Once the universe aligns herself this will level out. There will be signifiant loss. There will also be significant gains. How? How could we possibly gain? From loss. Did the universe start to feel a shift and a pull from so many. Many trying so hard to shift and pull her. She’s fighting back. Shifting and pulling back. I’m not sure why she is a she. The gain will be balance. More will live with intent and purpose after such an astronomical loss. This is a wake up call if we listen closely. Instead of saying what we think we should be listening. Me too. I was shifting and pulling too much. Trying to take the weight from the world. Weighing me down.
Lessen the load. Give it back. It’s not yours to carry.
This doesn’t remind me of this specific story but it reminds me that I know to calm my anxious mind I can write about something. And for me it’s like that lottery ball thing where they ping all around and spit out number. I never know what I’m going to get. Or is that bingo? No it’s the lottery ball thing. A random number.
I can’t start from the beginning of my second trip to isle Royale without starting the story of my second trip to isle Royale. I’m not there yet. It’s still tumbling around in my mind as a place I was that still feels a little like I wasn’t. Do you know what I mean? When your adrenaline is high and you ride the roller coaster or do the hike and then it’s over and it feels like a dream. Or it feels like it’s gone. I tend to replay over and over something until I’ve exhausted the story or myself to the point that once it comes out I can finally lay it to rest. I write so my thoughts will die. I think to keep them alive. It’s an annoying balance of life and death that should just be simply filing away a memory. I don’t file memories well. My file system is messy.
I met a guy on my second trip to Isle Royale. Not really met, I crossed paths. My first trip to the island I didn’t really connect or meet or even want to. I felt like I walked with blinders on or my head down, sometimes it felt like I never walked it at all. Yet I know I did. I have the scars.
I was walking along the shore of Lake Superior, the Rock Harbor Trail. I had just left Daisy Farms where I slept after meeting two very interesting men whom I will write about later, we planned to meet the next day at Rock Harbor. The Rock Harbor Trail(RHT) was an a-hole. Of all the trails I’ve done on this island this one was the most heavily used and it showed it. It kicked my ass mostly because my ass had been kicked from the previous 50 some miles across the island. It’s also where the island drains to. If it rains it all runs down to this mud slop path. I was so sick of it after just a few minutes. I had to wear my boots again after my river sandals of 20+years finally broke. I had been wearing them for the last day to give my feet a break. It was sort of annoying because I kept squashing little baby toads that hopped up on the planks. I became very aware of my feet when I thought of all the tiny toad bones I had scrunched.
The RHT had rocks plopped on it. In it? People who didn’t want to walk through mud put rocks down. Or was it staff. To dissuade meandering off to the sides and disrupting the vegetation. You are supposed to stay on the trail. Go over and under obstacles, not around. Go through, not around. This trail will most likely be planks all the way. I was cussing out the park staff unnecessarily. Annoyed they hadn’t addressed this slop. But then annoyed, I was annoyed. I had to get off this trail. My plan, per my map, which I had, was to leave the RHT walk up to see Mount Franklin,turn around and come back down and then go to what was called the Tobin Harbor Trail(THT).
I get to Mt. Franklin to make some tea. To rest. I wanted to boil some lake water and drink tea as a little celebration of finding water on an island surrounded by water.
I came out from using the restroom, i.e. peeing in the woods, and I was shocked to see an entire group of people. Several of them. It’s like the whole end of the island where the lodge is woke up at the exact same time. They were heading up to mount Franklin. Would I like to walk with them? It must be amazing for all these people to be heading that way. I sat back down. I’m not going to follow them. I waited a little while. Then a man came up. A man in a blaze orange sweatshirt. Why blaze orange? Maybe it’s his favorite color? Did it have sentimental value? Did he have a recent loss? Maybe his year was full of grief of a father lost and this was his fathers favorite sweatshirt he wore hunting? This was all he had left of him. Maybe he lost everything in a fire. His whole house burnt down and this remained unscathed in his truck? He had to get away. To an isolated island to think. He was like me? Hé came hère with all he had left. He will be very seen. I’m all for the obnoxious colors but in the woods it tends to say. “Don’t shoot me, I’m human.” There is no hunting here. But maybe he is a hunter and is just used to needing to be scene. To avoid gunfire.
Why did he have so many bandana’s? He had 6 or 7 tied to his shiny new? backpack. He looked stuffed into his pack. Like he needed help getting it on. I looked at my own pack on the ground. Did I look this stuffed? I had just my two bandana’s. One for what I call kitchen, one for bathroom. Both of which eventually I tied around my sandals to try and keep them on my feet to let the swelling come down a little from wearing my boots. Maybe I should pack more? They say we pack our fears. Was this his? Mine is water. And sometimes protein. But why cloth? I can think of many things to do with bandanas in certain circumstances. He just had a lot. Like a collection. Each a different color. Each crisp and new as the day.
