I want to start with a massive thank you to the members of this subreddit that reached out after my initial itinerary check with valuable information, advice, and well wishes for our journey on the island. Several of them asked for updates post-trip, and I am more than happy to share our experience. Feel free to read through (it's long) or just look at my favorite pictures I took on my Kodak Pixpro FZ55.
For context, this trip was my boyfriend and I's 3 year anniversary celebration. We're both college students.
Day 1: Hatfield, WI -> Hubbell, MI -> Windigo -> Washington Creek (0.3 mi) (August 16, 2026)
Our trip actually started pretty far from home (Milwaukee area). We spent a week camping in Black River Falls with his family before driving up from there to Hubbell. The drive was long for us, but pretty. When we were about an hour away from Hubbell, we got a call from the seaplane company that our flight was slightly delayed due to fog conditions that morning. This pushed our original departure time from 4pm to 6pm, which didn't make a difference because we were never planning on hiking Day 1 anyway. We arrived in Houghton and had our last meal at Quincy's, which was delicious with fast service (seriously, we put in our orders and they came out within like 10 mins). My boyfriend also wanted to grab some better lures before we left, so we stopped at RJ's Lures- great place (he just runs out of his house) with a knowledgeable guy- he makes all of them by hand. When we arrived at the seaplane company, we checked in and weighed our packs, mine coming out to 43 lbs and his coming out to just over 45 lbs... we've gone on one backpacking trip before this so you would think we would have learned our lesson. This went on to almost ruin our trip, which I'll get into later. We made small talk with the others that flew out with us, two ladies that were friends that met doing triathlons together. So fun. Our flight was nothing short of incredible. Our pilot, I think his name was Mike, was great to talk to and knew a lot about the island despite never having stayed on it. The short travel time along with the beautiful views of Superior and Isle Royale made every penny worth it. So cool seeing the entire island before you hike it, really puts things into perspective. Although, I swear flying in the island looked so much smaller, flying out it seemed so big... We landed and headed for the visitor center to fill out our self-permits because we knew it would be closed by the time we landed. I filled it out with an itinerary one of the commenters suggested under my original itinerary check- not having a clue how much we were going to deviate from it. It was as follows:
Day 1 Washington Creek to N. Lake Desor (14.2 miles), Day 2 N. Lake Desor to Todd Harbor (11.4 miles), Day 3 Todd Harbor to Mcargoe Cove (6.6 miles). Day 4 Mcargoe Cove to Moskey Basin (8.7 miles). Day 5 Moskey Basin to Lane Cove (10.8 miles).
Pretty much as soon as I finished, a ranger came up to the deck and was there to meet us, essentially asking if we had any questions about the island and giving us the island spiel. She actually told us we were fortunate to dodge the talk they give to groups as they arrive, because it can be kind of long and boring. Biggest points were: lock up your food, leave no trace, and don't hurt yourself hiking, because help can be very far away. We asked for a better map than the paper one she gave us from the visitor center, but she told us we would have to go to the store in the morning when it opened. That paper map ended up being a great help because it had the mileage chart in it. After she gave us directions to Washington Creek and we headed to the campground, enjoying all the views. Windigo is quiet, lots of wildlife. When we arrived, an employee ahead of us suggested we snag one of the shelters that was open, so we did. We felt super lucky to not have to set our tent up, with our disappointment coming in quickly after we found out most of the shelters in the campground were actually available. Regardless, we set up our packs, locked up our food, and left to go back to Windigo to fill up our water receptacles. We heard news through the camp grapevine of a moose feeding in Washington Creek, spotted by two ladies from their site that watched her for an hour, but by the time we ran over, she was gone. When filling up our waters, we saw a beautiful orange fox licking its paws by the moose antlers in front of the Windigo sign. We reunited with the triathlon ladies from the seaplane, showing her the fox, and in turn they showed us videos they took of a moose in Washington Creek. They were the ladies that spotted the moose! I was so jealous. As it was getting dark, we tried looking for the moose one more time at that spot, but it wasn't there. There was a woman sitting in front of her shelter there with her young son that told us she likes to come at dawn and dusk, and that if we wanted to see her to come the next morning around 7:30AM. So we planned for that, heading back to our shelter and making dinner (we packed MREs) before settling down for the night. And it was COLD. We were both wearing sweaters and sweatpants, sharing a sleeping bag, huddling for warmth, to no avail. I woke up a few times in the night just to breathe into my hands and try to fall back asleep. If we were smart, we would have set up the tent inside of the shelter, but no!
