Adventures in Volunteering: Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

The S.O. and I spent the month of September functioning as campground hosts at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. This was our second time at the Hurricane River Campground, which made the whole experience much smoother than the previous year. We knew exactly what we were getting into. The biggest mystery was what type of attagirl swag we'd get at the end of the month. Turned out to be coffee cups,  a whistle that can double as a key ring, and stickers. Last year we got baseball caps, lapel pins, and stickers. We'd have gotten the caps again this year except we already had some. (The baseball caps actually appear on the first day as a VIP; it's part of the uniform that helps identify the camp hosts to the public.)

Among other certainties, we knew that the one phrase we were going to be uttering a lot was, "Hey, you fucking moron, don't you know what 'No Parking' means?" Well, okay, we didn't phrase it quite the way we were thinking it. What actually came out of the mouth was "Excuse me, ma'am, but this is a fire lane. You can't park here. The sign right next to your car does say 'No Parking.' Seriously. You can not park here. Yes, you have to move to the parking lot. Really. The parking lot. Yes, it does mean you'll have a longer walk to the light house. Yes, it'll turn a mile-and-a-half walk into a mile and six-tenths one way." And so it went. . . the downside to the host's camp site being right next to the Au Sable Lighthouse Trail/North Country Trail, which at that point is a gated access road to the light station. People would pull up by that gate on a regular basis and then get annoyed when they were told to move.

That whole business with people being reluctant to walk an extra 500 feet never failed to amuse me. You're planning a round-trip walk of at least three miles, not to mention the wandering around the light station grounds and maybe climbing a fairly tall tower, but you can't handle having another 2/10ths of a mile tacked on to it? Unreal. The totally predictable part, of course, is that it was generally someone who looked remarkably fit who was reluctant to do any extra walking. The ancient old ladies dragging oxygen bottles and pushing walkers never complained. They just headed up the road with a determined look and came back a few hours later still with a spring in their step, sort of. Or as much of a spring in their step as anyone who looked like a relative of the Crypt Keeper could manage.

Au Sable Lighthouse Trail. People loved to park right in front of the gate (which has a no parking sign on it) or right next to the No Parking sign on a post to the left in the photo. 

I wasn't the only one who noticed that the geezers weren't fazed while the young dudes who looked like gym rats would be collapsing from exhaustion. One of the interpretive rangers who worked at the light station told me he regularly had ostensibly fit young people asking about a shuttle service back to the parking lot while the senior citizens just smiled and kept on truckin'. More proof looks can be deceiving -- just because someone looks healthy doesn't mean they are and vice versa.

Ever wonder just exactly what a brick shithouse would look like? Wonder no more. The Au Sable Light Station has two, one of which is in this photo. It's the small structure on the left. The other two small buildings are paint and oil lockers. 

Anyway. Pictured Rocks. Hurricane River. Wrote about both before but that's not going to stop me from nattering on a third time. Hurricane River is a small campground with a total of a mere 22 sites (including the host's). It is a true campground, completely basic, no amenities other than fairly new vault toilets and a source for potable water. There is a well with a solar-powered pump so people can fill containers. The sites in general are nicely laid out and are great for tent camping. For RV campers, though, probably not so much. The parking pads tend to be narrow even when they're long enough so anyone with slides could have issues. Most of the sites have the added issue of not being particularly level. I know with the Guppy the S.O. had to put a fair amount of blocking under the right rear wheels.

It's not obvious from this photo, but this is a great site in the lower loop for tent camping. It opens up a lot past the parking pad -- lots of space for a tent, a sun/rain canopy over the picnic table, nice fire ring, and lots of trees to screen you from the other camp sites. For an RV, though? Marginal for anything bigger than a Class B. The narrow pad has a distinct slope. 

We did not see many RVs this year, definitely fewer than last year.  Most campers used tents. For those who had an RV of any sort, the micro teardrop trailers seemed to be the most popular piece of equipment with pop-ups and Class Bs a close second, particularly on the lower loop. The upper loop is better suited for larger travel trailers and motorhomes, and we did see a fair number of both up there. The most astounding was probably a 40-foot Class A. They did manage to pick the one site in the loop that is  the easiest to back into, but that was probably sheer dumb luck and not planning. We heard from some locals that they had encountered that same Class A when its GPS sent it down an ATV trail instead of the county highway. They came into the campground to see if the people had managed to find Hurricane River after they'd told the driver how to get back to a real road.

Found at one of the camp sites. It had a cute little saying on the back. I threw it in the trash. Painted rocks, cute or not, are litter and in the same class as discarded water bottles and other debris. They violate the Leave No Trace ethic. 

