Coastal Trail - Ontario's Lake Superior Provincial Park

[Janice]

24 years ago this month, we moved from the East Coast to Michigan. Before moving, I knew very little about the Great Lakes, only that there were 5 lakes with a nice mnemonic for remembering the names (HOMES) and that Thunder Bay along Lake Superior was really buggy (from when we were there in the 1970s). What a delight it has been to explore the Great Lakes, particularly Michigan and Superior. Over the years, we have enjoyed a variety of day hikes and backpacking trips, and we added a new one to our list at the beginning of July, the Coastal Trail in Ontario's Lake Superior Provincial Park.

I had done my homework for this trip, and everyone said that it was beautiful, rugged, much harder than you would expect, and treacherous when wet. I booked our campsites accordingly, and I have to say that everyone was right about everything. We didn't have enough time to do the whole route (perhaps 6 days) so we just did the northern part which was mostly far away from the highway, in contrast to the southern part. Our original plan was to go for 4 nights, but because of bad weather forecasts, both ahead of time and confirmed by our Garmin InReach on Day 3, we only stayed 3 nights. This proved to be the right choice, as storms rolled in as we were driving home.

Rather than doing an out-and-back, we shuttled to the trailhead at Gargantua Bay, hiked south, and left our car near Coldwater Beach in between campsites 3 and 4, which worked out perfectly since we left after campsite 3. We almost had the place to ourselves. We saw two groups of people at the very start, nobody the rest of Day 1, nobody on Day 2 except for one couple late afternoon, and a few couples on Day 3, including when we did an optional loop around an inland lake which people do as a dayhike. Nobody was camped anywhere near us on any of the nights.

What makes this a hard hike? We constantly went back and forth between the rocky shore and adjacent woods, so we were constantly route finding. I know some on this forum think cairns are problematic, but they are really helpful on this trail. There are blue trail signs in the woods, and the cairns the rangers have placed on the rocks let you know when to go back into the woods. But there were plenty of spots where we had to backtrack and find our way. It wasn't frustrating but was just part of the experience. On the shore, we were rock scrambling most of the time (which was fun), and lots of time in the woods we were climbing up rocks and pulling ourselves up using tree roots. Sometimes the trail was overgrown and we had to backtrack in the woods as well. It was fun but VERY SLOW! I don't record our track while hiking, but based on the expected mileage and the time we spent, I figured sometimes our pace was at least 1.5 hours per mile. Yes, 1.5 hours per mile - that's not a mistake!

Anyway, the scenery was beautiful and there was tremendous variety - in the woods, up high above the water, down on the rocky shore. I cannot believe how many different kinds of rocks are along this coast - lots of types and lots of sizes, from big jagged boulders all the way down to tiny pebbles.

Day 1
Overcast when we started. Fun rock scrambling!




I'm pretty sure this is mourning cloak.




Rose


Inchworm - larva from geometer moth


Based on the leaf and stem, I thought this might have been in the columbine family. I found out later it's rock harlequin in the bleeding heart family, which made sense based on the top of the flower. I really like wildflowersearch.org for flower ID.


We saw lots of moose droppings, but no moose.


Wild serviceberry




Here comes the sun!




I love these lady's slippers! Ever since reading The Legend of the Lady's Slipper to our kids, I have delighted in seeing them.


Canadian bunchberry, which is in the dogwood family


Twinflower


What is that yellow stuff in the water? Something bad like algal blooms? Pollen? We looked it up later and found out that it's...


Pine pollen - from this!


Lots of beautiful pea flowers along the beach


Rhyolite Cove - such a lovely place to camp. Our site was in the woods just behind this glorious spot.




Day 2
Beautfiul morning!






We loved seeing wild ninebark. We have a different variety of ninebark planted at home, and even though the leaf is a different color, the flower is almost the same.




The white patches are mica reflecting the sun. I had to try multiple times to get them to show up in the photo!


So much variety in the rocks!






Walking here was harder than the rock scrambling.


But walking on the sand was very easy!


This cove was so calm, peaceful.


Very lush in the woods - there has been a LOT of rain this summer!




Sometimes the trail took us way up above the water. We loved the views of the islands and coast off in the distance. Other times, the lake stretched as far as the eye can see, like the ocean.


