Hi folks- Warning: this post may be completely uninteresting unless you are planning trips to the Apostle Islands this year... Some friends called my attention to the Trek and Trail catalog for this year. They are the biggest outfitter/guide service in the Apostle Islands, and have long been one of the main kayak users of the islands. This year however, they seem to have taken a saturation approach to booking their trips. They have 4 overnight trips scheduled weekly Memorial Day through Labor Day, 3 of them weekend trips with Friday/Saturday night stays mainly on Sand and Oak Islands. In the case of Sand, they have two camping sites scheduled every Saturday night. This leaves only two small sites on the island for every other outfitter, club, or, god help them, individual user. In addition, they have weekly multi-day trips scheduled to the outer islands now, including Michigan and Outer Island. Most of the outer Islands have only one campsite (Michigan, Outer, Cat, Ironwood, Devil's), so with one party camping there these islands are "closed". Last year for the first time, our club had real trouble finding spots to camp on the islands, although we usually don't schedule our trips far in advance, and it looks even worse for this year. Weekend space on any of the islands is now extremely hard to find, with even "wilderness" camping permits being scarce (possibly because non-guided groups/individuals are taking this option when they can't get anything else). I should point out that Trek and Trail are the biggest outfitter in the Apostles, but by no means the only one. I guess I am a wee bit frusrated at the high proportion of permits/sites issued to outfitters, and am wondering whether other Apostles' paddlers feel the same way. Also wondering whether it is time to talk to the Park Service about the problem... Sarah Ohmann *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Mar 13 2000 - 07:37:50 PST
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