Backpacking Manistee National Park

It's been a long two months of almost zero contact with the outside world, but I'm finally back and ready to begin writing about my experience over the next several blog posts. As for right now, I'm going to focus in on what a solid chunk of my previous blog posts have been centered around, the backpacking trip I had gone on, and all that had transpired over those three days.

Perhaps now is the time for me to reiterate that I had never done something like this before. I haven't even gone camping in a tent over night, prior to this experience. Surprisingly, despite the paradigm shift of going from  an upper middle class citizen of suburbia to becoming a tent dweller in the wilderness who made the world his bathroom, I feel as though I made the adjustment fairly well. I don't think there was a single moment where I even did so much as to think "I wish I had my laptop right now" or "I really could use my phone right now" (with the exception of kicking myself for not bringing it to take pictures). It was almost as though a whole different side of me came out.

It was a long drive from Howell Michigan to the Manistee River Trail, but as we ventured further and further into Northern Michigan, I could feel my inner mountain man awakening from an 18 year slumber. Something about being surrounded by brown and green giants and seeing "bear xing" signs really brings out the realization that you are approaching a little slice of the world that seems to be worlds away from the suburbs.  Due to this, my anticipation grew, though I can't exactly say the same for everyone else who was going to be on this trip with us. To be honest, very few of us had ever done something like this before. While it was exciting to me and some others, to the rest, this trip meant the temporary death of many of life's precious commodities. After what seemed like forever, we finally arrived at the trail-head, had a quick meal, grabbed our backpacks and began our journey into the untamed wilderness.

Our first day of the trip was probably the most strenuous leg of the journey. To be honest, aside from a lot of tall trees, there wasn't a whole lot to look at. We knocked out 7 miles of the Manistee River Trail on day one, which is a relatively short distance when you're walking for a solid 9 hours of the day. This was mostly due to the fact that, from what I can remember, the first 7 miles consisted almost entirely of venturing up large hills, and then back down them, only to go up another hill. That, and we took frequent breaks for the sake of our less outdoorsy types. Despite the rough terrain, I think I did pretty well, and I have my Vibram KSOs to thank for that. The Manistee Rive Trail was covered in what appeared to be sand, I'd assume to keep plants from growing on the trail itself. This sand found its way into a fair amount of my companions shoes, which left some blistering within the first few miles. The KSOs, however, held up to their name. Over the course of the day, very little sand actually got to my feet, my shoes really did end up Keeping Stuff Out, and perhaps a bit too well at that. My only qualm with the KSOs is that the sand that would get kicked up around the ankle of the shoe did a pretty good job of staying on top of my shoe, rubbing up against my Achilles tendon. Over time, the sand wore away at my skin and left me a little raw. This, however was easily fixed with a couple of Disney princess band-aids placed where the opening of the shoe met my Achilles tendon. Once I figured that out, I had zero problems with my feet for the rest of the trip. To be honest, the only things I really even remember about the first day are mostly things that happened at our campsite. Since we didn't travel as far as we had hoped we would, we ended up improvising and setting up our tents at the top of a large hill. It sounds a lot more scenic than it actually was. This hill was covered in trees, which means we really didn't have a view of anything, even though we knew there were valleys and whatnot just beyond what we could see. There was also little room for stargazing, but that couldn't stop this kid from the southwest suburbs of Chicago from trying. Despite having a hard time getting a good view of things from far away, the nearby scenery was beautiful. The forest was dense and green, with plenty of fallen trees, covered in other small plants growing on them. Out of the death of one tree, new life found its place in the world. The first night was also the first time I'd ever used a jet boiler. Frankly, these things scared the hell out of me, since I've singed the hair off of my arm enough times lighting grills, only this time the fuel release was a lot closer to the ignition.  With a quick lesson from a friend, I made it out with all of my arm hair in tact, and before I knew it, I was eating beef stroganoff out of a bag, which I promptly spilled in my tent, attracting a myriad of ants. Thus began the great ant culling of 2012.

