier to go up, even if breathing quickens. You just hurl yourself forward, the chances of slipping practically nil.
I was warned about the tricky beaver dam to cross and it’s made obvious by a completely wiped out boardwalk. A herd trail circles around into the brush towards its muddy wall.
Finally, I’m back at the top and my backtracking is over since I can simply head straight down to Rock Harbor from this junction. But it’s only a third of a mile to Mount Franklin and it does seem a little ridiculous to miss looking out one last time towards Canada and the basalt cliffs towering above Gitchee Gumee.
And I’m not disappointed. Millions of trees stretch out below, the water a bright blue to massive Sleeping Giant and Thunder Bay beyond. The wind pushes back at me on this boulder I’ve chosen to stand on and I realize in that moment, my tiny, single engine plane is going to have a rough time landing in bumpy waves.
The descent is easy through forest, though I catch glimpses of myriad islands and long peninsulas, Isle Royale like a huge creature that decided to lay face down in Superior, her backbone and arms exposed.
I come to the “lake” described by the couple I met yesterday who were chased by a moose. It’s more of a pond and no moose are milling about at the moment. When I meet Tobin Harbor, I remember what the ranger warned me about eight days ago, that the Rock Harbor trail was one of the hardest on the island with over 150 downed trees.
Nobody wants to deal with downed trees, so I turn right to follow the harbor paralleling that “worst trail in the park” on an incredibly easy trail of soft pine needles, mushrooms and fungus keeping me company.
At an intersection, I notice a sign for Susie’s Cave. I’ve had quite enough of this easy trail and just gotta take a look at that cave. It’s up a little, through a bit of forest and there it is. Yep, a cave alright. A nice big, ordinary cave.
What’s extraordinary, is the view. I’m right on the water, looking out to small rocky islands covered in spruce and bright orange lichen. Loons bob in the water. Oyster mushrooms in stacks cling to a tree.
Did I mis-hear because this is not a hard trail by any measure. I climb over a few downed trees, but the going is good as I pass a cute couple in identical brand new boots, sharing their first night out.
Soon I come to more shelters and a young hiker tells me the plane’s are delayed. Just as I thought. But it gives me time to explore a little. The ranger station is situated in tiny Snug Harbor in a beautiful little crescent. It’s here that the plan to create a national park out of the island was hatched. Quaint cottages used to line this semicircle, luring repeat visitors for the summer, mostly ones escaping rampant hay fever on the mainland. They were brought here by a steamer called “The American.”
So many people created memories of boating, swimming, picking berries and presumably singing around the campfire, they were instrumental in saving this idyllic place as a wilderness.
But it’s a strange year. Quiet with only ten of us waiting for our planes to return us to Michigan or Minnesota. The hotel is closed and the restaurant promising beer, burgers and bliss also shuttered. So I dig deep and find one more scoop of bullion a to cook up for lunch.
Just then, the ranger tells a small group their plane is on the way. Coming from Hancock, they fly a Cessna, which can take a few more chances on these waves. From Grand Marais, it’s a tiny Beaver. There’s still no word of one heading my way.
One of the guys on his way out hands me two Clif bars he won’t be needing anymore. Score! Their plane unloads a group of backpackers, clean and fresh with lots of new gear. I get the Leave No Trace lecture again happening next to me and afterwards, I offer a bit of my own beta on campsites since not only did I snag the best, but I also checked out the rest.
As they leave, the ranger comes towards me and gives me the good news to head on back to Tobin Harbor, your plane is on the way. It’s Thomas again and this time we fly over the island, all its intricacies of bays and coves, exposed balds and sharp ridges on full display
The plane pitches and bucks as we lift off and I just breathe deeply trusting the pilot wants to get home as much as I do. It’s beautiful, a long humpy mass of green rising from the vast blue.
What happened on this mini thru-hike? I fell on day one, but I didn’t hurt myself enough to have to stop. Still, I took it pretty easy and was in camp by noon each day, finding the best sites every night. I had clear days warm enough to swim and thunderstorms that had me scurrying into a blessed shelter. I saw moose close up, wolf tracks, beaver’s work, black sox foxes, families of mergansers and two fat otters. Singing to me in their own language were loons, a barred owl, pileated woodpeckers, sandhill cranes, swans, chickadees and a hawk inviting me to share in this grand wilderness they call home. I broke bread with trail angels and learned how to listen to my body and my intuition. I ate handful after handful of berries – blue, thimble, and rasp and saw sunrises and sunsets to take my breath away. On top of the ridge, the views were obscured, but millions of spider webs suspended in the gloom, tiny dew droplets catching the morning light. In the green tunnel of forest, a plethora of mushrooms, fungus, and lichen decorated my path, oftentimes a path over one thin plank where I managed to remain upright.
But maybe most important, after nearly nine months off from backpacking, I was reminded why I love this activity more than any other. I feel most alive when walking a thru-hike, carrying all I need in my pack and managing the elements. And that’s quite possibly because it’s while backpacking that I come the closest to living fully in the moment. It’s when I feel as though I’m taking to God – or the Goddess as I call her – and, in the words of John Denver, listening to her casual reply.
And she tells me – just let go and allow things to happen, pay attention and discover the beauty around you and the wonder in all things.
And that includes rain and leeches!