I write this with sore feet and a tired body at Windigo.  We've picked shelter 15, which is the first one.  I'm hoping for a moose sighting.   Today we saw three solo hikers.  The first guy was from South Carolina and we saw him on the west side of Mt. Desor.  We stopped and chatted and traded stories of those we passed.  I asked about the young athlete.  He said he stopped and talked with him.  He was hiking the Greenstone to Windigo then heading back on the tough Minong Ridge making an 8 day trip.  The guy we were talking with considered himself in excellent shape and was making the same trip in 10 daysp.  He asked about the Swedish sunbathers.  We told him how we ran into them.  He started the day at Windigo and had been hiking for 4+ hours.  We knew that was mostly uphill for him so it would be downhill for us.  This was mid-morning so it made us feel good.  However, he confirmed that everything including the showers were shut down in Windigo.  Bummer.  He had been carrying a little radio and said we should have sunshine the next couple of days.  We had been predicting the weather by looking at the sky.  Again today it was real blue -- not a cloud in sight.   The trail today lacked summits with scenic views.  Mt Desor and Sugar Mountain are covered with maple trees even though they are the highest points on the island.  The trail went through a dense forest with little sun shining through.  This made for a real nice trail however.  There were very few rocks to stumble over and not as much mud as in the past.  It was hard to find landmarks however.  I could find the markings for the summits, however, everything else was hard to determine.  So we just kept hiking hoping to get to Windigo.  We did reach Sugar Mountain at noon and looked forward to a quick afternoon of downhill hiking.  Shortly after lunch we were back on the trail and we ran into NPS Volunteer Ranger Bill who is a retired school teacher from Ohio.  He was on his way to Island Mine campground for the night.  This was the campground we by-passed in favor of a shelter tonight at Windigo.  Bill was very informative and fun to talk to.  I would have enjoyed sharing yarns over a camp stove.  He explained how the work crews would be hitting the trails with chain saws, etc.  They do a real nice job with this place.  I particularly like the boardwalks that save the wet lands and the toilets in the remote campsites.  My hat is off to these people.  The third guy we talked with got to Island Mine last night, but his stove didn't work.  He hiked back to Windigo to clean his stove and to get clean fuel.  He had a long trip back to Island Mine from where we saw him.

Well, it is about time to light the stove for drinks and beef stroganoff - backpack food.  This package weighed almost 2 lbs and felt like 10 lbs.  Chas and his buddies carried this meal throughout their Wind River trip and I carried it the whole 42 miles of Isle Royale.  We won't eat it all, but there are garbage cans here.