In the front of him between the chest strap and the hip strap was a little poofy pouch. Like outlined shapes. His sweatshirt was bulging here. Not a pocket just a bulge. Were they snacks? A map? Tools? I thought this is genius if true. I am often twisting and bending in ways I didn’t know I could to get to things. I had to ask. But…
He started talking. I hadn’t even spoken yet. He just started like a little kid non-stop. He was divorced, taught English to Chinese kids online, he loved audio books, he started listing books, he asked if I had heard of several but never let me answer. He was frustrated with his weight and eating habits. Did he have Twinkie’s and hohos in this secret bulge? He had never backpacked. He was staying at the lodge. I was starting to wonder to much about what his sweatshirt held to listen to what he was saying. Finally I said “what’s in there?” Pointing. I had sat on my thought for too long.
He says “oh that? That’s my stuff.” And pats proudly. Did I hear a crunch? Was it food? Then he kept talking about Chinese kids and English. He didn’t explain his stuff. I notice he is sweating like crazy. Why was he still wearing his pack? Did he need a rock or tree to help get it off? Should I offer? Just specifically to see what falls out of this “stuff” pouch. His teeth are really yellow. He tells me he is going up to Mount Franklin to get on the Greenstone. Then he just stopped saying his plan; back to books he liked to listen to. Then what? He was going to what, turn left or right, come back down? Did he have a map? I was him once. He looked packed for days yet it sounded like a day trip. Should I offer a suggestion? Ask more questions? Run? Walk? Wipe his sweaty brow? Now I’m worried he should be accompanied. Maybe I should walk up with him. Might be entertaining, he talks all the time. I wouldn’t have to at all. I also might find out what stuff he carries in his blaze orange sweatshirt.
He reminded me of a large kid. Like a kid who joined boy-scouts late in life. Excited but with little knowledge. He would be the one lost, the one to fall out of the boat, to get stuck, or left out. I never got to say anything other than asking what was in his sweatshirt. I told him I had to go. He left. I sat back down long enough I hoped he would get to whatever plan he had. He seemed so unsure of himself. Was this me last year? He seems like he won’t make it to the top to his next trail. I don’t want to find him on the side of the trail, but I don’t want to stay on this god forsaken rock harbor trail! Maybe I will find him sitting eating twinkies he pulls from the inside of his sweatshirt? Maybe I will never see him again?
Mount Franklin turned out to be just a view of the tops of tops of trees. It was by far the least interesting view I had had over my hike on the Minong Trail. My views along the Minong were worth the effort it took to even walk that trail. The “harder trail” I had been told the year before. I drank my boiled lake water tea and headed back down. I came across so many from the lodge. Freshly showered and pressed khakis and white tops. My dad always tells me to wear a white long sleeved shirt but I know for me it will last one single wear as true white. So many asked, what is the view like? I would just say. Amazing! Encouraging them to trek on. It will be amazing for them. For me I added a weird 3 mile walk to Rock Harbor.
At one point I came across a man and his son. The dad was telling the boy they were at the top of Mount Franklin. The boy looked 7. I lie to my kids when we walk too. I say yup almost there, when we still have a few miles. All parents do it. But this man was certain he was there. He told his son to write in his journal. What does a 7 year old write in a journal? His fears of being lost? His doubts of his father? His love for him? How strong and certain he is? Does he just draw a Pokémon? Or does he write at all? I kept walking. I worried about these two. Maybe even still do. The kid looked terrified. Could I bring a child here? One of my own? I idolized this father. He is braver than me.
I saw the guy with the stuff later that day. He was walking around by the lodge with a beer in his hands. The can looked too big for his hands. Again, like a big kid, holding a can of soda. He saw me and stopped and said “oh I saw you earlier but it seemed I hadn’t seen him but now I did!” Did I?
Along the Tobin Harbor Trail I saw my first moose. My first serene image of a moose. I imagined before I ever came to the island of seeing one in the water just doing moose things. You know, being a moose. But for the most part of both my trips to this island I had been ran off the trail by overprotective momma moose more than I had human contact. They were dirty, clotted with mud, loose tummies from delivering babies, and pissed off. This time I saw one because a couple was stopped in the middle of the trail and shushed me. They pointed. Literally feet to my left was a moose. I could have almost reached out and touched it. I stopped. Froze in fear. Did they not know how dangerous these animals were? I got behind a tree. I found a tree to be my safe place. I watched as the moose did moose things. Then, she stormed out of the water across the trail. Shaking her muddy scug all over us. I have no photos of moose. No time. I bought a post card with one and was jealous of the person who got the shot of a serene moment that I had imagined. The patience.
Aspenleaf 