Lots of treasures for us to find - in the woods...


...and on the rocks


Wood sorrel


Northern starflower




Approaching that night's camp at Sand Spit


The official campsite is in the woods, but we set up our tent on the sand and were so glad we did. You might notice the bug net on my husband. There were lots of mosquitoes, but black flies weren't a problem.


These irises were right at the edge of the woods.




Lovely loons! Ever since reading The Legend of the Loon to our kids, I have wanted to see and hear them.


Beautiful evening




Such a perfect way to end a long, tiring, wonderful day.


Day 3
Always so many great rocks!


More of the pine pollen (that we weren't sure was pollen at the time)


We completely understood why people had said it would be treacherous if wet...


Orange lichen


This tiger swallowtail let me watch it for a long time.


I know some of you don't like cairns, but they were part of the trail signage on this trip. Some park ranger had a good time creating this one!


Lots of primrose along the beach


Lots of fungi in the woods










On previous Great Lakes trips, I had seen the blue berries (inedible) from these bluebead plants and was glad to see the flowers at this time.


Strawberry flowers






For Day 3, I built into our plan some flexibility. If we had time and energy, we would do an optional loop around Orphan Lake, which people can access from a different trailhead. We did this loop and were rewarded with great views of the lake and waterfalls from up high and down low.






According to iphoto, this is Enallagma.


Orange hawkweed


We camped that night in the woods along the beach behind these mergansers. At this spot, we were closer to the road than we would have liked, but fortunately the waves crashing against the rocks made lots of wonderful noise to block the occasional sounds from the road.


This park provides you with pretty nice facilities!


Day 4
This was a short day since we only had to walk a mile to our car. Storms were forecasted, and the waves were bigger than on previous days.




Merganser and Piping Plover


This trip worked out really well for us. We're so glad we went!

 

[wsp_scott]

Looks like an awesome are to hike. Any swimming? Or too cold?

 

[regehr]

wow! and I think most of us here would agree that a tasteful cairn, placed tastefully, can be a good thing

 

[Janice]

I'm a total wimp when it comes to cold water, so I didn't swim. My husband went in at Sand Spit (2nd night) and said it was good, probably because of the way the sand and the rock island made a protected, shallow area. We have friends who swim anywhere and if they had been on the trip they probably would have gone in every day!

 

[TractorDoc]

What a great trip @Janice !

Having the Great Lakes nearby is definitely a benefit to being in the Midwest. I'd say your pictures have a rugged/rocky, East coast vibe to them (similar to Acadia NP). . . but I've only been there a handful of times and you lived there, so what do I know?

Lake Erie does not have some of the same backcountry opportunities that one might find around Michigan, Superior, and Huron. . . so your pictures/report are definitely an inspiration to get up to those areas.

I'm glad you guys had a great trip and missed the sketchy weather. The Great Lakes can go from pleasant to scary rather quickly.

 

[Pringles]

Oh, I miss that. I lived in that area for about 20 years and I miss the lake (MY lake), the trees and the plants and the rocks and the flowers… . You named a few that I never knew the names of.

It is a difficult trail for hiking. One friend, after hiking from Gargantua to Katherine Cove (Intending to make it down to Sinclair Cove), just looked stunned and said, “Canadians don’t sue much, do they?” If a US park said that was a “trail,” people would sue about its ruggedness. I remember going North from Gargantua, and hiking along on an old road bed, and then all of a sudden, the trail just vanished for about 25 feet, with a raging water crossing, and then started on the other side. I remember walking up and downstream, looking for a ford, and getting nowhere. So I walked back to the car. A friend and I started at Sinclair Cove, headed to the first campsite, a mile or so away. It took us two hours, and we got lost twice. I remember jumping from refrigerator sized rocks to washer sized rocks through a field. We had stopped to breathe, after climbing an absurdly rocky climb, and looked down, onto a campsite. Hey, that was where WE wanted to be! So we backtracked. The sign pointing out the campsite was small, and high on a tree. Oh. We had a wonderful evening there, watching the sun set on a glass like lake. We had two nights we could spend, but decided that if the weather turned, we’d have a heck of a time getting back, what with proximity to the lake, and wet rocks, and whatnot. We figured that we’d be faster on the way back, not getting lost and knowing what to expect. Yeah, it took about 10 minutes less. One time we went North from Gargantua, and got a beautiful campsite on the North side of the bay. We had just finished eating supper, when we heard a bunch of noise in the woods, on a nearby ridge. In a minute, a moose and two calves ran out of the woods. The cow looked at us, wide eyed and kind of wild. There was a good bit of water between us, so I wasn’t worried that she was going to come at us, but she was in a “mood.” She ran along the shore, toward our beach, and then disappeared into the woods on a portage trail. The two calves looked a little lost, and then followed mom into the woods. A minute or two later, from the same spot the moose had arrived, came a bear with a cub. The sow looked around, wandered on the shore a bit, and then disappeared into the woods, though not where the moose had gone. I was with a first time backpacker, who immediately started banging pans together (MY pans!), to scare the bears. Once they had gone into the woods, she looked at me and asked if we should pack up and hike back to the car. I pointed out that they had all been there before we saw them, and they were once again out of sight, and we were ok. I don’t know if she slept that night. I did. But it was an interesting experience.

