Michigan Upper Peninsula: Oct BILW Area bummer

Made a trip up to Big Island Lake Wilderness Area 2nd week of October. Went in on the back side via Byers Lake trailhead. Checked out the kiosk at the TH on Haywire Grade before heading in just in case there was any info I should know (turns out there should have been). I brought along a fair bit of gear and I paddle a Penobscot 16 (Royalex) so I triple carried (62 yo). No problem getting to Byers Lake, packed the canoe and headed across to find the portage into Twilight, my destination lake. Just a heads up, OnX is not correct as to the portage location. The actual portage is about 50-75 yards north, right at the point the lake starts to get swampy.
No issues getting to Twilight, straightforward easy to follow trail, that ends directly into the middle of the only campsite on the lake. Again, OnX is incorrect, as is Avenza and several other maps I consulted. They all show the campsite being south of the portage. It’s not. Anyone that comes along is coming straight into your camp.
Once I started to settle in I noticed a paper stapled to a tree stump. Turns out the lake had been treated with Glyphosate (Roundup) recently for an invasive species. I was extremely bummed that this info wasn’t posted at the trailhead kiosk. Even though it was several days past the water usage warning period I chose to not spend 3 days drinking and cooking with the treated water. Everyone is welcome to their own opinions on Glyphosate, mine is I don’t want to willingly consume it. So I used only enough filtered water to rehydrate myself and some breakfast in the morning, then I packed up and headed back to the trailhead and my truck. Double checked when I got there to see if I missed the notice….nothing. I feel like the NFS should have had a notice posted at the start of the portage instead of only at the end.
It is a beautiful area and the colors were peaking. Loved it and will return. But I will be contacting the Hiawatha NFS offices to see if any treatments have been done before I go.

Those are some spectacular photos.

It is too bad about the Roundup. It’s not allowed to be used in or over water in Florida. Some other chemical less toxic to animals, don’t remember the name.

Great pics and thanks for taking the time to post the TR.

Certainly is a bummer about the water but I'd agree with your decision to avoid ingesting any pesticide.

Rhollatt, thanks for taking the time to post your trip report, pictures and warning about the water. I didn't know where the BILW was, so after I searched it, I edited the thread title to make the location more specific for search engines and future researchers.

Glenn MacGrady said:

Rhollatt, thanks for taking the time to post your trip report, pictures and warning about the water. I didn't know where the BILW was, so after I searched it, I edited the thread title to make the location more specific for search engines and future researchers.

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Thank you, sir. I should have been more specific and will be in the future.

My wife and I went here fall of 23, figured as canoeist and Michiganders, we should at least paddle this once in our lives. Put in off of forest road 2254 and set off on Big Island Lake for a couple of nights. Camped on Coattail and explored over towards Townline and Vance lakes and got in some hikes. Coattail had an abundance of wildlife activity and was very peaceful. While at camp we only saw one small group of paddlers cruise by, and few the whole time. We weren’t prepared for the amount of downtime that we’d have, I should’ve packed more snacks. The site on Coattail was only ok, far too open imo.

It’s a beautiful place that we have in the UP so it’s a shame to read about your experience with the water and our FS using glyphosate. Fall is a great time to spend paddling around up there. Hope you had a good trip overall, good photos

ErktheRed said:

My wife and I went here fall of 23, figured as canoeist and Michiganders, we should at least paddle this once in our lives. Put in off of forest road 2254 and set off on Big Island Lake for a couple of nights. Camped on Coattail and explored over towards Townline and Vance lakes and got in some hikes. Coattail had an abundance of wildlife activity and was very peaceful. While at camp we only saw one small group of paddlers cruise by, and few the whole time. We weren’t prepared for the amount of downtime that we’d have, I should’ve packed more snacks. The site on Coattail was only ok, far too open imo.

It’s a beautiful place that we have in the UP so it’s a shame to read about your experience with the water and our FS using glyphosate. Fall is a great time to spend paddling around up there. Hope you had a good trip overall, good photos

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I went in the back way to shorten the distance to Twilight which was my destination as I wanted to do some Splake fishing. I’m definitely going to return this spring and enter through Big Island Lake. I’m wanting to do a Sylvania trip also but I’ve read it’s much more crowded. Still probably do it. Haha

What the heck, why not?! One of my friends had a quick honeymoon in Sylvania and said it was great. She did comment on the amount of people that go but said it’s still nice