Bikepack to the UP Day 3

Waking up on day 3, it was nice to know that today's route would be 30 miles shorter than the previous day.  The morning was beautiful and I was looking forward to the quick 3 miles into Park Falls on the Tuscobia Trail.  Regardless of it's condition I had decided that 3 miles was perfectly doable and it was the most direct route to a gas station breakfast burrito and hot coffee.  

Fairly good condition on this section of the Tuscobia

I hit Park Falls and pulled into the first gas station available.  I came out with a muffin, a breakfast burrito, pint of choc milk, a banana and a cup of coffee.  Poured some milk into the coffee to cool it off for fast drinking and slammed down the muffin and banana.  The burrito was too hot and would be my treat 5 miles down the road.  After two full days of riding I was getting settled into the simplicity of ride, eat, drink ride, eat drink sleep.  I had a few miles of tar to get me out of town and then a nice section of gravel. 

The next 14 miles of gravel sounded good to me.

The roadside fresh fruit stand

Some of the only traffic on Blockhouse Lake rd.

A little gnome shrine along Hwy 182

I reached Manitowish Waters early in the afternoon and was ready for some lunch.  This being the last decent sized town before Henry Lake, where I was camping, I also picked up some rice and tuna for supper.

Asian sounded good for lunch at the Market in Manitowish Waters.  Also pictured, tonights dinner.

While planning the trip I made a point to find out where the WinMan trails were located.  Tim Wegner, the trail builder extraordinaire, had done some work on the new trail system and I knew I'd be riding through near the area so I planned to hit a little singletrack en route.  

Things couldn't have worked any better.  I rolled out of Manitowish Waters and hit the trailhead just in time to run into a local member of the trail crew.  I had a unique bike setup and he had quite a unique vehicle.  We immediately started up a conversation and soon after that I was being ferried to the newest section of trail and had a first hand guide of what to hit before I set out down the forest road for Presque Isle. 

The awesome trail work vehicle owned by crew member Rick Gehring.

About 7 miles of great doubletrack riding 

Forest road into Henry Lake Campground in Michigan

Fishing dock on Henry Lake

I rolled into camp with about 45 mins of daylight left and had the entire place to myself.  Quickly got my tent set up and some of my clothing organized for the next day.  The mosquitoes were pretty bad so I was now thankful that I had decided to pack a small tube of deet.  It worked like a charm.  I was also glad that I packed the water purifying tablets because once I finally found the campground water pump, what came out of it, looked like what usually comes out of me.

I was able to get a cell signal out on the dock so I made a call back to Kerry and checked in on a few websites and then had a late dinner before going to bed.  I tried not to think too much about the forecasted storm system that I had heard was moving in for the next day.