Thanks for all the pictures of a place I consider “home.”

 

[Janice]

What a great trip @Janice !

Having the Great Lakes nearby is definitely a benefit to being in the Midwest. I'd say your pictures have a rugged/rocky, East coast vibe to them (similar to Acadia NP). . . but I've only been there a handful of times and you lived there, so what do I know?

Lake Erie does not have some of the same backcountry opportunities that one might find around Michigan, Superior, and Huron. . . so your pictures/report are definitely an inspiration to get up to those areas.

I'm glad you guys had a great trip and missed the sketchy weather. The Great Lakes can go from pleasant to scary rather quickly.

Thanks, fellow Midwesterner!

On the East Coast, I lived only in MD outside of DC and Philly. The beaches in the Mid-Atlantic (and everywhere else along the Atlantic until you get close to Maine) are NOT rocky and rugged at all. Flat, sandy beaches stretch for miles. When I didn't know any better, I loved them, but now I prefer otherwise. I've only been to Maine a few times, but I know its coast is very different from the rest and is much more similar to Lake Superior than what I knew for the first 37 years of my life!

I had a feeling Erie doesn't provide the kind of adventure that Michigan and Superior do. I assume Ontario is similar to Erie. (Correct?) We haven't spent much time at Huron, but I know there are some interesting parts such as the Bruce Peninsula. Hopefully we'll get there sometime soon!

 

[Janice]

Oh, I miss that. I lived in that area for about 20 years and I miss the lake (MY lake), the trees and the plants and the rocks and the flowers… . You named a few that I never knew the names of.

It is a difficult trail for hiking. One friend, after hiking from Gargantua to Katherine Cove (Intending to make it down to Sinclair Cove), just looked stunned and said, “Canadians don’t sue much, do they?” If a US park said that was a “trail,” people would sue about its ruggedness. I remember going North from Gargantua, and hiking along on an old road bed, and then all of a sudden, the trail just vanished for about 25 feet, with a raging water crossing, and then started on the other side. I remember walking up and downstream, looking for a ford, and getting nowhere. So I walked back to the car. A friend and I started at Sinclair Cove, headed to the first campsite, a mile or so away. It took us two hours, and we got lost twice. I remember jumping from refrigerator sized rocks to washer sized rocks through a field. We had stopped to breathe, after climbing an absurdly rocky climb, and looked down, onto a campsite. Hey, that was where WE wanted to be! So we backtracked. The sign pointing out the campsite was small, and high on a tree. Oh. We had a wonderful evening there, watching the sun set on a glass like lake. We had two nights we could spend, but decided that if the weather turned, we’d have a heck of a time getting back, what with proximity to the lake, and wet rocks, and whatnot. We figured that we’d be faster on the way back, not getting lost and knowing what to expect. Yeah, it took about 10 minutes less. One time we went North from Gargantua, and got a beautiful campsite on the North side of the bay. We had just finished eating supper, when we heard a bunch of noise in the woods, on a nearby ridge. In a minute, a moose and two calves ran out of the woods. The cow looked at us, wide eyed and kind of wild. There was a good bit of water between us, so I wasn’t worried that she was going to come at us, but she was in a “mood.” She ran along the shore, toward our beach, and then disappeared into the woods on a portage trail. The two calves looked a little lost, and then followed mom into the woods. A minute or two later, from the same spot the moose had arrived, came a bear with a cub. The sow looked around, wandered on the shore a bit, and then disappeared into the woods, though not where the moose had gone. I was with a first time backpacker, who immediately started banging pans together (MY pans!), to scare the bears. Once they had gone into the woods, she looked at me and asked if we should pack up and hike back to the car. I pointed out that they had all been there before we saw them, and they were once again out of sight, and we were ok. I don’t know if she slept that night. I did. But it was an interesting experience.

