Honeymoon on Isle Royale National Park

The plan for our honeymoon is to spend 5 days backpacking on Isle Royale National Park.

Isle Royale is a small island in Lake Superior off of Michigan's Upper Peninsula (the U.P.) From Chicago it is an 8 hour drive to Copper Harbor, MI and then a 3 hour ferry ride to the island. The only national park for miles, the Island is completely primitive (no cars or roads) and mostly made up of hiking trails. There are two ports (Rock Harbor and Windigo Bay) from which visitors arrive and depart and the only ways to explore the island are hiking on foot or paddling the shore.

It is the least visited of all the national parks (probably because it's so hard to get to), BUT has the most repeat visitors of all the national parks (maybe because it's so amazing? or maybe because it's the only National Park in the Midwest?)



I forget how I first heard about it, but last summer I was trying to find time to take the trip up there. With Burning Man and all sorts of other summer activities already in place it never ended up happening, but Chad promised we'd go before the end of summer 2010. This was before we decided to get married.

This summer the wedding is taking up most of our time. We closely studied our calendars and realized it would be the perfect time and way to take our honey moon.

Here's our tentative schedule.
Sat July 31st - Wedding
Sun Aug 1st - brunch in Galena and we spend one more night there.
Mon Aug 2nd - drive 3 hrs home to Chicago
Tues Aug 3rd - drive to a b&b and spend the night somewhere mid-Wisconsin
Wed Aug 4th - drive to Copper Harbor MI, spend the night
Thurs Aug 5th - 8a Ferry to Rock Harbor, Isle Royale National Park
Thur - Tues - backpack through island Greenstone Ridge trail etc.
Tues Aug 10th - 2:45p Ferry from Rock Harbor to Copper Harbor, MI, spend the night
Wed Aug 11th - drive from Copper Harbor to Wisconsin b&b (Door County - Sturgeon Bay?)
Thur Aug 12th - drive home to Chicago