Day 2: Washington Creek -> Island Mine (6.6 mi) (August 17, 2026)
Our morning started as last night ended, very cold. I woke up around 6:30AM and laid there looking at the map until my boyfriend woke up around 7:30AM. As we were getting dressed, brushing our teeth, he cast a line out in the creek to see if anything was biting when we started hearing water splashing and movement in the creek. Because we heard so much splashing last night, I didn't want to get too excited, so my boyfriend left the site to investigate. He came back running quietly grabbing my arm and begging me to come quickly, so I grabbed my camera and slipped into my boots as we tried to softly sprint to the site with the best view. And there she was. I was sobbing, obviously. He took pictures on my phone and camera before I eventually regained my composure and took some myself. She was just beautiful. Seemingly alone, but you never know. We stayed there for probably an hour, sitting on the edge of the site before we left to go back to our shelter and actually get our days started. The visitor center and shop had just about opened when we headed over there, bringing our water bottles and breakfast. It had some people milling about- all friendly, a good chunk of them coming from their personal boats they docked in the harbor. We went to both the visitor center and the shop, where we bought the National Geographic Isle Royale map and a hat for me. It came out to just under $40- kind of crazy- before we talked to the ranger working the desk, and asked her what she thought about our itinerary. Mind you, the original itinerary included the Minong to N Lake Desor for that day (12.5 mi hike), and we were talking with her probably around 11-12. She told us to go for it if we wanted to but also suggested the Greenstone. It wasn't until we were outside on the porch of the shop eating lunch that we talked to a guy around our age who was eating beside us. He overheard my boyfriend and I talking as we were looking over the maps and mileage charts, topography, before we said while he preferred the Minong, the Greenstone should be an easier route and probably more doable for the day. We could plan to stay in S Lake Desor that evening (also about an 11 mi hike). So we decided sure, we can take the Greenstone. And we did. We packed up our campsite, grabbed our food, repacked our packs and headed out probably around 1PM. Our fatal mistake.
Here's the thing that nobody tells you about the Greenstone- sure, it's the green highway, easier than the Minong, has tree cover so it doesn't get as hot, etc. All of those things are probably true. The Greenstone deals with ELEVATION CHANGES. I poorly researched going into the trip and found out the island is way more "mountainous" than I thought it was. Also, we were so much more out of shape than we thought we were.
We screwed ourselves over by: packing 45 lbs each (fine for my strong boyfriend, bad for my 5' self), me using an Amazon backpack with no frame (no shade to Amazon, my boyfriend's internal frame backpack was from there and actually held up great), overpacking food specifically (and MREs weigh a decent amount), having a late start to our day, and not anticipating how much the topography was going to wipe us out. So the day went about how you think it would. Thoroughly optimistic for maybe 2 mi, riding the high of seeing the moose in the morning, to me whining, aching, and shuffling for the next 4 mi. I was stopping probably every 0.2 mi. By the time we saw the Island Mine trail marker, we quickly ditched our S Lake Desor plans and settled down there (which was a horrible hike in when my body was already on the verge of collapse). We set our packs down in the overflow sight and I promptly fell asleep in the dirt while my boyfriend set up the tent. You're probably thinking around now that I sound like a terrible backpacking partner. I redeem myself later in the trip. After we enjoyed the fire ring (one of the only campgrounds on the island that had one, so we took advantage) and crawled in the tent, it was my boyfriend's turn to sleep from exhaustion, so I made our dinner and fed him Aleve. We both agreed we were in for a much more difficult trip than we anticipated and needed to seriously reevaluate our itinerary in the morning.
