2018 Road Trip – Day 5: Porcupine Mountain Wilderness State Park

It was really a relief to stay put today and not have to pack everything back into the truck. There is so much more to explore in Porcupine Mountain Wilderness State Park that I don’t imagine we’ll even get that much time to relax. That’s too bad, because I’ve brought a few library books along and I’m barely making a dent in them.

Today we decided to hike around the Presque Isle Scenic Area, which was clear on the other side of the park from our campsite. It was actually about a 15-20 minute drive through the park just to get to our hiking location. This really is a huge state park! The Presque Isle hike is not for the hiking novice and I recommend you taking hiking sticks if you have them. There are times when the “path” really doesn’t exist and you are climbing loose rocks, along a ridge, next to a steep drop, scampering up tree root “stairs” like some kind of mountain goat, or carefully making your way across the wiggly rocks scattered across the front of a waterfall. The only way you know you’re still on the “trail” sometimes is to look for the trees with the blue dots on them and keep moving towards the next one. I brought along my really nice set of two hiking sticks, so we split them up and each used one. If you can manage it though, the hike offers a lot of diversity and is well worth the effort. We got to see the waterfalls along the river, but also spent some time rock hunting along the shore of Lake Superior. We got a toe in, but not much more, because Lake Superior is a VERY cold lake, even in the end of July.

After a brief afternoon nap, we spent the sunset hour at the Summit Peak Scenic Area, where we were able to watch the sun set majestically over Lake Superior. The tower at Summit Peak is the tallest point in the entire state park and offers up some amazing views of everything the park has to offer. As a BeachBody Coach, I was looking forward to the opportunity to do some of the BeachBody on Demand yoga videos I had stored offline on my phone in some remote locals. The top of the Summit Peak tower provided just that opportunity, and just enough room for both my fiancé and myself to get our Yoga on while we enjoyed the colorful sunset. At one point, the Lord of the Rings fan in my was completely thrilled to clearly see the fires of Mount Doom clearly depicted by Mother Nature in her evening display.

If you’re going to the top of the tower to watch the sunset, make sure to bring along a flashlight, and maybe a light jacket, for the trek back to the car, because without much light pollution, it gets dark and chilly very quickly on the trail once that sun goes down. We headed back to camp to make a nice warm fire, eat a little supper and get a good night sleep before we hit the road again in the morning.

 

 

2018 Road Trip – Day 4: Porcupine Mountain Wilderness State Park

We got up early, left the motel, and headed the rest of the way to Porcupines Mountain Wilderness State Park, which boasts the title “Michigan’s Largest State Park”. It’s located at the northwest tip of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, right on the shore of Lake Superior. There are lots of rustic campsites available here and the hiking is supposed to be spectacular. While we’ve gotten along very well this trip, setting up camp each night plus tearing down and packing up the truck every morning is starting to get on both our nerves. Motel nights are often nice, but if we resort to that too often, we’ll completely blow our budget. We decided to stay for 2 nights, leaving us some nice time to relax and enjoy this beautiful campsite.

This campground is remote and very rustic. After we set up camp, we decided to drive to the nearest down and stock up on water and marshmallows… the camping essentials. Not surprisingly, marshmallows in towns that support local campgrounds tend to be way overpriced and I wish we’d brought our own.

We stopped back at our campsite for lunch. Since my fiancé can’t have dairy or gluten, we were limited on camp-friendly lunch options. I brought several packages of rice cakes, lots of bananas and a jar of peanut butter. We had planned to pick up fresh fruits and veggies at roadside stands along the way. While these farm stands are a frequent sight in the lower peninsula, things are much more spread out in the UP and they are scarce. We picked up the blueberries and peas at the store on our marshmallow run.

We took an afternoon hike up to Lake in the Clouds Overlook and then spent some time hiking the trails around that area. It was absolutely beautiful and we made a mental note to consider coming back here to stay sometime when the leaves are changing. The only drawback would be the nights. Even at the end of July, the nights up here in the UP are VERY cold. If you decide to camp up here, be sure to bring plenty of warm covers. We also use a propane tent heater to keep us comfortable. Usually we can make it through the night if we keep the tent warm until we fall asleep, but a couple nights of the trip we did need to run it all night, so bring plenty of propane.

After our hike, we returned to the campsite for dinner and some relaxing time around the fire. This is probably a good time to talk about planning and packing dinners for a 13-day camping trip. Before we left, I made big batches of rice and quinoa. We also packed a dozen cans of different varieties of beans and a few cans of veggies like carrots, corn, beans, etc. I brought onions, broccoli, mushrooms and a few other fresh veggies that were easy to pack. We also threw in a bag of potatoes and gallon ziplock bag filled with spices.

This made assembling dinners really easy. I would sauté some onion and other veggies on the camp stove, add a can of beans (or 1/2 can of two different types), add a couple scoops of already prepped rice or quinoa, and then spice everything up. We used Tupperware containers as bowls, so if there were leftovers we could just seal them up and put them back in the cooler. Since we didn’t bring any meat, chicken or dairy, there was nothing that would go bad if our ice didn’t get filled as quickly as we’d hoped. We had our non-vegan meals when we ate in restaurants along the route. We picked up fresh fruit and more fresh veggies when we felt like it or saw the opportunity. We were able to pack for our entire 13-day trip in a single cooler. Plus, other than a couple s’mores over the campfire each evening, we were eating exceptionally healthy foods.