Door days: Traversing 2 of Wisconsin best islands in 6 workouts
Let’s start this story at the end. This ending is populated by three sandhill cranes.
The cranes were basking in the new morning sun, pecking through the grass of the field overlooking the Rock Island dock. I paused briefly during the final meters of my run to pull out my phone for a photo. On any given run, always a bird, sometimes a photo. Then the guilt set in.
When the body is in movement, propelled forward by legs pumping, mechanical, inviting metronomic metaphors, whether graceful or not, clearly in The Zone — call it the “runner’s high,” if you are of that generation — why, oh why would one stop cold to take a photo? Of a bird?! I thought about this for a moment, after I had taken out my phone camera but before I had snapped its digital shutter. And I knew the guilty answer: For Strava.
We run so that we will have activities on Strava. It’s a social network, but unlike Facebook, you have to at least pretend that you are being athletic so you will have some activity to boast about to your followers. And on Strava, as on other social networking apps, the photo is the thing. So, snap snap, and those three sandhill cranes were magically embedded in my camera roll for future posting. I continued on, wondering if I had really captured the essence of this great Door County island, or if I had just taken mediocre photos of a breed of bird that, however stately and majestic, had already worked its way into my camera roll many times before. During previous Strava activities.
A bleaker thought also invaded: Why was I running in the first place? Why was I experiencing Rock Island this way, with scenery flashing past me and seldom stopping to smell the roses? The thought came up again and again as I camped with my family on Rock Island over Labor Day weekend and as we ventured a bit around the nearby Washington Island, another one of Wisconsin’s best. To be in nature requires simply to be. In nature. The human mind that can embrace such simplicity of existence may transcend the complexities of modern life. Maybe someday transcendence will come. Failing that, I ran, I paddled, I biked, I hiked and I have these six Strava workouts to show for it.
Day 1: Rock Island lighthouse hike, 1.5 miles
Camping on Rock Island is my family’s annual tradition, and hiking to the lighthouse is a tradition of its own, one that generates angsty melodrama in my three sons. They inevitably protest the idea of any kind of hike, even though their young limbs are more than capable of walking up and down the gradual slope on the western side of Rock Island.
A quick word about Rock Island for the uninitiated. The entire island is a state park and encompasses about 1,000 acres, forming the northern point of Door County. Stand on the north side of Rock Island, and you can see the beginning of Michigan. To get to Rock Island you need to take a passenger ferry called the Karfi from Washington Island, and to get to Washington Island you take a car ferry from the mainland. But more about Washington Island in a bit.
The Pottawatomie Lighthouse sits on a high point on the northwest corner of Rock Island, with sheer bluffs down to Lake Michigan below. The light dates back to 1836, and the lighthouse was home to a revolving cast of keepers over the decades until its function was automated in 1956. Now, during summers, docents bunk for a week at a time in the historic structure and give tours to visitors like us. We’ve done the tour enough times now that we are able to anticipate much of its content, from the ice harvested from the lake in winter to the traveling library boxes that would arrive by ship along with other supplies. And it’s cool just to climb up the tower and look out on the distant blue horizon.
For the boys, it’s an obvious hike destination, even if they argue whether they should be spending their vacation doing something so strenuous that doesn’t resemble any known team sport. I’ve learned to just let them vent and keep moving foward. It’s just a walk in the woods, I tell them. And of course, I’m thinking back to the great hikes I used to take with my grandparents in Western Massachusetts. In so many ways, those hikes of my childhood were nothing like this hike up Rock Island. On the other hand, a hike is a hike is a wonderful walk in the woods, and I am always grateful.
Day 1: Fernwood, Havamal and Blueberry, 4.5-mile run
Another benefit of a lighthouse hike is that the lighthouse is a decent starting point for an island run. So as Liz and the boys set off south back to the campground, I turned east for a trail run.
I’ve run on Rock Island quite a bit over the years, but this was something new. Instead of looping the island, I wanted to check out some of the interior trails. After following the rooty path along the top of the northern bluffs, I hit an intersection and turned onto the Fernwood Trail, which passes through the center of the island. Alternately rocky and grassy, the trail is wide enough for an ATV to pass through, and the degree of difficulty was boosted by rolling hills.
Fernwood emptied back on the main trail south, but soon I was turning inland again onto the Havamal Trail, which cuts a nearly straight light to the east side of the island. My theory on the name is that some early settler was walking across the island with his sons, who started complaining. So the settler said, “Look, boys, quit complaining it’s just halvamile more to the fishing village.” But the Havamal Trail is NOT half a mile. More like a full mile.
Anyway, I made it to the fishing village, or what once was the site of a fishing village, and snapped a photo of the water tower, the most notable structure in that part of the island. Then south to the “rutabega field” and the start of the Blueberry Trail back to the boathouse, dock and campground. I got back just as Liz and the boys were reaching our campsite. Fancy meeting you guys here!
Day 1: Is this what an ocean feels like? (.7-mile paddle)
Here is where I reveal that, despite my love for island life, I am completely terrified of the lake. Any lake of significant size, but especially the Great Lakes. The mysterious depths under that deep blue surface can plunge my mind in spiraling what-ifs, imagining my body sinking slowly down as I breathe my last. I take ice-cold water into my lungs. Schools of fish laugh at me. Lake Michigan swallows.
There is a hidden world under the surface of the water, and it is horrifying.
It is an irrational fear, one that has never dissuaded me from enjoying myself AROUND the water and appreciating its ferocious natural beauty. That said, I will also feel a nagging apprehension about paddling a kayak on Lake Michigan, no matter how calm the waters may appear. Navigators much more skilled than I have met their doom over the years by underestimating this inland sea.