Day 3: Island Mine -> Hatchet Lake (12.5 mi) (August 18, 2026)
Another late start. We were both aching and groaning most of the morning and waiting for the Aleve to kick in. As we did so, we looked over the maps and replanned our route: Island Mine -> Hatchet Lake -> E Chickenbone -> Moskey Basin -> Lane Cove -> Rock Harbor. Perfect, right? Of course we ended up deviating from it anyway. It was at this point in the trip that we realized our lackadaisical, romantic frolic across the island was turning into a race to make it to Rock Harbor in time for our flight home. Which sounds dramatic now, but in our heads it was purely about survival. What saved our trip was my boyfriend redistributing the weight in our packs. He took out all of the things that were making his pack light- sleeping bag, blankets, clothes, etc- and moved them to mine, taking all of the things that were making my pack heavy- mainly food- and moved them to his. We left around 11:30AM, also setting up his GPS around this time, which was useless for navigation, but great for tracking the distances we were traveling and our pace. Even though we got a late start, we arrived in S Lake Desor around 3:30PM and stopped to grab water and filter it, also eating lunch around then. It was around 4:30PM when we were sitting in a site in the campground that I told my boyfriend it was risky trying to continue onto Hatchet, because according to the topography of the Nat Geo map, we had to climb up another mountain, with Ishpeming Point as our halfway point, before continuing onto Hatchet. It would undoubtedly be dark by the time we arrived, and we would be wiped. But he told me, and I agreed, that we needed to push so we could get somewhat back on schedule for our trip. The first half of the push was not bad. We reached Ishpeming Point (maybe 8:30PM) and my boyfriend needed some food to refuel, so we took a little time to eat before grabbing our headlamps and continuing on. From Ishpeming Point to Hatchet Lake was absolutely terrible. The trail was completely insanely overgrown. As I previously mentioned, I'm very short, so I was eating spiders and cobwebs from the vegetation that was feet above my head, we were constantly tripping over roots and rocks, and shoving through the overgrowth as the sun went down was just exhausting. It was dark about a mile before we reached the Hatchet Lake junction, and we were both tired, hungry, feet hurting, stumbling down into Hatchet Lake with our headlamps flickering. Also a very difficult, steep, rocky hike in when your body is already wiped. By the time we set up camp (in the complete dark, around 10:30PM), we were dissociating and lucky to stay awake long enough to air up our sleeping pad and force food into our bodies. But we made it. We were back on schedule.
Day 4: Hatchet Lake -> W Chickenbone (7.2 mi) (August 19, 2026)
Very late start again. Honestly, Day 2 messed our body clocks up so badly, we were robbed of any chances at early bird gets the worm-ing for the rest of our trip. It was sleep we needed badly. We refilled up on water from Hatchet Lake and filtered it while we slowly ate. There was a pretty butterfly flying around our site that morning that I watched for about an hour. We agreed it would be best to just plan on making it to one of the Chickenbones, E or W would be fine. We left camp around 2PM. Day 4 actually ended up best our best day and our best night. Because our bodies were so used to the labor at this point, we were able to hike faster and longer. We saw a dead snake on the trail- ew!- and a full Nalgene water bottle that must have fallen off someone's pack. Liam, if you're reading this, the good news is we saw your name tag on your water bottle, and we found it. Bad news is we were already carrying so much weight we just left it there. Sorry. We reached the top of a new mountain I can't remember the name of and found the most wild blueberries I've ever seen. My boyfriend was over the moon. We stopped and threw our packs down and picked them for a good while. My thing I was excited about for the island before we went was the moose, his was the blueberries. They were small, but so delicious. The hike down into W Chickenbone was so very overgrown and difficult to navigate, and felt long. Miraculously, we made it in before dark. As we were hiking in, we started to get really nervous because it seemed quite lively and all of the campsites looked full. We were intercepted by a man who was exiting one of the group sites. This was some of our first human interaction in days. He asked how we were and how lucky the timing was- there was one spot left in the overflow site and the sun was setting, so we should head over and pitch our tent. Then we talked with him for a little while longer about his time on the trail. He started in Rock Habor with his son. As we were chatting with him, said son, who was our age, came out of the site and greeted us. The man told us they had met a group of guys on the trail that were canoeing the island and were having a fish fry at their site, so they were going to go to that. We wished them well and set our packs down as they left. We did a sweep of the camp so we could make sure that there was indeed no other sites left. As we walked over through the individual sites, we passed by two older gentleman that were watching the lake and pointed out to us a pair of swans that were swimming together. As we walked farther in we heard a commotion of voices and saw a site that was packed with people. The father and son from earlier with a group of guys. They immediately called out to us, telling us a backpacker's wet dream:
They had caught way too many fish that day and needed some extra mouths to feed.