The next day began somewhere around 6AM. Typically I'm not a morning person, but I woke up to a bunch of fat mosquitoes in my tent (none of which seemed to bite me, but rather my friend Jef, as mosquitoes don't like me). Needless to say, the morning began with a lot of disoriented screaming and mosquito punching, you know, to get the blood back in our limbs. 7AM rolled by, and after packing up and munching on a Cliff bar, I set out for day two's adventure. On the second day of travelling, we covered a solid 13 miles of the trail. We probably could have even done more, but we took a nice two hour lunch break by the riverside once the trail actually became the "river trail." One thing that surprised me about my backpacking experience is that I found myself with very little appetite while I was outdoors, though my body was being pushed to the point where one would think I'd be eating more than normal. For breakfast I had a granola bar, lunch was a single pack of ramen noodles, and dinner was a small bag of re-hydrated ziti noodles and a bite of a snake. The second day's trail was much more scenic than day one's. We actually found ourselves stopping several times to just stare at the river from the cliff-side every now and then. Day two is where things really began to come together. We all went into the forest as total strangers, but after being forced to strain our bodies and spend way too much time with each other, we practically became best friends. I feel like backpacking allowed us to see the best and worst of just about everyone in the group. It was complete and utter transparency, and with that, any social barriers that did exist came crumbling down. 

Perhaps one of the most significant moments of the second day of backpacking was the guy in the picture above, Mikey, found a large hooded snake on the trail. In that moment, some sort of survival instinct must have come over him, as he immediately found a large stick to pin its head down as he reached for his knife to promptly remove its head from its body, and begin the process of blood letting as he continued to trot down the trail. After about 10 minutes or so of draining the serpent of its lifeblood, Mikey pulled off to the side of the trail to skin the beast, remove its organs, and grab its still-beating heart. He then tied the remains of the snake to his backpack, so that he could roast it over a fire and consume it later, which we all ended up taking part in.

Day two was also where we set up camp in a location that pretty much blew us all away with its magnificence. It was another campsite atop of a hill, but this time, the hill was pretty much devoid of all trees, and overlooked the river. Did I mention that we set up camp on top of a cliff? There was a small sandy area thanks to some sand stone, which then became a rugged cliff wall, some 80 feet above the water.
After two days of hiking in 90 degree heat, me and a few others decided to take our chances with the strong current of the Manistee river in an area that looked fairly safe. The water was ice cold, but after walking in the heat so long, it was quite possibly the best feeling in the world. One of the girls also brought along a travel sized bottle of shampoo. Personally, I think shampoo was probably a waste of space and a few added ounces to an already heavy backpack, but just being able to clean your hair is godsend after spending enough time outside. The rest of the night consisted of star gazing and telling silly stories and jokes around the campfire. In that moment it dawned on me that for the rest of the Summer, I was going to be working with a bunch of new best friends, and I couldn't have been any happier. We called it a day some time around 1AM, knowing we still had another day of walking ahead of us.


Our final day was a relatively short one. We only had 5 miles left of the trail, as we had knocked out 13 the day before, and 1.5 of those miles consisted of the trail-head that we had already traveled the first day. We all ate some breakfast, pumped some filtered river water into our water bottles, and set out on the final stretch. At this point, just about everyone was suffering from multiple blisters, wrapped in moleskin and bandages to prevent further irritation, but I'm happy to say I remained blister-free in my Vibrams. This fact alone was enough to make some of my companions swear that if they ever go backpacking again, they would make sure to go the extra mile and invest in a pair. I had read several times that blisters are the one thing that will ruin your backpacking trip faster than you can say "backpacking," but I didn't believe it until I saw the strife people went through after travelling over 5 miles on blistered feet. It didn't look like they were having a good time anymore. The final stretch consisted primarily of forest, of course, which I still find difficult to describe, as well as a sizable field of flowers, many of which I inadvertently ended up walking away with, as they seem to do a good job at lodging themselves between the toes of the Vibrams. By the time we got back to the truck, most of us were tired and worn down, eager to get back on the road, and eat something that doesn't need to be rehydrated for a change. While I too found myself in this train of thought, I also found myself wishing that there was more trail to explore, more sights to see and more walking to be done. After all, I still had most of my food that I arrived with, and I sure as heck hadn't gotten my fill of the great outdoors yet. Perhaps this appetite for the great outdoors will end up being another one of those insatiable appetites that give rise to a plethora of future backpacking trips. I suppose only time will tell. At this point, my only definite plans are to return to the Manistee river trail, but with a Kayak this time, so that I can see what I had hiked from the river's perspective.