Apostle Islands National Lakeshore

The Apostles are 21 islands scattered off the tip of Wisconsin’s Bayfield Peninsula, plus 12 miles of mainland shore. Congress protected them in 1970. They sit in the far western basin of Lake Superior, which means the coldest, clearest water in the chain and a season measured in weeks, not months.

Bayfield is the jumping-off town. Madeline Island — the one populated island, and not part of the national lakeshore — is a 20-minute car ferry ride away and has a state park of its own.

The sea caves

The headline feature. Waves have cut chambers, arches and honeycomb into the soft Devonian-era sandstone at waterline, most spectacularly on the north end of Devils Island and along the mainland cliff west of Meyers Beach.

Two ways in. By kayak, in summer, which is the real experience — paddling into a chamber and hearing the swell boom under the roof. On foot along the clifftop from Meyers Beach, a roughly 4-mile round trip on the Lakeshore Trail, which shows you the top of the caves and not the inside.

The mainland caves also freeze. In a hard winter with enough shore ice, the Park Service may open an ice-cave walking route from Meyers Beach — curtains of frozen seep, floors of lake ice. It has not been safe every year and it depends entirely on ice thickness. The Park Service posts conditions and it is the only source worth trusting. People have gone out on unauthorized ice here and it has ended badly.

Paddling and cold water

Guided kayak trips run out of Bayfield and Meyers Beach through the summer. Take one unless you are an experienced big-water paddler with a sea kayak, a spray skirt, a wetsuit or drysuit and a radio.

Lake Superior surface temperature in the Apostles typically runs the upper 40s to low 60s Fahrenheit through summer. That is cold-shock water. Immersion causes an involuntary gasp and a rapid loss of hand function; a swim of a few hundred yards that would be trivial in a pool becomes impossible in ten minutes. The sea caves compound it because there is no landing along the cliff. Fatalities here have almost always involved recreational kayaks, no thermal protection, and a wind shift.

Wind is the other half. The lake goes from glass to breaking in under an hour when a front comes through, and the fetch across open Superior is enormous.

Lights and islands

Six light stations stand across the islands — Raspberry, Sand, Michigan, Outer, Devils and Long Island — the largest concentration of lighthouses in any national park unit. Raspberry Island’s is the most visited and is restored to its early-1900s appearance. Access is by excursion boat or private craft.

Stockton Island is the most-visited backcountry destination, with a ranger station, a sand spit called Julian Bay whose beach squeaks underfoot, and one of the densest black bear populations per acre in North America. Store food properly.

When to go

Mid-June through mid-September. July and August are the only reliable kayak weeks. September is quieter with better light and more wind risk. The excursion boat and water taxi schedules end in the fall and the islands close up.

Before you turn up

There is no entrance fee for the lakeshore, but camping requires a permit reserved through Recreation.gov, and water taxi service is a separate commercial booking that must be arranged in advance.

The Bayfield visitor center is the place to get current ice, wind and cave conditions. Cell service is unreliable on the water and gone on the outer islands.

Fishing out of Bayfield is a lake trout fishery, and a good one — the Apostles reef complex holds fish year-round, with a hard-water season out of the Chequamegon Bay side. Wisconsin DNR sets seasons and limits, and they change annually.