Trip report: originally I had a four day trip scheduled for Bear Head Lake State park, backpack site 4 (tldr-beautiful, bugs, bear, bailed)

Bailed after one night for Wooden frog NF campground by Voyager NP (tldr - humans can be as creepy as bears) 

Moved on to Goosberry falls (pretty, loud but comfortable campground)


I had backpacking site 4 booked for four nights this week, I bailed after the first night. 

The hike in, while short and not that difficult, was miserable. A head net was a must to avoid inhaling the clouds of bugs and avoid face bites. Once at the site, bugs were totally tolerable and the views were lovely

I heard loons through the night and even what I think were wolves (I asked a ranger and they said there is a local pack.) The site is very quiet, but I’m also pretty sure I was the only person at a backpack site since only my car was in the backpack site parking lot. If all had been well for the rest of the night I probably would have stuck out the bugs and chilled by the lake. 

Unfortunately, a bear decided to come check out my site while I was toasting marshmallows…. It came within about 10ft of my site. I had no issues shooing it away with some noise and a sniff of bear spray (probably unnecessary) but I was out there solo and the bear box was not far enough from my tent for comfort, only about 15-20ft away from the tent pad. I stayed the night since it was almost dark already, then headed out in the morning to wing the rest of the trip. 

I read that the wooden frog campground near Voyager was great so I made my way there- I’d never been to a first come first serve campground so I made contact with the campground host while staring at the entry board to figure it out (for like a minuet.) I am very grateful that the hosts were changing that night because the guy ended up being really creepy and ended up both over sharing and hitting on me??? Which was a weird combo. He and his wife were leaving within a hour of when I arrived ( I made sure I saw them leave) but I still changed spots. 
Honestly that was just as uncomfortable as the bear crashing dessert. Everything was fine though. 
That next day I headed over to Voyager NP, the international falls visitor center and took a hike. Then asked if there were any open seats on the boat tour, boat is really the only way to see most of voyagers, and got super lucky with the last seat! That was lovely and super easy, then drove back to wooden frog. 
Found a same day cancellation for Goosberry falls state park and headed to the north shore for my last vacation day! It was a lovely drive mostly through the superior national forest, and a nice easy camp site. No complications, just lots of families out for the holiday this week. There was a shower building with totally fine facilities so I cleaned up a bit after checking out the falls. Slept great that night and packed up in the morning to drive along the north shore on my way home. 




MN North/North shore: Bear Head lake, Voyager NP (wooden frog,) Goosberry Falls (tldr: Bear crashed my backpack site, Camp ground host gave me the creeps, all was well though and I had a good trip overall.)