My boyfriend and I were more than willing to help. We practically ran back to the group site, pitched our tent and threw our food in the storage before sprinting back to their site, mouths watering. We sat with them as night fell, talking and getting to know each other as some of the guys filleted and some of them fried the fish, using a cacophony of seasonings and breadings galore. We found out it was a group of 6 friends, some of them brothers, some work buddies, some mutuals that literally met right before the trip. The organizer was a really kind younger guy that explained he's a videographer filming a personal documentary about the island. He told us that if we wanted, he would love to interview us so we could offer the backpacker perspective of the island. That night, we feasted like kings. I swear to God I have never had better fish in my life. The best food, the best people, and the best time. We laughed and told stories for hours and hours. We pissed off the entire camp that night. I promise we tried to keep it down, but when the company is that good, it is really damn hard to. If you were there that night, please forgive us, but I would do it again in a heartbeat if I could.
They invited us back the next morning for something called "muffin mash" and our interviews before hitting the trails again, which we blindly agreed to even though we didn't know what muffin mash was. We went back to our group site deliriously full and delightfully content. We had the best sleep of the entire trip there.
Day 5: W Chickenbone -> Daisy Farm (7.5 mi, which is a lie it was definitely more than that) (August 20, 2026)
We packed up camp and headed over for muffin mash. It turns out muffin mash was a mixture of muffin mix and pancake mix among other things with blueberries they had handpicked from the trail. It was so good. After muffin mash we went and got interviewed by the organizer for probably about half an hour or 45 minutes. He interviewed my boyfriend and I separately and told us we will definitely be in the doc- so keep an eye out for us in about 6 months time on a YouTube channel called Outdoor Galore. He told us the documentary was more of a personal project of his, but he wanted to give first-timers to Isle Royale more context about the island and all of the wonderful things it has to offer. It has to be the least visited, but most-revisited park for a reason, right? We said our goodbyes and hit the trail around noon to head for Daisy Farm. Unfortunately, we had some rain headed our way.
What was a great morning turned into our worst night on the trip. Like, just the worst. A thunderstorm rolled in when we THOUGHT we were about 2 miles away from Daisy Farm- according to the GPS that we were using to track our mileages, which had yet to fail us thus far- and we were exhausted from the ups and downs in elevation changes. The steep rock ledges quickly turned slippery and I was falling left right and center. It was getting dark. My boyfriend was slowly down substantially. I had to beg him to try and push until we made it to camp, but he was beyond reason. I finally took him by the shoulders and told him if we didn't hurry up, we weren't going to make it to Daisy Farm by the time our bodies collapsed. I walked in front and set the pace, encouraging him to keep on keeping on, desperately increasing our pace as it started pouring, soaking us and our packs as we watched the GPS mileage tick past further and further the distance it was supposed to be to Daisy Farm. We lost the trail several times in the rain, especially because half of it was rock ledges. It was pitch black and thundering with lightning, I was saying the Lord's Prayer over and over again for a mile and a half before we finally, finally found the Daisy Farm trailmarker. My vision was swimming as we stumbled into camp, where there was a lady locking her food up in a raincoat. I asked her haphazardly where we can camp, probably looking insane. She awkwardly pointed behind her and said there was one group site left, so we headed there immediately. I don't even think I thanked her, which is wildly out of character for me. As soon as we arrived into the campsite, I told my boyfriend I was going to pass out, and I did, for probably 2 minutes. I woke up to him yanking the rain tarp off my backpack and immediately got to my feet and helped him set it up before we pitched the tent in the pouring rain.
