Backpacking NMI 2011

It's been 5 years since Frank and I have been back to NMI (North Manitou Island) Our first trip was for 7 days this trip was 3 nights 4 days. Not long enough is one thing that comes to mind. Even tho I'm grateful for not wearing the pack.. i wasn't on the island long enough to crave normal food. But we also packed well for our food too much but more normal meals over those freeze dried mountain house meals. However they did have icecream mountain house the icecream sandwich was delish. not cold but delish!!!!
so Let me give you the full break down.

Day 1 -  Are we there  yet? 

Jason, Mike, Sarah, Ethan

We wake up at 6 am in the cabin and get the rest of the crew up and going. we head out to the "early bird" a local restaurant near the dock.  we eat and go get our tickets and check out fish town and wait for the boat to load us up.  The water was nice and calm, makes for a great boat ride, and got us to the island a bit less then 1 hour. We are all very sleepy while on the boat but once it gets to NMI we get more pumped up.  we get our packs fill up our water and go sit for orientation and we are off. All 9 of us, Frank, Me, Sarah, Mike, Jeremy , Jason, Rob, Donna, Ethan. Heading down center line trail in hopes to get the best spot on the Former site of crescent.  We ran into so many people on trail.. Nothing like the first time when frank and i were there.






Taking a break



FT

 We take lots of breaks as most of us are carring packs that are too heavy or not fitting right and some of us didn't have the right type of shoes. so this was a harder hike than what we wanted. But we did it and made it all battle wounds to prove it! lol I was taking up the rear in the final stretch and frank found us a site "he so strong and has much desire to find a great place" he says this is our old spot the one we were at last time.. i'm looking around thinking no it's not this looks nothing like well Frank was right it was our old spot just really over grown. we set up our tent and go find everyone else to see what's going on .  We had to be hiking at a good speed at least 2 mph with our packs on. We did this for about 7 miles. The sun set was wonderfully blocked by the clouds but we still had some pretty color and a pretty sunset. Great tasting water too (filtered of course)



 






 As we walked back up to go to our camp site to turn in BATS BATS BATS on the ground on the trail i was walking.. just started to fly up once i was with in 5 feet of the bat. they were rather bigger then the ones i have seen back at home. We closed up camp and most of us all passed out from the long long day.

Hikers of the year Pot holes conquered

Day 2 - Pot Holes to win the Hiker of the Year award

Frank wakes up before me and walks with Donna to the Swanson's Barn. I wake up just as they return. The three of us had planned to go see the pot holes in the north west of the island. We are already on the west side of the island so what maybe 4 miles to get there.. ummm up hill. WOW but we did we made it to the highest point of the island and got to see the pot holes. My expectations were blown out of the water. Mainly because on other sites and blogs everyone said it wasn't worth the walk back there. WHAT are they talking about these pot holes okay only seen 1  but it look like a meteor hit the island with 3 huge rocks you couldn't see the whole circle in one spot as the trees are growing in this big hole. Make sence why i couldn't find images on line of the pot holes. a camera can not capture the view that you see with your own eyes. I also assume there are eagle nests out there. We seen a couple and heard many many more.. ask me to make the sound for you and I will i'm getting rather good at mocking them. lol. Half way on the side trail to the pot holes we lost the trail (not again i think) so we find a trail had to be a deer trail but it was a trail and made it to the holes. we looked at the map and all agree it would be shorter to bush wack to the cost on the map it's only 1/8th of an inch so what is that .10 miles.. easy.. wrong.. it was more like we didn't have the right direction and we were ridge runners for a while trying to find the coast.

When we finally find the coast we get excited as now we get to take the beach back to our site. I keep thinking to myself not this again that was a long beach walk and I don't think we came out this far. well we finally break out of the woods and end up on a 300 ft bluff looking down at the beach.. Great all that walking down hill and we are still not level with the beach WTF. we did see 2 people down below us. we waved and asked them if they walked down this .. NO they replied as they got their stuff and keep truckin along. Just as that started to happen Donna takes it on her self to start walking down the bluff of sand. Maybe we should say slide down it was pretty steep Frank and i wait for her to get down and we wave and take photos she yells up it's easy just slide down.

Not understanding fully what she meant by that I go next as Frank feels better if I go.. I guess so he can see me fall if i do.. lol Nope I didn't but i understood the whole sliding thing.. you just put your feet on the sand it slowly takes you down all you have to do is direct what way.. I almost fell but then remembered sideways feet works best going down hill... Duh! so it was a piece of cake.  Unlike JJ who took a video of him running down a 400-500 ft bluff. WTF he was crazy but he did it harm free. Keep in mind it's harder to walk in sand with boots on. Much harder. Franks poor feet. mine were fine at that point. but we hiked about 8 miles that day with out our packs still hard.

