I’m back home from a three-day hiking trip to the Porcupine Mountains in the upper peninsula of Michigan. I left Madison last Sunday morning, hiked the back country Monday and Tuesday, and returned home this afternoon.

I didn’t camp in the back country. Looking back now, I kind of regret not doing that, but this trip to to the Porkies was a sort of reconnaissance I decided to make at the last minute. To camp in the back country, I would’ve had to plan a route, reserve back country camp sites, etc etc etc. But I decided to go on a whim, really, less than a week before, which didn’t give me a lot of time to plan the trip. Instead, I reserved a spot at the Presque Isle campground on the western tip of the park for three nights, threw what looked like enough cheese and sausage and bread into the fridge in my van, and set off bright and early Sunday morning. I used my Presque Isle campsite as a base camp, and took day hikes through the back country on Monday and Tuesday.

I went on two extended hikes through the park, one from Summit Peak to Mirror Lake and back (about 6 miles), and the other halfway down the Overlook Trail, detouring to the middle of the Union Spring Trail, then hiking to the Government Peak Trail and heading back to the road (about 10 miles).

I hiked the Summit Peak loop first. (And I just want to take a moment to ask: Summit Peak? Who named that? The Department of Redundancy Department?) The Summit Peak loop starts at the top of Summit Peak (redundant redundant redundant), winds quickly downhill to the shores of Mirror Lake, runs along the Little Carp River, then turns and heads back to Summit Peak. I wanted to take some time to explore the camp sites around Mirror Lake, which would give me some down time to catch a breather if I needed it. Also, it was the shortest hike. This trip was a confidence-builder as much as anything else. I haven’t hiked miles with a pack on my back in decades — literally! — so I wanted to see how easy or hard it would be in the mountainous back country, and to find out how much more stamina I would have to build up before I felt I would be able to go on a serious hike next summer.

I was very happily surprised to find out I could still tramp along the mountain trails without too much trouble at all. The trail from Summit Peak to Mirror Lake was all downhill, of course, which presents its own challenges, but I made my way down to the lake in about an hour and spent the next hour hiking along the shore, checking out the camp sites and cabins. I made it back to my car at the Summit Peak parking lot in about an hour and a half. Not half bad for an old geezer.

The designated camp sites threw me for a loop. When I hiked the Porkies in the 70s there were no such things. We hiked until we didn’t want to hike any further, found a level spot to pitch a tent, and settled in. Now you can only camp in the designated sites, and I have mixed feelings about them. I get it: disbursed camping of an increasing number of hikers was damaging to the wilderness. Designated camp sites minimized the damage, restricting it to a few localized places. I concede that point. I even agree that it’s a good idea.

But the camp sites are so sad-looking! The ground in and around each camp site is almost always bare dirt, stamped flat and nearly hard as pavement. After a stroll through a beautiful back country forest, the camp sites look uninviting. When there are trees in or around the sites, they invariably appear to have been sorely abused. And each site has a corrugated steel fire ring! In a wilderness? What! They’re just ugly. Most of them were corroded, and a few were so old and rotten they were falling apart. Better there were no fires allowed at all. If the park service feels an obligation to provide a fire circle, one made of stone would have a much more agreeable appearance.

And this is just my feeling, but a wilderness camp site shouldn’t look like a camp site at all. There shouldn’t be a fire ring surrounded by logs to sit on. The ground should not be tramped flat and bare, and the surrounding trees shouldn’t bear the marks of saws and axes and the names of the vandals who camped there. What happened to “take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints?” I was sorely disheartened by the sight of these camps.

On the up side, I felt a warm nostalgia at seeing Mirror Lake again. I believe my first visit to Mirror Lake was when I was part of a “boy scout troop” (I seem to recall our status as an official Boy Scout troop was a little nebulous) that went to the Porkies in the early or mid 1970s. I believe the last time I saw Mirror Lake might have been when a high school buddy and I camped on the shore in 1978 or 1979. Aside from the camp sites and the modern cabins I found on that shore now, it was every bit as beautiful and serene as I remembered.

Side note: When I was just a pup, I was in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. The last few years in Boy Scouts were the best. The troop leaders were Dave Sabrowsky, Cliff Stern, and Gordy Jones. I learned everything I know about camping from those guys, as well as a great respect for the wilderness. Gordy was a large animal vet and a former Green Beret. That guy had some great campfire stories and we got to see him do some really gross stuff to cows. Cliff was a pipe fitter (no idea what that is) and a dedicated camper and woodsman. I don’t recall now what Dave’s occupation was. He loved to hike as much as Cliff and Gordy did, and I remember him as an avid fisher, but I can recall him catching just one fish, a perch no bigger than the palm of your hand. We never stopped razzing him about that.

Those guys took us on some epic camping trips: Boundary Waters, Chequamegon National Forest, Porcupine Mountains. I don’t know why they gave so much of their free time to do that for a bunch of kids they barely knew, but I’ll always be grateful to them that they did. One of the places we talked about going was Isle Royale National Park, but we never got there. Bummer. Wish I’d have seen it back then. It’s been on my bucket list ever since.

