A couple of weeks ago, my friend and traveling partner-in-crime, Mikael Kennedy, set off for Michigan's UP for Wolverine Traveler. It was a trip I was sadly not able to go on, but Mikael came back with amazing stories and, not surprisingly, even better photos. Read below for some CS exclusives and make sure to visit Wolverine Traveler for the rest of the goodness.
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"I am glad that I shall never be young without wild country to be young in. Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?" - Aldo Leopold
I found that quote in the first few pages of a book I took off my mom's bookshelf when I was 18 and hitting the road for the first time. The book called 'On the Loose', published by the Seirra Club in 1967 was a rambling vision of two young men's journeys through the wild in the form of photographs and wandering thoughts. The quote which opens the book has stuck with me over the years as I've travelled, when I was younger my routes were always determined by the cities and where I new I had couches to crash on but eventually my taste and excitement for those faded and I found myself heading out into more remote parts of the country, trying to find places that were less touched by human hands.When Wolverine agreed to send me out to the Upper Peninsula and to Isle Royale as the launch of our new Traveler series I was excited at the prospect of visiting one of the least visited National Parks in the Continental US. Last year Jeff & I hiked to the South Rim in Big Bend National Park another one of the lost parks. I do very little research when I travel, other than just the safety and neccessities, I prefer to be suprised by what I find. Isle Royale did not disapoint. An untounched wilderness in the middle of Lake Superior, just a stones throw from the Canadian shore, walking through the forests feels like you have travelled back in time before we carved our way through this country.
We flew in low over the islands surrounding Royale, landing in Rock Harbor, from there we explored the islands by canoe, boat and foot. Here's a closer look after the jump:
If you've flipped through the pages of the Men's Journal on stands now, you'll see a wonderful article written about my cousins and heart condors, Juniper Ridge. I've spent a lot of time with those folks in the last year hiking/camping/driving around California, drinking wine on Oakland porches, singing about stray cats in cabins near Mammoth and eating Korean tacos in Brooklyn, so you can imagine how happy I was to see Hall, JR's founder, swearing in print:
Thanks to