Huron-Manistee National Forest on NCT (near White Cloud, MI)

[Somedaynow]

We spent three nights doing an out and back in the Huron-Manistee National Forest on the North Country Trail (NCT) near White Cloud, Michigan over the 4th of July weekend. It’s a less popular part of the NCT, which helped us avoid crowds. The weather was crazy hot…over 90 F and humid.

Friday, July 3, Loda Lake Wildflower Sanctuary to Bear Creek (7.5 miles)

We started Friday afternoon at the Loda Lake Wildlife Sanctuary, which was completely empty. We took a sanctuary trail that followed the lake to Birch Grove Trail, which merged with the NCT. (Photo of Loda Lake.)

The path by Loda Lake was easy to follow since it has numbered posts to match the map at the entrance. We saw some pretty flowers, but not as much as I expected.

Eventually we ran into Birch Grove Trail, a nice woodsy walk with maintained trails to the NCT. In general, the NCT was easy to follow with clear trails and frequent tags. We really appreciated all the shade from the trees given how hot it was.

The NCT went through the forest for a while longer before crossing an oak savannah and then going back to a forest with a lot of ferns. The oak savannahs are really cool, if not really hot in 90 degree weather.

A little over four miles after merging onto the NCT we came across Bear Creek. This was the first water source after Loda Lake.

We continued on another mile to West Michigan Creek, which is where we had intended on staying the night. But it was very buggy, so we hiked back to camp near at Bear Creek instead. It was a good spot because Bear Creek was nice. But you could hear occasional vehicles going down the roads nearby and fireworks going off in the distance. We ended up hearing fireworks every night.

Saturday, July 4, Bear Creek to Highbank Lake (12 miles)

The next morning we went down the NCT back into the buggy woodsy area around West Michigan Creek.

The NCT eventually popped out at a small boat landing at the southern part of Nichols Lake. Part of the trail around Nichols Lake disappeared into the Lake so we took the social trail that circled the lake.

The trail then veers more inland and crosses 13 Mile Road. We detoured down 13 Mile Road to fill up water at the Nichols Lake FS Campground. Then we backtracked to the NCT and continued towards Leaf Lake, which was very scenic and our favorite part of the hike.

The trail next goes past Condon Lake which had a large group of (loud) car campers. Less than a mile away was Sawkaw Lake with some more (somewhat quieter) campers, but it had a lot of open semi-private spots. We scoped out sites and then continued on to Highbank Lake, which was very buggy. We turned around not too far after Highbank Lake and hiked back to Sawkaw Lake to set up camp there. (Photo of Sawkaw Lake.)

Sunday, July 5, Sawkaw Lake to Bear Creek (10 miles)

Even though we had just hiked the route the day before, the trail back Bear Creek looked different in reverse. This day we saw more wildlife; ducks and deer near Leaf Lake.

We made a pit stop at the northern Nichols lake campground to refill our water again and we saw a little Bambi while circling Nichols Lake.

We camped near Bear Creek again on the way out.

 

Monday, July 6, Bear Creek to Loda Lake (6.5 miles)

We were short on time this day, but we went at a good pace so we took a slightly different route than when we came in. At the junction between NCT and Birch Grove Trail, we continued down the NCT until we hit Six Mile Road. It was nice to extend our walk, but this section was pretty marshy and not our favorite. Six Mile road back to the car wasn’t bad for a road walk though, and we spotted the most pretty flowers there.

(Photo above of the oak savanna north of the junction of NCT and Birch Grove Trail. Photo below of the lily pond on Six Mile Road.)

For all the details on two newbies trying to figure it out, here’s the longer version of our trip report: https://beginnerbackpackers.blogspot.com/2020/07/huron-manistee-natl-forest-nct-july-4th.html

[Josh J]

Beautiful area,  good for you on going in 90deg heat! Curious as to your sleeping gear and staying hydrated, obviously wasn’t putting in huge miles a day so that always helps!

 

Can’t wait to get back there myself!  I really need to think of doing out and backs, just to get out!

[Somedaynow]

It was beautiful and we were surprised at how varied the landscape was in such a short stretch. We’re stuck in the city, so an out and back was well worth just to get out!