Walking back from Mirror Lake to Summit Peak, I expected a very strenuous climb all the way, so I took my time, paced myself, and took a break halfway up (or so I thought) at a conveniently-located bench. While I was sitting there, chewing on a fig bar, a guy about my age came up the trail. He wished me a good morning and I answered with a Hey how ya doin? He slowed up a bit and said, Beautiful day. Perfect for hiking, I responded. Yeah, it’s a nice walk, he said.

And that’s when I noticed he wasn’t carrying any hiking gear. No backpack, no trek poles, not even a bottle of water! He was tramping through the wilderness in a pair of old work trousers and t-shirt, ball cap to shade his eyes, and I think he was wearing sneakers. Just out for a nice walk!

Are you doing the Summit Peak Loop? I asked him, and he nodded. Yup, he said, then repeated, It’s a nice walk, before continuing up the trail. I listed to his feet shush through the fallen leaves as I wondered why I had been so worried I wouldn’t be able to go hiking in the mountains at my age.

The next morning I was torn between hiking the Little Carp River Trail or the Overlook Trail. I decided on the Overlook Trail because I wanted to hike on the escarpment again, the cliff which faces the interior of the park. It overlooks Lake Of The Clouds and Mirror Lake. There were two points along the Overlook Trail where I knew I could catch views of the valley. The views did not disappoint. I think I was about two or three weeks too late for peak autumn colors but honestly, I love the gold and brown of late fall colors too.

Overlook Trail is a short loop with two scenic views from the top, but there’s a back door, so to speak, where I could detour east, then south along a cross-country ski trail to get to the Union Spring Trail. The ski trail was wide and covered ankle-deep in golden fallen leaves, which was very pretty and made a pleasant sound as I walked briskly through them, but the leaves were so thick that I didn’t see the mud wallows at the bottom of the trail until one of my shoes was almost sucked off my foot. I walked a little more slowly and carefully after that. Had to do a little bushwhacking to get around a couple more mucky spots.

On the Union Spring Trail, I plunged into a thick, dark grove of evergreens, then burst out into a dazzling golden stand of maples. The fallen leaves were so thick on the ground here that the well-worn trail was completely hidden! I had to keep an eye peeled for blazes to follow. At least twice I wasn’t sure I was even on the trail until I’d gone far enough to catch sight of an old blaze that had faded so badly I couldn’t see it until I was closer to it.

I stopped at Union Spring for a snack and a short rest. The spring is in a pretty little pond with a bottom of blue marl clay. There’s a totally unnecessary floating dock jutting into the middle of the pond, I guess to give you a look at the bottom. You can easily see the bottom from the shore through the clear water, so I don’t understand why the dock.

The trail continued on into another dark stand of evergreens, then back out into golden maples, in and out, again and again, for more than two miles. It was a little disorienting. I had started to feel like I didn’t know where I was, and was even considering turning back to see if I hadn’t taken an alternate route, but just a little further on I came to the Upper Carp River and the junction with the Government Peak Trail, which would take me back to the parking lot.

Before going back, though, I just had to get a look at Trap Falls. It was only a third of a mile up the trail in the other direction, and I wanted to see a backcountry falls before I left. Trap Falls wasn’t a large or dramatic falls, but the trail stayed close to the river so it was a very pleasant, even picturesque walk. Also muddy. Trap Falls was the only place I slipped and fell in the mud.

The Government Peak Trail followed the river north for maybe a third of a mile, then veered off into more dense maple forest where the trail was buried under fallen leaves and I had to keep looking for blazes again. Random thought: They use blue paint and blue tags to mark the trails in the Porcupine Mountains. The phrase “What in the blue blazes!” echoed in my head every time I saw one. For two days. Yikes.

There was a lot more mud here, too. I had to go slowly, poke the ground ahead of me with my poles, and occasionally pick my way from rock to rock or bushwhack through the undergrowth to get around the bigger, deeper mud wallows. Near the end of the trail there was a board walk maybe a hundred, maybe two hundred yards long through the marshes around the river. Where it crossed the river there was a proper bridge wide enough to walk normally across, but most of it was eight to ten inches wide and a little wobbly. My sense of balance is not what it once was, so I picked my way slowly and carefully along it. Glad to say I did not fall off.

And that was my visit to the Porkies. I got incredibly lucky with the weather. The daytime temperatures were unseasonably warm, in the seventies both Monday and Tuesday, t-shirt weather! The nights were cool but not cold. I slept outside in my hammock Sunday and Monday night. I changed into sweat pants and a hoodie Sunday night before bed but was too warm most of the night, so Monday night I slept in sweat pants and a t-shirt. Both nights I slept without the quilt until very early in the morning.

The weather forecast called for rain Tuesday night, so I slept in the van on an air mattress. Didn’t get much sleep that night, both because of the noise from the wind and the rain on the roof of the van, and because the air mattress was not nearly as comfortable as the hammock. Every so often I dozed off and woke to the memory of some truly outlandish dreams. It was still raining when I woke up at five. That’s when I gave up on sleeping, packed everything up, and hit the road. Two and a half hours later I was sitting in a diner in Woodruff, enjoying a huge two-egg breakfast with sausage and hash browns. A fine end to a wonderfully enjoyable weekend.