Christopher F. Powell

North Manitou Island, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, September 12-14, 1997

We get off the boat, and Jen gets her first taste of roughing it. This is only the beginning, sweetheart!

We had lunch at the cemetery, then went out adventuring to find Stormer Place. After getting a little lost, we found the old, crumbling house at the edge of a field full of butterflies.

We crossed to the southeast corner of the island, and camped at Fredrickson Place, on a hill overlooking Lake Michigan.

A calm night on the lakeshore.

We had a beautiful sunset, and a clear night to lay back, drink wine, look for satellites, and identify stars and constellations. Before the trip I bought a star map, and I'm definitely adding it to my regular camping gear.

On Saturday we slept late, then started a long day of hiking. Some of the leaves were just starting to change.

Jen was happy to take off her pack and check out Swenson's Barn.

We stopped at Stormer Camp for lunch, then went north toward the lakeshore. We took a shortcut I remembered, and promptly got lost. After about an hour of bushwhacking, we finally hit the lake. We climbed down the VERY steep slope to the shore, and hiked another 2 miles to John Maleski, climbing over downed trees the whole way. We finally set up camp just after sunset and ate dinner in the dark. We were just happy to be done with our 11 mile day.

Sunday morning was the only bad weather the whole weekend, just an annoying drizzle. We made it back to the village, relaxed on the grass, and ate breakfast under a tree.

Thinking about a trip to Manitou Island? Read this first.
Here's a map of North Manitou Island on the Manitou Island Transit web site.
Here's another Manitou Island web site by Eric Mayer.

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