What I Ate While Backpacking Isle Royale

I went on my first backpacking trip to Isle Royale a few weeks ago, and I had such a great time exploring the small island surrounded by Lake Superior. I went with three of my friends, and we ended up hiking around 37 miles total over four days. We camped at Three Mile, Daisy Farm, and Moskey Basin. We were pretty lucky that it barely rained during our trip, and we even plunged into Lake Superior one day after our hike.

Every day I looked forward to heating up one of my backpacking meals for dinner at the end of the day. I was pleasantly surprised with how delicious the backpacking food was. All I has to do was add boiling water to the package, stir, and wait for the food to moisten. I’ve learned to add a little less water than what it calls for to make the food less watery. Both Backpacker’s Pantry and Mountain House have a variety of vegetarian/vegan options with my favorites being the Pad Thai, Kathmandu Curry, and Veggie Chorizo Breakfast Scramble.

I used the Sawyer squeeze water filter to filter water from Lake Superior, and I couldn’t believe how clean the water tasted. Already looking forward to my next backpacking trip – whenever that may be.

After returning to society, we stopped at The Mariner North for dinner. I ordered this delicious black bean burger with sweet potato fries. I always crave a burger and a beer after hiking, and the starboard veggie burger really made returning to society worth it.

On the drive back to Chicago, we had to stop for some cheese curds in Wisconsin. First we stopped at the Mars Cheese Castle, which is easily spotted right off the highway before the Illinois state line, but they didn’t have any cheese curds at the moment. One of the employees directed us to visit Rivals Sports Pub and Grill for their delicious cheese curds instead, and we all had a lovely time snacking on bar food and beer. As the city lights came into view I was already missing the sunsets on the little island in Lake Superior.