Prospector's Big Trip, Part I

Prospector's last cup of coffee before hitting the trail. Mackinac City.

I first got Prospector and his pack mule, Lucky, for my two year old. He was meant to be a present before we left the kid and his sister for four days of hiking the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore up in the U.P. But then Prospector wanted to come with us, so he did. He was a real crotchety companion at times, but he had a lot of good folk wisdom to share with us and also plenty of stories to tell around the campfire. Sure, most of his stories involved snakebites and claim jumping, but you'd be surprised how much variety there is in that genre. Most nights, we were riveted to his tales about the Badlands and the Yukon. He's a wise old S.O.B., that Prospector.

Prospector's first big find

Above is a picture of Prospector with a bucket-full of blueberries, which he called "Blue Gold." Here is an excerpt from his diary entry for the day:

"In the mornin', when I told the young'ns that we'd be findin' blue-berries as big as your head this day, they got all excited-like. Especially the tall, gangly one. But later, when I showed them this great haul, they were, well, I reckon you'd say they was disappointed. There's just no figurin' youngsters today."

I feel bad for disappointing Prospector now. I guess I did misunderstand him a little. And them berries were pretty great. Blueberry bushes lined probably 20 of the 37 miles we covered. And raspberries, too:One part Grape-Nuts, One part Granola, Raspberries, and dried milk.

This is breakfast on the first morning, the only rain we had the whole trip. Lake Superior was kind of angry just next to us but didn't rush our coffee and cereal. I swear, you could eat nothing but sand on a hiking trip and you'd think it's the best meal you ever had. Something about being outside and tired. Maybe it's the flavor of bugs in your food. Anyway, an hour after this, we came across two kayakers who'd given up on the lake and were actually dragging their kayaks down the trail because the waves were too big. They looked, well, miserable. We were a little wet, but our MSR Hubba Hubba tent had kept us pretty clean that night.