HMS Beangle

“I thought the earth remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.”
From ‘Sleeping in the Forest’ by Mary Oliver

It’s hard not to relax when a forest welcomes you with a warm, colorful embrace. Sylvania Campground on Clark Lake is a National Forest campground in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, near the Wisconsin border. We stayed there after leaving Duluth. Hovey Lake Campground is a National Forest campground not far from the southern coast of Lake Superior. We stayed there last weekend. For the most part, National Forests campgrounds appear to be rather rustic, but Sylvania had paved parking spots and even a few sites with power. Hovey Lake, on the other hand, was definitely rustic with only four no frills campsites and a pair of pit toilets, but it was also free. And we don’t argue with free these days.

At Sylvania (campsite view, above), the colors were just beginning to turn in the campground, around the lakes, and along the hiking trails. Everything there was still mostly green, with reds, oranges, and yellows peeking out here and there. At Hovey Lake (the view from our campsite, below), autumnal color was out in force. The area isn’t at peak yet, but with the rate of change we noticed after just two nights, it will be very soon.

Something we’re getting more comfortable with as we travel is not making reservations. Because the camping season isn’t at peak anymore, we just look at which camping areas are along the way, decide which might work best for our current mood (hike, bike, fish, read, save money, sight-see, visit others, etc) and check if there’s a spot open for us. We’ve had good luck so far. If we have signal and there’s reservation info online, we’ll see how the numbers look. But if not, like for Hovey Lake, we just drove up on Friday looking for possible places to fish and hoping for an open spot. Not 15 minutes after we set up the trailer, another camper came and took the last site. Later, he told me that he’d been by the evening before and all four were full. Luck of the draw.

Jeff took his fishing gear on our hike at Sylvania and caught quite a few fish in Katherine Lake, above. I listened to an audiobook and enjoyed the soft, bouncy feel of layers of pine needles beneath my feet. Nature’s gymnastics mat.

Although he saw a few Perch* and Bass and a ton of minnows at the Hovey Lake campsite (below), they weren’t biting. At least he only had to take about 20 steps to cast a line. While wading out, he realized that the lake was quite shallow all the way across, and thus not good habitat for the larger fish that like deeper water.

I was astounded by how clear the water was and by how many large clams (mussels?) there were. Someone help a non-water gal out. They were easily as long as my hand. Something had been dining well recently, as evidenced by a messy pile of shells strewn over a small area on the opposite bank.

Something that I’ve found disturbing this week is fires being left unattended. One evening last week, while staying at a municipal campground (more on that next time), I woke up to relieve myself and found an abandoned fire pit with coals still so red hot that I could see them from our trailer without my glasses on. The local yokels who randomly pulled up around 6pm were long gone when I went to bed at 10pm. So there I was, pumping water into buckets at 1am to drown someone else’s fire because they didn’t have the good sense to do it themselves before they left.

And on Saturday, while we were hiking the Hovey Lake area, we came across smoldering logs in a fire pit, at noon. Not a soul around. I can only wonder at how long it had been burning. My only hope is it was a breakfast fire and not from the night before. We used our water bottles to drench it as best we could. It’s not like you can just turn a blind eye to something like that. What is wrong with people who behave so irresponsibly?

There are Moderate fire danger signs all over that area, for Pete’s sake. I know that the threat of wildfires is ever-present to those of us who live in the arid, mountainous west and that makes me hyper vigilant, but come on. Smokey the Bear has been having this conversation with the nation for decades.

At one point, while I sat on this log, doing nothing but being, staring across the water, Jeff walked out onto it as well and it was immediately clear that it was unlikely to hold us both for long. A yellow canoe on the opposite side of the lake (sorry, no photo) glided into and out of view. I couldn’t have ordered up a more perfect accompaniment.

A few times on our five-mile, four-lake hike, we ran across trees bent over at a 90° angle. I assume it’s due to time or disease, but I can’t say for sure. They weren’t snapped off high up the trunk like the derecho-hit trees we saw in Bemidji, Minnesota. They remind me of that scene late in The Twin Towers during the last march of the Ents to destroy Isengard.

Some more Sphagnum Moss up close and personal. Isn’t it beautiful?

Clark Lake is the largest of the four Sylvania lakes we hiked to. It had a lot of wave action for such a calm day. A group of college friends must have had the same idea as us, because they kept meeting up with us at each stop. Even being so close to the Wisconsin border, we were surprised to be the only non-Wisconsin plated vehicle in the parking area. Where are all the Michiganders?

Water, trees, leaves, and a setting sun? Who needs amenities when Hovey Lake gives views like these while making dinner?

Our plain o’ public lands. I sure do love them.

If you seek a pleasant swamp, look about you. (Sorry, Michigan.)

*Not pike, as originally written. Someone was supposed to edit for fish and other details that I don’t know anything about but didn’t really read closely because he was chatting with friends