Day 6 began with an early morning 2 track adventure courtesy of a recommendation from the Gibb (thanks Dustin!). I'll spare you all the details of the road, but it was a first gear adventure, with a few spots to remind me that we had another full week ahead of us and to avoid temptation. This particular mudhole carried its own warning - the previous challenger's rear bumper fascia has been shed to add ground clearance for the next attempt.
Once you reach the end of the road, it truly is Paradise Point. If we had more time, there were so many caves & coves to explore. This is going on the short list for another time for sure. Tons of backcountry campsites right on Lake Superior as well.
Once I returned to the campground, it was time to pack up and say goodbye to our site. We loved it here, and our chance booking of site 8 turned out to be the perfect setup for us. Jordan's days of being a pine cone farmer are on hold until the next visit.
We headed out onto the route to Copper Harbor, heading right through downtown Houghton,
across the famous Portage Lake lift bridge,
and past the Quincy Mine site.
When we reached our destination (Fort Wilkins State Park campground), we quickly set up and headed back out of town, about 6-7 miles until we could get close to the one Verizon cell tower on the Keweenaw so Kim could make a call for work. Nice office.
While she was on the phone and I was enjoying a brief connection to the outside world, I get a text from a buddy saying essentially "I just saw you roll through Copper Harbor, I'm at the Brewery." 10 minutes later...
Turns out he had flown his small plane up here with his mountain bike in the back to visit some friends, had been biking the trails and enjoying a post-ride beverage when he saw our whole rig roll through town. In his words, "motorhome dragging that Jeep with a purple bike - there's only one person with that setup, it had to be you". What a strange chance encounter, but if you've ever been to Copper Harbor you would realize that it's not that unlikely. There is one way in and one way out, and the 'downtown' is a single street with one grocery mart and one brewery.
Once we got the site settled, I took off to squeeze in one ride before dark. If you don't like pics of bikes leaning on things, skip the next few days of this blog because we are in mountain biking heaven. Copper Harbor is now designated a Silver Level Ride Center by the IMBA, one of 15 such sites in the world.
The riding is so much fun - intense trails, enough to challenge pretty much any ability level (certainly mine), with amazing scenery, great payoffs for the difficult climbs, and the riders up here are extremely helpful. If you find a local, pick their brains for great trail recommendations as there are so many lines you can link up with all the different trail combinations.
Back at the site, we were getting settled in and enjoying our new surroundings. This one had a totally different feel than Munising, but was cool in its own way. Very secluded and private even though we were on the main drag of the campground.
Since we are always wandering vagabonds on these road trips, this is about as decorated and involved as you will ever see one of our sites. It was perfect, and with 0.0% cell coverage, there is no temptation to respond to that email real quick or fire off a bunch of texts.
It does make keeping up with this blog a challenge, so my apologies if you are attempting to follow real time. This thing will lag for a few days until we can find modern technology here and there.
Tomorrow - hiking, riding, wandering, exploring, and not necessarily in that order.
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