We also saw a huge 5th wheel in the upper loop. They weren't as lucky as the Class A. We could tell from the tracks in the dirt that it had taken the driver multiple tries to get the trailer where it needed to go -- it was a very tight turn with a couple of rather large trees on either side of the parking pad. Never did see the owners when we were making our regular patrols through the loops. If I had, I'd have been tempted to ask them just how much K-Y they'd had to use to get the trailer on to the site.

Beelzebub napping in the Guppy. I wasn't sure how he'd take to being stuck in a space that small, but it turned out mice had moved in sometime in late August. He found ways to amuse himself. The mice did not have as a good a time. 

There had been changes at the park. Dogs are now allowed on the lighthouse trail. Last year they weren't so we were in the uncomfortable position of telling people if/when we spotted someone with a dog that they had to take the beast back to their car. I have some thoughts about the folks who want their dogs to accompany them everywhere they go -- I don't think it's such a hot idea to be walking a dog anyplace that's both crowded and has a lot of other dogs around because no matter how behaved your beast is you never know if some other idiot has Cujo on an inadequate leash. (Small digression: we were at Tahquamenon Falls on Labor Day and witnessed a couple walking a large dog that snapped and growled at every other dog it saw and almost bit a kid. That dog definitely should not have been in a state park on a super busy day.) But if the Park Service has decided dogs are now allowed on trails where they weren't before, I'm going to be quietly relieved that's one less thing I'm required to nag people about.

The S.O. working hard at camp hosting.

Another huge change is the park went to all campsites being available by reservation only. It is a real-time system. If you come to the campground and think a site might be available, you can get on the Internet, go to Recreation.gov, check on the site, and pay for it immediately. I talked with campers who had reserved their site while stopped at the Grand Sable Visitor Center 20 minutes before arriving at the campground.

I think it's a great system. No questions about whether or not a site is available, no having to get to the campground super early in the hopes that someone is leaving. And no one cheating NPS by failing to put money into the envelope like they did back when camping was first come, first served and payment was on the honor system. We heard a few complaints from people who didn't realize it was now reservation only until after they arrived at the park, but considering the campground was close to 100% occupancy until the last few days of the month I'd say most people had done their research. I know one annoyance is now gone -- the large number of cars and trucks coming into the campground and circling repeatedly hoping to see that someone has vacated a site.

Hurricane River flowing straight out, at least for a day or two. 

We did have one site where people managed to completely ignore the multiple signs all saying camping was by reservation only and set up on a site. I had to give them the bad news the site was reserved by someone else and they had to take all their stuff down and leave. They weren't happy, but they complied without much argument. As camp hosts, we received a report each morning listing the names of incoming campers. It helped. Except for that one incident we didn't have anyone trying to squat on a reserved site, but it was still reassuring to be able to do random spot checks to make sure people belonged there. And for sure it helped a lot to have a clipboard in my hand with a multi-page printout as I told the unauthorized campers that if their names weren't on the printout they were SOL on that particular site. If they were lucky, the state forest campground a few miles down the highway had space -- and all state forest campgrounds are still walk-in, first-come, first-serve. (Michigan state parks do use a reservation system, but they also have staff on-site and offer more amenities than the campgrounds.)

One first this time around was people wanting to park vehicles on the tent pads. Had one guy who had one of those nifty tents that's mounted on the box of a pickup position his truck right on the tent pad -- his reasoning was that it was the one level space. True, but he was lucky he didn't get stuck. Tent pads are designed to be comparatively soft. They're periodically maintained to keep the dirt from becoming too compacted. Another dude backed his pop-up camper onto a tent pad using the same reasoning: the pad is level. Given that he was already on one of the flattest sites in the campground, I wasn't real sympathetic. Pop-ups are remarkably easy to level almost anywhere. I gave him the speech about never parking on a tent pad because they're soft and you can easily get stuck, too. I doubt if it registered.

We did tell the park we'd be happy to come back next year. September is a great time to be at Pictured Rocks. The bugs are gone -- Hurricane River would be an obvious mecca for mosquitoes and biting stable flies in the hotter months; there's a lot of swamp around it -- and the weather has that nifty crisp feel to it. When the sun shines, the sky is an incredible shade of blue and so is the Lake. And when it's rainy and the wind is blowing, the wave action on the Lake is nicely dramatic. Large waves always mean getting to play the "which way will the river flow out now?" game. The mouth of the Hurricane River changed on an almost daily basis. Sometimes it went straight out, sometimes it swung west, sometimes it swung east, and on at least once occasion it split: long sand bar right in the middle and the river going around it. You know life is good when the biggest question each day is which way is the river flowing now?