Thanks for all the pictures of a place I consider “home.”

Wow - what a report! That completely fits with what we now know about this trail. I remember some of the blue trail signs were on trees that were down so we missed them until we backtracked and eventually noticed them.

What a trip for a first-time backpacker! Did she ever backpack again???

Thanks for sharing all this. It was so fun to read and picture everything after just having been there.

 

[scatman]

Wonderful report @Janice . I especially like the inchworm photo, and all the wildflowers shots, particularly the ones that I am unfamiliar with.

I'm afraid our group has you beat - we averaged about 0.7 miles per hour on day three of our Salt River Range Trip.

 

[Janice]

Wonderful report @Janice . I especially like the inchworm photo, and all the wildflowers shots, particularly the ones that I am unfamiliar with.

I'm afraid our group has you beat - we averaged about 0.7 miles per hour on day three of our Salt River Range Trip.

Thanks, @scatman. I guess there are a lot of places out there that are slow-going!

 

[Bob]

Wonderful report @Janice . I especially like the inchworm photo, and all the wildflowers shots, particularly the ones that I am unfamiliar with.

I'm afraid our group has you beat - we averaged about 0.7 miles per hour on day three of our Salt River Range Trip.

Could be it was because of the hikers ages?

 

[Pringles]

I don’t know if that was her first time, or one of her first times. She was Canadian, and so we went to Lake Superior Provincial Park. I usually did about half and half there, and at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Until 9/11, and then it would take a long time to get through Customs, and so I would just go to Pictured Rocks. I assume we did at least one or two more weekends, but I don’t remember.

I believe you said you started at Gargantua? I had been told by someone that the bridge washed out a few years ago, and the provincial government wasn’t going to replace it, so I figured Gargantua was essentially no longer an entry point. And since it had been the northernmost entry point, I figured not many would make it up that far. Did you actually start at Gargantua Bay? Did you see the old fish processing (I think) building? It was old and grayed when I was there, but looked solid enough. I don’t know when it was used last. It might still be used. I don’t know. I think it was native. At the back of the bay there was a sunken boat. I assume it had a problem, and they just lit it on fire and pushed it out. You could see it from the beach, and it was in shallow water, so we could maybe have waded out, but that water was cold. But that building, I think, was why the trail was kind of a cobble road. It wasn’t a great road, but an intrepid someone could likely drive a Jeep or a horse and wagon on it, from the parking area north, and then curl around to the back side of the bay, and finally the last little bit to the building. The road went on north, and I went that way a few times, but the trail veered away from the road and dropped down to a stream crossing. The trail led directly to the water, where there was a bridge with nice decking, supported by two boulders. Then there was end of the decking, and the support, and kind of the trail. There was a gap, with the next place to “be,” was the top of an uneven boulder, about 8 feet away. Between the boulders, was a rushing, gushing stream. When I try to describe the Coastal Trail, I say that you’ll walk on a beautiful cobble pathway for four miles, and then stand slack jawed and say “How the… ?” at the next 20 feet.

I loved the Orphan Lake Trail. You did the whole loop, you said. If you went from the Coastal Trail inland, and after you crossed the bridge, went left, you would go through a green, mossy area that was so wet that it practically squished. It was beautiful. I went the other ways, sometimes, in late June. That was wen the pink lady slippers would bloom. There were armies of them. It was a pretty glorious pink parade. When they weren’t supposed to be blooming, I usually went the other way.