For hydration, this section between Loda Lake and Highbank Lake had frequent creeks and lakes: a max of 4-5 miles apart max but often only 1-3 miles apart. I think above and below this section there are some spots with 6-8 miles between (non-marsh) water sources. We had hydration issues, but it was only because I had an oops moment and didn’t pack enough Aquamira. We resolved this by using the water pump at the northern Nichols Lake Campground (only a slight detour off the NCT on Day 2 and 3) and carrying extra water from there (7.5 liters total), in addition to the Aquamira. I think we were a little dehydrated until early evening Day 2, despite drinking a lot of water. I blame this on the heat + starting the hike dehydrated. It was a 4 hour drive to the TH Day 1, and we didn’t drink much water in order to make it there without stopping. But we were fine after that, even with it still being 90+ Day 3 and 4. Someone with a sawyer squeeze or an appropriate amount of Aquamira wouldn’t have had any issues.

Our sleeping gear was laughably incompatible with the conditions. We were using this trip as a test run for a planned August trip to Colorado (that’s looking less likely to happen every day now) and so we packed for that trip instead. We had a (Mass)Drop Klymit Insulated double pad and a 32 degree (limit) Thermarest double quilt. We also had lightweight long sleeve/legging base layers. The plan was to sleep in our undies and throw on the layers if needed. The quilt was just there to mimick our Colorado pack list. We went to bed sticking to the pad and woke up in the early morning to pull out the quilt. We then fell back asleep and woke up (at 6 am) sticky with sweat again. We tried throwing on the base layers one morning instead. They would have worked, but we still felt drafty and so we used the too warm quilt instead. It just felt cold at 67 because of how hot it had been all day/most of the night.

I think an old set of sheets for the bottom and top layer would’ve worked better. We have since bought a two pack of those Costco quilts. They arrived Friday and I’m in the process of handsewing them together into a double quilt. We going camping this weekend (predicted 90s again) and plan on bringing that plus a DIY pad sheet cut down from an old sheet.

[Josh J]

Curious to see how it turns out!

 

If you’re up for a more rugged terrain and elevation gain in southern IN there is the Knobstone Trail. Shuttle and water caches are required since it’s a 50mile one way trip. It can be broken up into shorter sections with plenty of access points along the trail, typically where water is cached

[Somedaynow]

Josh, here’s the finished quilt. I’m quite proud of it since I had to hand sew the thing! (My new sewing machine broke and I’m too much of a newbie to figure out how to fix it). I turned the quilt so the 70 in side was width and added four rows from the second quilt to make it around 75 in long. Then I seam ripped it, since that’s what the internet said to do. It did make it more fluffy. I might try using the leftovers from the second quilt to do a foot box, but I’m not sure that’s necessary for a warm weather quilt. Right now it still fits in the stuff sack.

It was even more hot on our camping trip last weekend, well above 90 and more humid. A week later and my heat rash still isn’t completely gone. It didn’t drop below 70 at night., and not until very early in the morning. So it was even too hot for my Costco quilt and we mostly used it as a pillow b/c we didn’t properly air out our LiteSmith blow up pillows and found them very moldy (in only three weeks between trips!). I was very happy we brought the DIY sheet as it soaked up some of the sweat and helped us not stick to the pad. Next 90/70* trip, I’m going to cut down an old top sheet to bring with the bottom sheet instead of a quilt.

We cancelled our Colorado trip and we are driving to the Superior Hiking Trail above Duluth MN next week for 5 days instead, visiting family who live in between there and here for few days on the way back. Right now it looks like it will be high 50s/ low 60s at night and so it should be a better test of the Costco quilt.

Knobstone Trail looks great and I’ll add that to our future list. I’m not sure we’re quite to a water cache level yet and we’re trying to avoid shuttles this summer/fall. We’re renting a cabin for a weekend with another couple in the Red River Gorge, Kentucky area in late September, which isn’t too much farther than Knobstone. We were thinking of going a few days early to backpack before joining our friends at the cabin. Have you backpacked there?

[Josh J]

nice job on the quilt!

Understand not doing shuttles and stuff, its rugged and a lot of elevation change for IN!

 

Good for you getting out there in the heat!

 

Have fun up in MN, haven’t been to red River yet, but its on my list! I do know people who have been there and they love it!

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