So, since I was back in Wisconsin visiting family for my Christmas vacation, I decided to take some time and go back up to Houghton, MI (where I went to school) to visit some friends that I hadn't seen in a while. A couple of days before I left to drive up there, Matt (one of my friends) called me about possibly going backpacking into the Porcupine Mountains wilderness area at the western end of the UP, that to me sounded like a great time, and I instantly went along with it, especially when I found out we would be staying in a couple of Yurts, instead of tents. For those that don't know a yurt is a semi-permanent circular shelter, and there are several of these in the park that they rent out; and they come stocked with firewood, pots and pans and bunks to sleep in.
Tue Dec 29th 2009
I left Wisconsin this morning and drove the 5 hours up to Houghton where I met Matt & Hannah. We then proceeded to drive up to Calumet where their house is. Here I was able to grab some quick food, consisting of Christmas leftovers, and then I unloaded some stuff, since I would be sleeping here tonight. After seeing Matt & Hannah’s house, which is very peculiar to say the least, we drove back into Houghton and met some of our friends at the KBC (local microbrewery) where we hung out for the evening.
Wed Dec 30th 2009
After waking up this morning, and after having a little grub the three of us began to prepare for our hike in the porkies, which entailed me mostly watching Matt & Hannah making sure we had the appropriate gear as well as making a list of all the food we would need for this adventure. Since we would be staying at the Yurts, which eliminated the need to carry a lot of excess gear, we decided that instead we would bring glorious amounts of food, in which we could gorge ourselves with. That being said the next stop was the store in which we racked up a pretty large bill with all the food, but once we had everything we needed, then one last quick stop at McDonalds and we were finally on our way.
After the hour and half drive down to the park, we got the keys to the 2 yurts (and the cabin that Matt, Hannah and Scott - who would arrive later - would be staying in after I left), and we began preparing our packs for the trip. This was my first debacle, while Matt and Hannah had most of their stuff put together earlier that morning, this was the first time I began to even think about what gear I would need, and as late as we were I didn’t want to hold us up any longer so I ended up just throwing a bunch of stuff in the backpack and was left carrying a lot of extra weight in unnecessary items. The second debacle was I thought that putting backpack in a sled would be easier to pull rather then carrying it on my back. This was alright at first, but as soon as we started doing a lot of uphill climbing the sled became a nightmare, and I ended up carrying the pack anyways. But since I packed the backpack in haste it was very bulky and weighted unevenly and was still miserable to carry, plus I still had to pull the empty sled.
Joining us on this trip was Tessa and Rainy (my dog and Matt and Hannah’s dog) they were both extremely excited to be out in the snow and on the trail and were constantly running ahead and playing. Unfortunately they kept running to far ahead and were difficult to control and it became a hassle to have to keep calling them back.
The hike to the yurt was about 7 miles, the first 4 miles or so was on nicely packed x-country ski trails, the last 3 miles were on a small single track snow-shoe trail, which was compounded by the seemingly never-ending up hill climb, and Matt constantly saying we were almost there. Finally with only about a mile to go I had to stop and get something to eat, Hannah stoped whit me, but Matt and the dogs kept on moving, convinced that the yurt was just around the corner. Soon enough we reached the cabin, just before it was beginning to get dark, the dogs were just as relieved to reach the cabins as we were, especially Tess who having shorter legs had to work so much harder then Rainy in the deep snow. Once we got the yurt warmed up, we were finally able to relax and dry out and start make supper. That evening we enjoyed a delicious meal of venison steaks, and although they were kind of tough, they tasted great after a hard days work. Later that evening we sat and played cards on the floor before finally going to bed.
Thu Dec 31st 2009
After a peaceful nights sleep, which was interrupted twice, the first time being my decision that in the early hours of the morning to get the fire going again, so that when we finally got up it would be warm and then later the Dogs got up needing to be let out. We finally slunked out bed probably sometime around 9 and began to prepare breakfast, which consisted of bagels. Shortly thereafter Matt took off with an empty pack for the cars, where he was to fill up with food for the next couple of days. Meanwhile, Hannah and I stayed at the yurt and continued cleaning it up for the next visitors and got all our gear together to bring to the next yurt. (We had to change yurts because, they are booked so far in advance that it's hard to get a yurt on short notice for consecutive days)
Once everything was set we began the 5-mile journey to the next yurt where we were to meet Matt and later Scott. After the previous days exhausting hike, today’s was much more refreshing. Upon arriving at the second yurt we were happy to find that it was still pleasantly warm inside, and that there was still a fire going in the stove from the previous nights occupants. Shortly after we had gotten there Matt arrived and having underestimated the weight of all the food he would be carrying back from the cars was pretty exhausted. So, it was time for lunch, which we made brats, and then began to be lazy for the rest of the afternoon. I'd like to write more about that afternoon, but there isn't much too say, we pretty much just sat around. Hannah got bored and made some unusable cards out of cardboard, and then later made a rinky dink scrabble game that kind of worked. We were also kind of waiting for Scott to arrive, which he never did, so we were kind of worried for him, but not having a phone or anything could only just wait for his arrival, which never came. Finally we went to bed.
Fri Jan 1st 2010
This night, like last the fire went out again, but this time Hannah was gracious enough to get it going for us. When we all finally got out of bed this morning we went about making breakfast, this time we had bagels with sausage. We then went about cleaning the Yurt and I got ready to hike out, and Matt and Hannah prepared to hike to the cabin for another night in the porkies. Since Scott hadn’t shown up that night Hannah decided to hike back out to the cars with me in order to find a phone and get a hold of him, while Matt went on to the next cabin. As a short cut to get back to the cars quicker we decided to hike down the snowmobile trail, but this meant that Tessa would have to be on a leash (Rainy stayed with Matt) After arriving at the cars I went on my way back for a night in Wisconsin, before making the trek back to Texas.
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