This past week, Andy and I finally visited Isle Royale after all these years of wanting to get there. When we were in college, we had plenty of time to do it, but no money. After we graduated, we had the funds but were short on time. Now that we are retired, we were finally able to do it!
Getting there:
Isle Royale is the least visited national park, and rightly so. It's difficult to get there! You can get there by seaplane or boat from the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan or Grand Marais, Minnesota. None are cheap! We took the seaplane, which is the easiest and quickest way (40 minutes) to get there, but also the most expensive. ($360 per person, round trip). You have to pay to park and the sea plane base is in Ripley. Round trip on the Isle Royale Queen and the Ranger is $120, so really there's no way to get their cheap. It takes 6 hours to get to IR from Houghton on the Ranger. I'd recommend the Queen out of Copper Harbor, it costs the same and is only 3 hours, but some call it the "barf barge". You do have to pay to park, though. On the plane, you are limited to 45 lbs of luggage, per person, and it has to be soft sided things. No metal frame backpacks, no suitcases, no coolers. Your luggage gets stowed in the boats floats. You also have to declare your weight accurately as they have to manage how much on the plane. They originally said no liquids were allowed on the plane, but when we got there, we found out we could have brought any booze <80 proof. I wish we would have brought more food and some wine! My stuff was only 18 lbs. I bought this backpack and stored all my clothes in it. I bought it because it could hold my hiking sticks, which are a must for IR. You also have to buy a park pass: the best deal was the annual pass for up to 4 people for $60.
Accommodations:
We stayed at the Rock Harbor Lodge, because Andy has a CPAP and we need electricity. The other option is the housekeeping cabins. Both are extremely hard to book. The hotel needs to be booked the first business day of the calendar year for the season. I got up bright and early on Jan. 2, 2023 to book in August this year. August is the best time to go to IR because the bugs are really bad in June and July. After you get your accommodations nailed down, secure your travel because it books up fast. The housekeeping cabins are secured a year in advance and get booked up super early. I haven't been able to figure out how to book them online, their website sucks. I think you have to call. For example, if I wanted to book next year, I'd have to call on Aug. 20 2023 to get Aug. 20, 2024. I think you'd have to do it every day to get multiple nights. I have friends that book the same weekend every year in the housekeeping cabins, and they do it while they are on the island for every day the following year. Aramark runs the hotel and the restaurant for NPS. The hotel has great views and a deck that overlooks the lake, but the walls are paper thin and you will hear everything in your neighbor's room. We somehow got put in an ADA accessible room with a double bed, so we didn't have a screen door like the other rooms, which are nice so you get a good cross breeze. The rooms do not have coffee makers or refrigerators, but you can get ice. They do not clean the rooms while you are there. Our room didn't have kleenex in the dispenser. My friends room didn't have soap! The rooms, at the minimum, are over $300 a night. I think they struggle with getting employees. Lots of international students working there, like the Chinese young lady at the camp store. She couldn't wait until September so she could get off the island. She was looking forward to visiting the US for the first time and didn't realize how remote this location is. There's also lots of older single men that I think like to work there so they can go fishing all summer. If you are interested in 70+ year old men, there's plenty! I need to tell my friend that is on the market for a new love....
A note on camping on IR: the campsites are all rustic and you need to backpack to them. Don't even think of doing this unless you are a very experienced hiker in good shape. The terrain is rough and rocky. I saw many out of shape, miserable hikers on the trails. There is no running water and you need to bring your own toilet paper to use in the outhouse. In August, campsites are all crowded. You will have people asking to share your site, especially the ones close to Rock Harbor. Bring all your food with you because the camp meals sold at the camp store are very expensive.
We had to take our meals at the restaurant, which wasn't good. Skip the more expensive upscale side and just choose the cafe. The coffee is not good, and they don't have half and half. They are serviced out of the same kitchen. Both have beer and wine, be prepared for sticker shock! That pint of Keweenaw Brewing beer you buy in Houghton for $3.50 costs $7.50 in the restaurant. The wine is $30 per bottle for the same quality as Two Buck Chuck at TJs. A woman asked me how the wine was, and I described it as "serviceable", and we both laughed. The wine and beer selection is a bit bigger at the camp store, and better priced. There are grills in the harbor, but no charcoal. So bring your own charcoal! The camp store also sells hotdogs, and brats but no buns. I did hear from the 70+ year old camp store cashier/fisherman that last year, the Queen broke down and couldn't run for the last few weeks, so they ran out of booze and it was really rough. Don't let this happen to you: Bring your own!
Weather:
We flew to IR on Monday and left on a Friday. We had windy and rainy weather on Tues/Wed/Thur and so the water taxis, tour boat and kayak/canoe/power boat rentals didn't go. There's only 2 trails that are 5 miles or less out of Rock Harbor to hike, so without the boats you are pretty limited. We hiked those trails a few times, otherwise, there's not much to do. We bought a deck of cards and played cribbage. Luckily, I had a book to read. Note that the Ranger/Queen/Seaplanes don't go if there is foul weather as well. So the good news, if you are staying in the hotel, they can sometimes extend your stay a day because if the boats don't go, guests don't arrive. However, if you aren't a hotel guest, you're stuck with camping in wind and rain. If it is really bad, NPS will find you a place to stay indoors somewhere so you don't get hypothermic, but it won't be comfortable. It was relatively warm for us, I just wore long pants and a jacket in the evenings. All the planes were canceled on Thursday morning but they caught back up by Friday when we left.
There were lots of older folk staying in the lodge with absolutely nothing to do. There really aren't any easy hikes for seniors unsteady on their feet or families with young children. There's no place to swim. There were surprisingly few programs - I was expecting a lot more. There's no TV, and very, very limited internet only available to hotel guests and no streaming or downloading files or anything. Next time I go, it will be 3 days max. That way, if the weather is bad, it's not a complete loss. We were hoping to do a lot more hiking by water taxiing to different parts of the island, but we couldn't do that this time. So we spent our days reading, playing cards and just relaxing, plus hiking and re-hiking the same two trails out of the harbor. It was nice to unplug for a while, but I am the kind of person that likes to do things on vacation. Next time, we might just bring our own sea kayaks, then we aren't at the whim of the NPS, which has to plan on the lowest common denominator. We would have had no trouble kayaking on Tuesday or Thursday. By the time our week was over, I was ready to go on Friday!
The bottom line:
- Plan at least a year ahead of time
- Seaplane is worth the extra money
- Bring your own boat if you can: more freedom!
- Bring lots as much food and <80 proof alcohol as you can. You can get ice and bring a insulated cooler bag to store stuff in. We brought sandwiches from the Keweenaw Co-op to eat on the first day and that was the best meal we had on IR
- Bring a pair of sandals or crocks to wear in the evening. After hiking all day, you don't want to wear hiking boots to relax.
- Bring 2 bottles of water while hiking
- 3 days max in case the weather is bad
- Bring games and books in case weather is bad