We ate dinner and came back down to watch the sun set on the beach. Did i mention that the water level was WAY higher then 5 years ago.. not sure if that is a good thing but of course you know me and my rocks.. I was right there in the water looking for pretty rocks to wrap and turn into wonderful Manitou jewelry!!! Out of the 9 of us we all sort of did our own thing but always met back up at the beach for a sun set and or dinner.. After dinner and the sun set we hiking it back to our sites we grab our heavy worth wild chairs (how nice was it to have a chair you ask?) WONDERFUL!!!!  Worth the added weight!!! 

We ended up at Mikes camp site for a card game and a few drinks of our flask HARSH but we had to drinking I wasn't carring it back home. but didn't want to hike with a hang over.. We packed way to much gorp aka trail mix. so that night we started to give our stuff away to other campers here want some nuts, how about some pub mix, what about some oat meal and cream of wheat.. take it i don't want to carry it. and would hate to leave it here. I was planning on digging a huge hole and hiding it for next time. as wrong as that is to do i know I have carried out far more trash that wasn't mine in the past. but would HATE HATE HATE to ruin my favorite island like that. I'm very thankful that Rob and Jason took the extra gorp as they ate theirs so sort of needed it.  right after the card game that Sarah and I kicked Mikes and Franks but in... HAHA!  we seen a glow of this redish/orange moon bouncing off the water. it looked amazing so we all stood and watched it from their site. I think it was JJ or Ethan who said look the moon is melting into the clouds.. So i love that saying now Melting into ________!  It was Ethan because JJ was "sleeping" in his tent. He scared the crap out of me i was walking by and of course he had to scream and shack the tent in turn made me and Donna scream.. WTF.. he almost got kicked. After the moon set we did start to feel a few rain drops and knew some rain 30% of a chance could hit us saturday night/sunday morning. so we hiked it back to our site tighted up the hatches and passed out.

Frank, Me, Jeremy, Donna The crew who is leaving

Rob and Jason Doing their own thing



Homebodies Mike, Sarah, Ethan ..

UPDATE:::::::: the last to images above are the people STUCK on NMI due to wind and the boat not being able to cross lake Michigan. NMI please can I have my friends back???

Day 3 - depart from the rest of the crew.

So Frank, Me, Donna, Ethan and JJ were to all hike back on Sunday to get a site the campground so we can have a fire for our last night. and make the boat for the next day. Ethan out of no where said i'm staying here please call my wife when you get phone access and call the boat ferry place to let them know.  Liz Ethan's wife says thanks and the boat lady said sorry Wednesday boat is full. WTF how are we to tell him when he is 7 miles away from us with no cell phone. Mass text goes out anyway. (everything is cool as I find out a few hours after we get home) They never checked our tickets so i don't see it being a huge deal anyway.

so after our long hike with the 4 of us back to the start with slightly lighter packs on and bruises and sore feet and bad shoulders and the desire to just take the pack off. we really kicked some major ass and walked really fast and made it there in what I think is record time.. however we never tracked the time. lol

We were so excited to have a fire I didn't care so we got camp sites 1, 2, and 3 frank and i had 1 this time we stayed in 3 last time it was cool. we walked down to the water on the east side to be welcome with an ocean view of crashing waves about 5 ft high.. Wait a minute we seen that last time 5 years ago. it was just on the other side of the island. We got our fire wood used a real bathroom ate our dinner had our fire had someone steal our water bucket for the fire right infront of us. But it worked out because the next day i lost my smokes and that tool gave me one.. thankfully. I'm sorry NMI and Lake Michigan for the pack of smokes that fell out of my pocket Monday morning. WTF i was so mad at myself.


But that was it really we hit the boat on time. I might add if you think your going to be late you will miss the boat. When they say they leave they leave. They didn't even check our tickets just ran our names on AFTER we departed. so really Ethan would of been fine but we had to let him know what the lady said.
We eat at the early bird again  and drove to the cabin to get my car and drive 5 hours home. Make that 4 hours I was driving! lol passing lanes do mean floor your car until the passing lane ends right? hope so!! lol
Right when we got off of Donnas street we seen a young coyote wow sweet!  1 mile down the road some wild turkeys a mom and her babies i assume.


So here is the break down: (guesses for the most part and from what I can remember)
approx miles hiked with pack:  guessing around 12
approx miles hiked without pack:  24
food ate: spaghetti, dried fruit, cream of wheat, honey nut Cheerios bar, soy nuts, mac n cheese with tuna, tuna and crackers, icecream sandwich, cup of soup, chicken pot pie, chew sprees and gummy bears,  and some raspberry granola mix that was more like a cold cereal.. YUM!
animals:   Eagles, snakes, coyote tracks and a coyote humming birds
entertainment:  cards, friends, after the event the lady with the stroller that got stuck.. lol window seat at the dinner
noticed differences:  over grown, higher water, more bugs
Things forgotten and things lost and found:  i found a bracelet and lost it. donna lost a hat and found it. Mike found bungy straps I used for a belt. lol
awards:  team 9 NMI award..