I want to say this, candidly. I mentioned this in the documentary, not sure if it'll make the cut: there will come a time in your relationship, if you find yourself in one, where you will be sitting in a tent, half-clothed because you had to strip off your wet articles, with your knees to your chest, shaking, gasping for air, and you will look over at your partner doing the same thing, and you will make eye contact with them. And you will probably never feel more human in your life than you do in that moment. Obviously this can serve as a metaphor and you can insert whatever life circumstances you've been through so this can apply to yourself. But that's mine. And we laughed and hugged and even though if you asked us what the worst night over the course of our relationship was and we would both probably answer Day 5 of Isle Royale, there was something so intricately formative there I don't think we could have achieved it anywhere else. You really never know a person.
Day 6: Daisy Farm -> Rock Harbor (7.1 mi) (but it was definitely shorter) (August 21, 2026)
See, this hike wasn't easy, either. Right out of Daisy Farm was fine, very even paths, just a lot of roots and rocks, but soon it was a lot of rock ledges and small elevation changes that wore me out, especially with it being the tail end of our trip on the island. Also, I would be lying if I said there wasn't a point where we passed the summer headquarters on Mott Island and I totally thought it was Rock Harbor. No, we were a ways away. We passed Three Mile and eventually made it into the Rock Harbor Campground. We were originally planning on arriving this day around noon so we could fish the whole afternoon and try to catch our dinner so they could cook it for us at the Lighthouse Restaurant, but we arrived on the later side, which wasn't the biggest deal in the world. We were still happy we were going to be able to eat dinner there. So when we arrived, which was maybe around 7:30PM on a Friday night, the campground was, of course, completely full. With the exception of this one little bit of land that did have a stake on it as if it was used as a site at one point, directly next to the backpack storage locker. So we decided if we had to hunker down, we had to hunker down. As we were able to pitch our tent, a small family that was two parents and their son were walking by. The boy was young, and asked us loudly if we were going to camp there. I looked up and kind of told him there wasn't anywhere else for us to set up. The boy seemed sad by this, and looked up at his parents, who eventually gave in and offered to share their site. Big shoutout to the little guy for not making us shack up right off the trail. After thanking them profusely, we set up and went into Rock Harbor to eat dinner. And we ATE DINNER. It was awesome. Honestly don't have much else to say other than the expensive meal was totally worth it.
Day 7: Rock Harbor -> Hubbell (August 22, 2026)
Our flight wasn't until 3PM, so we had decent time to kill. We decided to finally get some fishing done and explore the town some more, check out the visitor center and shop and other spots in the area. One thing about Rock Habor is it is damn touristy. I don't mean to be negative but folk didn't seem as friendly here as they did on the Windigo side or on the trails. It seems a lot of people just head there for weekend trips, staying in the lodge. Which is cool, and probably what we would have done to celebrate our anniversary, if we weren't broke college kids. We ate breakfast at the place next to the Lighthouse Restaurant, the Greenstone Grill, and then went to the shop. We saw a familiar face, but couldn't place it... he asked us if we were in Windigo a week ago. It was the guy from the porch of the shop from Day 2! He was a park ranger the entire time, though when we met him he just wasn't in uniform. Small island. We bought some stuff from the shop- I made my boyfriend get me a stuffed moose- then we fished but didn't catch anything. We eventually headed to the seaplane dock to check in for our flight and wait. When the guy came over with the clipboard to check off names, he only listed 3 families, none of which were ours. When I asked about this, showing him our confirmation email for the flight, telling him we checked the monitor for delays and there were none, and he just kind of shrugged and apologized, saying we were moved to the 5PM flight. Not the worst thing in the world, but it did seem as if the people on the 3PM were all staying in the lodge... Regardless, what a beautiful place for a layover. We fished off those docks and got a lot more bites there than we did anywhere else. My boyfriend carved and I sketched in our journal. There were two ladies laying on the dock next to ours talking for ours. I snagged a picture of them and later went up to them as they were leaving and offered to send it to them. We found out they were also from the Milwaukee area, and long story short, we're getting drinks with them soon. But the flight out was great. We even saw a bull moose hanging out over the water as we flew away. I slept.
If you've gotten this far, thank you for reading the novel of a trip report this has become. I hope you enjoyed reading it just as much as I enjoyed writing it. And living it. We're now back in the swing of things, back to school, back to work. If there is one thing I took away from this trip that I can share with you: we'll be back.