But we had brought our kayak to the island on the Karfi, and I had to test it out. Our campsite was on the shore of the island’s southwest peninsula, so I was able to put in on the rocky beach there and paddle toward the peninsula’s point. The water seemed calm enough. Then at the point, wind-fueled currents converged, and I pointed the nose of the boat into the waves that were crashing over the sand bar. Suddenly, I was in a new world of open-sea rapids and fighting to stay upright, getting tossed about by the roiling rise and fall.
My initial plan to meet Liz and the boys at the sandy beach nearby was a fool’s errand, and rather than be smashed to death on the rocks ahead, I steered directly to shore, gave up and walked. Better to live to paddle another day.
Day 2: Rock to Washington, 1.5-mile paddle
Another day was today.
Despite my lingering reservations, the wind had died down, and the water seemed calm enough to attempt the main event, a paddle from Rock Island to Washington Island. Liz and the boys followed on the Karfi.
Let’s dwell a bit on the Karfi. Ferry rides are fun. And they are safe. We have taken the Karfi to Rock Island in nearly monsoon conditions and, though arriving wet, we arrived with all our limbs in tact and lungs filled with air rather than the watery alternative. And I had a ticket to ride the Karfi with the rest of my crew. I had no ticket to paddle, didn’t need one, but I might as well have dropped my Karfi ticket into the water by taking the kayak. So why do it? The paddling was rougher than on a flat-water lake, and the waves seen coming over the sandbar still gave my heart spasms. It was no place to relax.
Why paddle? Could it be that I was just trying to create The Map? By the time I made it to Jackson Harbor on Washington Island, I had traced a red line that would be available for all my Strava followers to see. I made it! I am a kayaking badass!
Was this the old social media narcissism at work?
The short answer is, probably. But as I sat in that kayak, about halfway between islands, and passed over the high point in the middle of the straight and saw the solid ground mere feet below the hull and looked out to the Karfi making its way along the same route, an inscrutable feeling of calmness and joy came over me. Oh so fleeting. And I was back to paddling and fearing the worst. Sometimes, those fleeting moments of serenity make the rest of life’s abiding terror worth it.
Of course I took a photo.
Day 2: Washington Island circle tour, 26-mile bike
Getting to Washington Island by my own arm strengh was only half of the day’s adventure. My bike was in the back of the van in the Jackson Harbor parking lot. After dragging the kayak out of the water, I turned my focus toward the strength of the legs and hopped on the bike. Intermodal!
Liz and the boys drove the van around Washington Island a bit, while I attempted an island circle tour. I had attempted this once before, while we were camping at the Washington Island campground in 2020 (Rock Island was closed that year because of high water). I ended that first attempt after just half the island, my plans cut short by a desire to get back to camp at a reasonable hour. Now, I had a faster bike, more time to kill and an unwillingness to let reason hold me back.
And what a beautiful ride it was! Sunny, mild, light breeze, nature giving a late-summer performance. I stuck to the main roads and skipped side routes, though my 26 miles included an additional loop around the southwestern nub of the island while I was waiting for Liz and the boys to meeting me for a lunch of pizza near Detroit Harbor.
The back end of this route was exhilarating, following the shoreline almost perfectly. The only exception was the shore north of Percy Johnson County Park. For some reason, there is no through road there, so I had to bike inland a bit, then north and back to the shore to continue on my journey.
But first, I stopped at Percy Johnson for the obligatory Bike Portrait With Scenic Background. As I did, an older couple approached me and asked what I was up to. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what they were after, but they quickly explained that they love to circle the island too, sometimes by bike, and they were thrilled to hear that was my goal. They also like to kayak off the eastern shore, though it was too windy that day. They were just driving around. They warned me that some of the roads on the west side had been graveled. Sticking to the main roads allowed me to avoid that, I said. They were a cheerful couple, and I was glad to make their acquaintance before finishing my ride.
Liz and the boys had already made it to Jackson Harbor when I arrived there, so I threw the bike into the back of the van. The kayak went on top. There would be no more paddling or pedaling. We took the Karfi back to Rock Island.
Day 3: Rock Island sunrise run, 5 miles
Before closing up camp, I got up early for the quintessential Rock Island workout, a full loop of the island on the Thordarson Trail. It is named for Chester Thordarson, the Chicago electrical innovator who once developed Rock Island as his personal vacation retreat, until his death in 1945. The island was purchased by the state from Thordarson’s heirs in 1965. His boathouse still stands as the island’s most recognizable landmark and is filled with artifacts and decor that reflect his Icelandic heritage.
There is a sign in the campground that claims the Thordarson Trail is 6.5 miles, but I knew from experience that it is really only about 5 miles. I’ve run that loop several times before, but I couldn’t remember a time I had run it counter-clockwise. This morning, with the sun still threatening to blast through the treeline, I walked over to the boathouse for my starting line and decided to run east.
In either direction, the Thordarson Trail can be a clarifying experience. I can point to no epiphanies from that run, but running down that familiar trail, past the remote campsites, past the rutabega field and water tower, past the lighthouse and then down the hill past Thordarson’s grand wooden gate, the experience felt like a necessary corrective to the baggage of civilized life on the mainland. The final mile was downhill, with historic cabins in the foreground, the bold peninsula of the island and its extending sandbar in the background and Washington Island beyond that.
A perfect picture. I stopped to take it.
And not just because I wanted to add it to Strava, though I certainly did that, along with the final photo of the three sandhill cranes. I needed to stop. PRs and kudos could wait, if they happened at all. Forward momentum was not as important in that moment as savoring the sight of a guileless world that has so much to offer a humble nomad like myself. I framed the moment as best as I could, clicked the digital capture, then finished my run back to the boathouse, dreaming of the day I would be able to return.
