That’s When I First Saw the Bear

Friday, July 23, 2021 – Milwaukee to Buckshot Cabin, Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, Michigan

Since moving to Milwaukee from Florida three years ago, we have taken several weekend camping trips around Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest each summer. The long, warm days with nights cool enough to enjoy a fire and sleep comfortably in a tent have been refreshing for our souls. While we thoroughly enjoy the outdoors and always have a good time on these excursions, I don’t usually consider those weekends blog-worthy. This one was an exception.

Shortly after moving to Milwaukee, a friend told me about Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is Michigan’s largest state park at roughly 60,000 acres. It is on the shore of Lake Superior, boasts 90 miles of hiking trails, and the Porcupine Mountain Range with the highest point at Summit Peak of 1,952 feet. What really attracted us to “The Porkies” were the backcountry cabins. There are a handful of hike-in, primitive cabins in the park, with several on Lake Superior. The cabins are quite popular so you need to secure reservations well in advance. So while snow was piled up around our Milwaukee condo last winter, we were making reservations and plans for a great summer weekend on Lake Superior.

We left Milwaukee early on Friday morning. Google said it should take about 5 ½ hours on the quickest route, but I wanted to take back roads. After 48 years in Florida, many of those as a traveling salesman, I have been on nearly every state and federal highway and through every small town in the state. After only three years in Wisconsin, every time we leave Milwaukee is an opportunity to see something new and I love it. So we took a back roads route stopping a couple of times for the restroom or gas, and at Eagle River, Wisconsin for lunch. We ate at the very aptly named “Jen’s Dinky Diner”. It was indeed a very small diner in downtown Eagle River, but Jen made a very tasty patty melt (me) and chicken sandwich (Chrissy). Many tourists flock to Northern Wisconsin to get away to the woods, rivers, and lakes and Eagle River does a good job of catering to them. There are the obligatory gift shops and candy, fudge, and ice cream stores that exist in every town. We decided it was our duty to further help the local economy by buying ice cream cones, then set out for the final leg of our journey to the Porkies.

So, roughly 7 hours after we left Milwaukee we arrived at the visitor center, had a nice chat with the ranger. She gave us the keys to Buckshot Cabin, gave us directions to the trailhead, and explained the backcountry rules. We had a good chuckle over the “no wheeled coolers” rule. You know she must be required to tell us that because someone tried it once.

Chrissy and I consider ourselves very experienced car campers. We have a “system” including a plastic trunk for our kitchen gear, a large duffel bag for the tent and sleeping gear, and a place for everything and everything in its place in the old Subaru Outback. We are a little rusty on backpacking. Fortunately I saved my checklists from younger days of backpacking with my own kids and Boy Scouts and I was able to pare down to the essentials fairly well. Between the two of us our packs totaled about 70 pounds. Embarrassingly heavy for a two-night outing without carrying a tent, but it was a relatively short hike and I grew tired of trying to economize the weight. If we get into backpacking again more seriously I know I can shave 20% easily.

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It was mid-afternoon when we finally hit the trail. It was 2 ½ miles from the trailhead to the cabin, and mostly downhill as we descended from the interior of the park to the shore of Lake Superior. As we descended I was thinking about how the packs would be lighter for the uphill return after we had eaten all of the food.

As we got lower on the ridge and closer to the lake, there were several places where the trail consisted of a bridge made of a couple of 2 X 6’s spanning across a swampy area. With a 40+ lb. pack on my back I was paying extra cautious attention to my footing in these areas. As we traversed one of these bridges I was in the lead and I suddenly heard a loud noise to my left front. I looked up to see a black bear running away into the woods. He (or she) ran from my 11 o’clock towards 7 o’clock and kept going deep into the woods, but because he ran that direction Chrissy got to see him too. We have seen bear in in our campground in North Georgia (ransacking garbage dumpsters) and from the car in the Carolina mountains, Yellowstone, Glacier, and a few other places. But this was our first encounter with a bear on a trail. It happened too quickly to get a picture. If I had only been looking out for him instead of watching my step perhaps I could have gotten a picture. Of course, I could also have slipped off the 2 X 6’s and broken an ankle, so I guess it wasn’t so bad.

We finally arrived at Buckshot Cabin and it was everything we thought it would be. Primitive, rustic, and beautiful. It was a single room with two sets of bunk beds, a table, a counter, a couple of cabinets, and a wood stove. It also had an outhouse, so no need to dig cat-holes in the woods. There was a fire pit right outside and we were about 100 feet away from the Lake. Our closest neighbors were backcountry campers about ½ mile away in either direction. It was secluded and beautiful. I filtered some water and scavenged for some wood. We made a fire and dinner. It was a wonderful evening and a good night’s sleep.

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