St. Louis U. High theology teacher Chris Stahl and Alumni Service Corps volunteer Ethan Steingruby led a small group of Outdoor Adventure Club (OAC) students on an expedition to Michigan this summer. The itinerary for the trip included five nights of hiking, fishing, and kayaking, as well as camping each night, but the weather had other plans.

^{The group gathered before heading out backpacking.  photo | Courtesy of Chris Stahl}

The OAC takes several trips each year, usually involving some kind of backpacking or hiking trip as well as ski trips and many other fun activities. This trip, to the upper peninsula of Michigan, or “Yooperland”, as it’s called by locals, was one of the club’s smallest groups to date, with four students accompanying the two teachers north. The group took a car and drove the entire way up to northern Michigan, excited for all the opportunities ahead. 

“The big thing about the trip that attracted me was the kind of thing I loved, being on the water,” said Steingruby. However, their plans were unfortunately derailed. At the time of the trip, wildfires in Canada had decimated the air quality of the northeastern United States, with Michigan catching the worst of it. Air quality indices reached upwards of 400 in some areas immediately following the event, and that had unfortunate consequences for the intrepid adventurers.

”We stopped for dinner in Green Bay on the way up, and I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The entire city was kind of in a fog,” said Steingruby. “When we got out of the van, everything smelled like a campfire.”

With the high risks associated with the air quality warnings, the club shifted plans. The first day up in Michigan, they did manage to get kayaking in and visit the beautiful Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore before hiking to a campsite high up in the mountains where they prepared food and camped for the night. Once they arrived near the Great Lakes, the air quality had improved, and the weather appeared to be significantly more hospitable to their plans to hike. 

The next morning, however, enormous storms rolled in. They quickly packed up camp and headed to the car, reaching it just in time to dodge the wind and rain. The rest of that day, they ended up exploring the nearby town, concluding their evening by finding a sports bar to get dinner and watch the ongoing World Cup match. By the time they would have been camping, the weather still had not subsided, so the night was spent in an Airbnb, hoping the weather would pass by the next day.

Day three brought with it a respite from the wind, but also bitterly cold temperatures that brought the temperature of the water down to a brisk 45 degrees. The group made the smart decision to avoid spending too much time outside, remaining in town for the morning to attempt to wait out the cold. After the temperature rose, however, another storm rolled in, and the club decided on an indoor adventure for the day. 

“We drove over to Marquette, which is like 40 minutes away, and … did an escape room, watched The Odyssey, and we slept in a house to avoid thunderstorms,” said Stahl. “I was glad we did that. Otherwise that would have been a bummer.”

On the penultimate day of the trip, the group embarked on a glass bottom boat tour of Lake Superior, coming as close as a couple of yards to several sunken ships that they could see clearly through the bottom of the craft. The fourth night was spent in another Airbnb because the weather was still inhospitable to camping.

Finally, on the last day they were able to accomplish another thing from the initial itinerary of the trip — fishing. Over the course of several hours, the group caught more than 50 fish, making for a successful day on the lake. After five long days of exhausting but fun outdoor and indoor adventure, the group drove back home. 

“It was a really great experience,” said junior Charlie Staed. “Mr. Stahl and everyone made the trip really fun even with the weather setbacks.”