Into the Wilderness …

So it was like this. Before we left home on this vacation, I did some homework and saw that there was a lighthouse — Au Sable Light Station — within Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. There is no road to the light, but there is a road to the Hurricane River Campgrounds, and from there the light is an easy one-mile hike away. Hurricane River Campgrounds is a pleasant 30 miles drive eastward from our motel on a pleasantly paved road. It sounded like a pleasant afternoon’s outing.

But when we arrived in Munising and picked up a map of the park, I saw that the road to Hurricane River was closed for repairs. I asked at park headquarters and was told that there was no way to get to the light from the west. To get to Au Sable Light was now a much trickier endeavor. It involved a 24-mile drive to where the road was closed, then a 12-mile eastward drive along a dirt road, then a 6-mile drive north to the town of Grand Marais and another 9-mile drive back west to the Log Slide Overlook. From there, it was a 2-mile hike through the woods down, and back up,  a 400-foot hill.

So, instead of a pleasant afternoon’s outing, it had turned into a three-hour round-trip drive and a somewhat difficult hike. I still wanted to go. My wife and daughter thought an afternoon relaxing by the motel sounded more appealing. So I abandoned them in Munising (with the fudge we’d just purchased) and took off.

The drive sounded more intimidating than it turned out to be. The dirt road was in good shape, and I made it to Grand Marais in an hour. After touring the Pickle Barrel Museum, I headed back east to the Log Slide Overlook.

The main feature of the eastern end of the park is Grand Sable Dunes, about eight miles of HUGE dunes along the shore of Lake Superior.

Lumberjacks used to slide logs down the dunes into the lake somewhere in this area. There’s a crease in the dunes called the Log Slide where people can walk down to the shore. I didn’t go. There’s a sign at the top that says (not in these exact words, but in words to this effect), “You’re an idiot if you climb down to the lake. If the climb back up doesn’t kill you, sand slides probably will. The hike down will take 15 minutes. If all goes as well as it possibly can, the hike back up will take two hours.”

To give you some idea of the scale, take a look at these two people standing in the lake.

Now notice those same two people at the lower left of this photo.

I left the path and walked to the edge of the dunes to take the above photo. Then I looked down and discovered that I was putting my resistance to poison ivy to the test. I was ankle deep in the stuff with no way out except to wade through some more. I’m happy to report that I’m still immune.

Off in the distance, I could see the Au Sable Light, my destination.

I left the overlook and headed west along the trail. I was on a section of the Lakeshore Trail that runs the entire 40-mile length of the park and is itself part of the North Country Trail that will eventually run from upstate New York to central North Dakota. It wasn’t an impressive trail.

Most of the time, I could see the lake off to my right.

Occasionally, the trail ran along the edge of the dunes and I could see how far I’d come.

Remember how high above the lake I was at the Log Slide Overlook? And did you notice that the Au Sable Light was at lake level? That meant that, at some point, the path I was on was going to go down. Fortunately, it wasn’t quite as steep as the Log Slide, and it was made of firm dirt and not loose sand.

I was alone on the path. I was very aware that I was hiking into a wilderness and, since I was told there was no other way to get to where I was going, I thought I just might be the only person there. If that was the case, I would be two miles from the closest human and probably much closer to several Black Bears, Timber Wolves and Moose.

At times, the trail almost disappeared.

The path continued along the shore after it came down the hill. This shot is looking west.

And here’s one looking back east toward the dunes.

I did not see another person during the entire hike to the point. When I got to the clearing by the lighthouse, however, there were several people around — including two rangers who drove up in a truck. I heard them talking with a group of four women who said they had hiked in from Hurricane River and hoped they’d parked in the right place. (The ranger said they had.) There was also a couple in their 70’s and a young couple with an infant — all of whom had come from Hurricane River. All together, there were 22 people by the lighthouse. I passed an additional seven on my hike back. My adventure was neither heroic or necessary.

On my hike back to my car, I spotted this Magnolia Warbler singing along the trail.

And this immature Brown-headed Cowbird that was so tame that I truly believe that I could have bent over and picked it up if I was so inclined.

I thought perhaps it was injured, but when I tried to step over it to continue on my way, it flew off into a bush.

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