Thank you so much to this Reddit community, it helped me so much with planning an amazing trip with my family. We visited from 7/3-7/7. It was my husband and 2 boys, 15 and 13 yo.
Overall thoughts - I loved being off the grid, none of the campgrounds we stayed in were full, Washington Creek had all the shelters full but for the most part there were not many people. The wildlife was incredible, the mosquitoes were intense. The trails were very similar to what we are used to in Easter PA but not as hilly so we all found the physicality of backpacking less than what we expected and we could have covered more mileage.
Day 1:
Flew into Windago from Hubble, flight delayed from 9am to 12pm.
Weather clear, warm.
Hiked to Island Mine. Hike was pretty boring, made good time, some elevation gain but it was gentle. We camped at site 1. Quiet, one solo traveler and one group at group site. There was water but it was pretty gunky. I woke up around midnight and had to pee, about halfway to the outhouse a tree fell somewhere between site 1 and 2. Might be the closest I’ve been to death, scared the crap out of me.
Day 2:
Island Mine to Siskiwit Bay. We left before the other groups in hopes of securing one of 2 shelters at Siskiwit. The hike was extremely buggy especially the mile before the beach. We basically ran until we got there. We were prepared for bugs, permithian treated clothing worked well, I don’t think I got bit, bothered the kids more. They wore their head nets but were being bit through their clothes a little. The clouds of mosquitoes were disconcerting. Once we hit the beach conditions improved and it was a beautiful day. Saw some yellow lady slippers on a wolf trail crossing the little point before coming to Siskiwit bay. We were able to snag shelter 2, some boaters claimed shelter 1. It was warm and sunny the boys swam in the chilly water and borrowed some biodegradable soap from some friendly boaters. We saw an otter fishing off the dock there. Lots of beautiful wildflowers. The dock was a lovely escape from the bugs and we had lunch and dinner there. In the evening we hiked back to the bridge across Big Siskwit River to see if we could see a moose but no dice.
Day 3
Woke up and had breakfast in the shelter to escape the mosquitos. 13 y/o was in a bad mindset to start because he was dreading our longest hiking day.
Not far into our hike to Feldman Lake we startled two Sandhill Cranes in a field of wildflowers I have to admit I was just as startled and screamed before I realized what they were!
Shortly after we entered shoulder high bush that we had to fight through for about 3 miles. Bugs were also present. About a mile into the bushwhack we spotted our first moose hanging out in the shade. He was a big bull moose and kept an eye on us as we walked by. We encountered three groups as we made our way to the fire tower. The trail leading up to the fire tower was along a rocky ridge, a nice change from the bushwhacking. We lunched at the tower (on the stairs, the top was closed) and took in the views of superior and the rock of ages lighthouse. The trail from the fire tower to Feldman was much nicer with much less bugs and bushwhacking. There were very nice views of Feldman Lake from the ridge and the ascent was never too demanding. We stayed at site 1 on Feldman Lake, there was one other camper at site 2. The Feldman site had lots of bugs and we wanted more Lake Superior water to filter so we set up our tents and headed to Rainbow Cove. The weather was gorgeous but warm and we all decided to take an icy plunge in superior there. We did some rock hunting and had our dinner on the beach. After dinner we headed back to Feldman, we watched for the moose for about a half hour from around 9-9:30 but he didn’t appear so we went to bed. Around 11:30 pm a huge splash woke hubby and I up. It was the moose swimming in the lake. We listened to him splash along the shore line and just as he got to our site he turned and walked about 10 feet from the boys tent. He took his good old time munching on the plants and we panicked that the boys would turn on their headlamps or try to get out of the tent and startle it. It was a heart pounding moment 13 yo slept through the whole thing. 16 yo woke up half way through and had to pee but we whispered to him that he should under no circumstances get out of the tent until the moose passed. About 15 minutes later the moose decided to move on.
Day 4
We took a leisurely start for our last day on the trail. We had a cold breakfast on the beach at Feldman, it was already warm and the moose did not make another appearance. Hubby did find fresh wolf prints on the beach right next to our campsite, about 50 feet from where we slept. The prints were NOT small, about 5-6 inches long. At first it seemed like we were going to have to do more bushwhacking but then the trail cleared, there were fresh clippings like someone had been working on maintaining the trail. About 2 miles into the 8.5 mile hike back to Windago we came across the trail workers. We gratefully thanked them as we walked by. The rest of the hike to Windago wasn’t too remarkable, in the last mile the trail was lined with pink lady slipper flowers which were lovely. We were happy to have flush toilets and potable water when we got to Windago but we didn’t linger because we wanted to get a shelter in Washington Creek Campground. Shelters were almost full but we got #14.
The boys swam off the dock at Windago in the evening. Then we headed back to our shelter for the night. We heard a moose in the creek at two different times during the night.
Day 5 (0 day)
We woke at 5:30am to a moose in the creek. He was a beautiful bull moose and walked right past our campsite, posing nicely for pictures. We got up a few hours after that and had breakfast and packed our packs for the last time. We rented a canoe and kayak and paddled as far down Washington Creek as we could. We saw pileated woodpeckers and a kingfisher along the way. We then paddled to Beaver island. Our seaplane arrived a little early and we got back to Hubble around 5pm.
Thank you again, a truly magical place!