In 2005, I was supposed to go to New Orleans, but there was that hurricane problem. So I decided I’d go over the lake to Thunder Bay. As I was driving through the park, there were two backpackers going my way, and the had their thumbs out. I don’t pick up hitch hikers. But within the next ten miles I had convinced myself that people had picked me up when I needed a ride and I should pick them up. So I turned around and hoped that they had already been picked up. Nope. So I turned around and asked where they were hoping to go. They wanted to go to Grgantua. It would be easy enough to get them to Gargantua, but back into the bay, that’s a kind of long, lousy road. But again, people had helped me. I had a lot of stuff in my car, and they (father and 16-ish year old son) had big packs. We decided to stash the packs in some brush and I’d take them. The man thought about it a little, and said he thought he could make it fit. So he did, and we took off for Gargantua. They had been hiking a few days, and the son had twisted his ankle on one of the cobble beaches. He looked miserable. He looked hopeless. Dad did the talking. The son just looked deflated. We headed down Gargantua Road. I pulled to the side, because a vehicle was approaching from behind, when I thought to flag that vehicle down. He was already going to Gargantua! That guy was willing to take the hikers back. The son, still sitting mostly lifeless in the back seat of my car, said, “I’ll just wait here.” I’m laughing about that. I know that feeling, when every ounce of energy is gone, and something hurts, and the rest of your body aches if you move. Dad convinced him to eat out, and climb in the back of the pickup that was going to take them the rest of the way. He’d already moved the packs. And that was the last I saw of them. I sure remember those glassy eyes.

I also met with a young couple. The man had just finished a NOLS class, and was going to take his dearly beloved backpacking. It was going to be wonderful. She’d love it. After a couple of days, they were two days behind schedule. He said they’d get lost (how could that happen?) or have to rock scramble (autocorrect made that screamble, which I kind of like). I don’t mean to laugh at others’ hardships, but people would start all happy, with their hats at a rakish angle, and three hours later look like they were failing the Marine/Ranger/Seal obstacle course. That’s why when I found a good hike, I’d go there repeatedly. I wouldn’t get lost, I wouldn’t fear for my life, I’d just go in, set up and drink coffee while watching the waves come in. It’s a beautiful place.

If you are ever planning on going back there, or that vicinity, let me know. I have suggestions. To safe, sane places.

 

[Janice]

Thanks for the offer of advice in the future @Pringles.

I don't know if the roads have changed in the time since you've been there. There's a rough dirt road from Hwy 17 to a little parking area by Gargantua Bay. Maybe it's the same road you're describing? We got shuttled there by Uwanna Cab company from Wawa. Here's a map showing the area and you can see the road and where we started hiking at the beginning of the orange route. We considered going north of Gargantua but with limited time we decided not to do the out-and-back. But I had read that there are beautiful campsites up there - perhaps that's where you were.

 

[Pringles]

Yes, that road’s the one I took my two hitchhikers down, though not all the way. I’ve not made it to Chalfant Cove, but I’ve been to Warp Bay, and I’ve kayaked up to Devil’s Chair. The whole place is stunning. I had always wanted to go to Chalfant Cove, but I got turned back because the trail wasn’t really passable as you got near Warp Bay (that rushing, gushing river). My goodness, there were beautiful campsites there.

There’s a train that runs from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and goes up into a beautiful canyon. Most days it is filled with tourists. The train takes ‘em up, lets people out to wander for an hour or two while they switch the seats to facing the other way (really), and then everybody gets in and rides back. Canoeists will get hauled up, and dropped off, to paddle down to the lake. I knew a guy who had been there forever. Maybe a little less than forever, but a long time. He told that when he was young, he and friends would go down the river. In the spring it would be flooded and there would be no place to set up camp. The natives (or old French?) had built tree platforms to stay on, for when the ground wasn’t available. I always thought it was made up, but Maurice was that kind of guy who didn’t make up things like that. There was another trail that led from the road, inland. I had two students come back from their excursions on that trail (they weren’t together, and probably didn’t know each other). They had hiked inland, and the further they got, the less far they wanted to go. But they knew if they made it up there, there were railroad tracks, and they could walk out that way. So, each, on their own trips, climbed the last little bit from the end of the trail, up to the tracks, and walked back to the nearest road crossing, where they finagled a ride back to their vehicles. Then during the next week, they would stop by my office to tell me about their adventures.

Anyway, again, thank you for the story and pictures. I’ve enjoyed it very much.

 

[Janice]

And thank you for adding all of your stories!