Woke up early at Camp Fanny Hooe here in Copper Harbor, Michigan. Grant and I repacked the tent into our backpacks and then drove out for breakfast. I was glad to see we were one of the first groups in the restaurant so we wouldn't be rushed to make the ferry.

The Isle Royale Queen III would be full this morning, but only about half of the passengers were backpackers or kayakers. The others would be staying in Rock Harbor at the Lodge. I spent much of the voyage on the bow watching the smooth as glass surface churned up by hull and spit out as our wake. I struck up a conversation with someone wearing a "LeConte Lodge" hat. He told me a story about staying at the Mount LeConte Lodge in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The weather had been perfectly clear, a rarity in the Smokies, when another lodger told him about this being his 30th trip to the lodge and how it was the best weather he'd ever had. This other lodger then talked about how Mount LeConte had "gotten into his blood" and how he always had to come back. "I'm never coming back here", replied the man now standing on the Isle Royale Queen. "Why not?" "If this is the best it'll ever get, then why come back if it will only be worse?"

Four and a half hours later we approached the Rock Harbor dock and ranger station. On the dock we received the 10 minute introduction to the island from Ranger Randy ("Everything is protected", "Be prepared", "Filter your water", "Obey quiet hours"). And then the mass of us stormed the ranger station to register our itineraries and get our permits.

Grant walked on up the trail to the Rock Harbor campground and squatted in a shelter while I sat in line and got our paperwork. We left our food hanging up inside the shelter with the rest of our gear and since we still had a whole afternoon to kill, we took off to Scoville Point.

The Stoll Trail leads from Rock Harbor along the shore and out to Scoville Point. It is the farthest east you can travel by foot on the island. The views along the way of Rock Harbor were a wonderful introduction to the island.

Just northwest of Scoville Point we soaked our feet at the shore of Lake Superior's cold waters. After a while we headed back, following the trail along Tobin Harbor before reaching Rock Harbor again.

With a few mosquitoes about we took refuge in the shelter's solid construction and full coverage screening. With just 2 of us we had the plenty of room to just lounge about and cook dinner without swatting bugs. Every hour or so a camp fox would make the rounds checking for food left outside, and between visits we entertained ourselves reading the graffiti on the shelter walls. People had a strange habit of writing their hiking itineraries on the wall.

We fell asleep listening to the loons calling and I woke up in the night to see the shelter bathed in the full moon light.