Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Trip taken: August 1-3, 2008

Most people, when you ask them to think about Michigan, will probably say something about the auto-industry or the apparent demise of Detroit. Oddly enough, no one from Michigan says anything about it being the Great Lakes State, which is surprising because it is the state with the second longest shoreline (Alaska being first) and it has more lighthouses than any other state! Though many of Michigan's State Parks can be found along Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie, two of its gems are the National Lakeshores: Pictured Rocks in the Upper Peninsula and Sleeping Bear Dunes in the Lower Peninsula.

After graduating from the University of Michigan in 2008, I tried to get my friends from U of M's geology field camp, Camp Davis, together for a mini reunion. While most people could not make it, my friends Ruth and Mary and I got together for an extended weekend and we left on a Friday morning for the small town of Grand Marais on the northern side of the Upper Peninsula, along Lake Superior. It was an eight hour drive from Ann Arbor, but the weekend that followed was well worth it!

We arrived in Munising sometime later in the afternoon and decided it would be best to secure a campsite for the next two nights. We were lucky enough that one of the "Lakeside" campsites at Hurricane River was still available and it wasn't even 100 yards to Lake Superior. We quickly set up our tents and decided we would take a quick walk down the beach to the Au Sable Light Station, a little over a mile away. We got there just before the staff was about to close the tower, but we got up there and I don't think there is any better place to see the more than 400-foot Grand Sable Dunes or to watch a thunderstorm roll in across the lake from Ontario!

Au Sable Light Station

Ruth (in red), Mary (in blue), and Me up in the Au Sable Light Station and the Grand Sable Dunes in the background.

Grand Sable Dunes in the evening

The entire way back to our campsite we could see the edge of a storm coming in and we felt the drizzle as we walked the beach, which is sandy with tons and tons of cobbles and boulders left behind by the retreating Laurentide Ice Sheet. The Great Lakes are known as the Inland Seas to some, and no sea is without its shipwrecks. Along the beach between the Hurricane River campsite and the Au Sable Light Station are the remains of a few of these ship wrecks - though, if my memory serves me right, are not on any maps as the Park Service wants these wrecks to be left alone. (But we found one!)

Washed ashore with one of the ships

Ship wreck in the evening sun

Mary and Ruth are ready to rock out at the Lakeshore!!

By the time we got back to our campsite we had to take shelter as the storm hit shore. Luckily, it wasn't long lasting and we were soon getting our campfire started. Well, Mary was soon getting our campfire started using her karate skills and Ruth got out her guitar and gave Mary some music to chop wood by.

Sleep was important because the next day was a big one. We were going to hike more than 10 miles starting at the Chapel Falls parking lot. It's about three miles from the trailhead to Chapel Rock, a lonely sandstone pulpit-of-sorts at the beach through a peaceful aspen forest and past the 60-foot tall Chapel Falls.

Alongside Chapel Falls

Trail going out to Chapel Rock and Chapel Beach

Chapel Rock! The lone white pine on top has two major roots that drape over the empty space to the right where there used to be a natural rock bridge that has since collapsed!

Hiking to Chapel Rock

Mary, Ruth, and me at Chapel Rock. Lake Superior in the back.

We had a little lunch at Chapel Rock before continuing west along a trail that goes over top 200-foot sandstone cliffs which give the park its name. The water was so sparkling blue and clear! And it was interesting to see in places a very sudden drop off into much deeper water. We couldn't have asked for better weather this day. Even though it was the first weekend of August, we were comfortable in long pants and short sleeves and that the mosquitoes and black flies were not in full force. And there were dozens of people who were kayaking the still lake waters near the base of the cliffs, exploring little wave-cut caverns and arches. That is something I will have to do next time I am here!

The trail we took, as I said, led us over these monstrous cliffs, but the most notable site is called the Grand Portal where you look straight down 200 feet into the crystal clear water and you are directly over a very large (and actively caving in) rock arch! In fact, just a few years ago a very large rock fell from the underside of the arch down into the water! We continued until we came to Mosquito Beach, which, luckily, had not mosquitoes there and then headed back inland past Mosquito Falls and to the trailhead.

A rocky point sticking out into and above Lake Superior

Looking down into Lake Superior

Grand Portal Point

Ruth, Mary, and me near Grand Portal Point

Group photo on top of Grand Portal Point

A very geologist-y photo!

Lake Superior from Grand Portal Point

Mosquito Falls

Exhausted, we arrived back at the car and threw our bags in the back. Though we got an early start to the day, it was still only mid-afternoon so we decided to head into the town of Munising, stopping for lunch at a very lodgey restaurant where we ate our fill of lord-knows-what. All I remember from this place is that we overheard someone say that, "It's always Father's Day in Shingleton," which is the name of the little town we were in!

In Munising we decided to check the cost of tickets for the tour boats that take passengers along the lakeshore. We saw many of them earlier in the day and thought it would be enjoyable to see the cliffs from below instead of walking up above them. It was fantastic and only like $30! The three of us joined a crew of many and got great narrations of the different rock formations we saw by the boat's captain:

Lighthouse on Grand Island just out from Munising

Miner's Castle

Looking back on Miner's Castle, the rocks look like a Giant stepping up out of the water

Bridalveil Falls. When the water is flowing after the snow melt season, it gushes with a stream of white water

Pictured Rocks shoreline

The rocks are "pictured" because of the staining caused by dissolved metals being seeped out with groundwater flowing through the rocks. Different metals oxidize a different color like iron turns red and copper turns blueish-green

Lovers' Leap rock formation. Native American legend has it that two lovers who could not be with each other jumped off of this arch into the lake and died, to be together forever.

This is the Battleship Row because the rocks look like a line of battleships ready to head out of port.

I thought this looked like a goblet!

If conditions are right, the tour boat will even slowly take you into one of the coves between the rocks where there is literally feet on either side of the boat and you think you're going to crash into the rocks. But you don't and one lucky person is selected to touch the rocks from the front of the ship and push us back out into the lake!

Spray Falls: These are just east of Chapel Rock and normally the boats don't go this far, but it was our Captain's last voyage so we got lucky!

 

More cliffs as we head back into port

 

Caves carved out by wave action

Going by the Grand Portal. You can see the little rock where Ruth, Mary, and I got our group photo taken earlier in the day! The large pile of rocks under the arch is what is left after a recent major rock fall!

The sun setting over Grand Island

Photo of me back looking at Chapel Rock from the lake

 With a long day of hiking behind us and a breathtaking evening cruise, we got in the trusty car for one more night of camping. I don't think we said much when we got back to the campsite because we were all just dog-tired! But the next morning came and we had breakfast and packed our gear back into the car and made one more stop before getting back on the road. We had seen the Grand Sable Dunes from the Au Sable Light Station, but before leaving we wanted to get a closer look and did so from the Log Slide Overlook, just west of Grand Marais. As we headed back to the car, I saw a sign that read:

Ten Mintues to go down. One hour to come up.

The sign was posted at the top of a 300 foot sand dune and I took it as a challenge. With a good running start and a jump off a perched tuft of dune grass, away I went, arms flailing as I ran down the dune! I nearly fell a couple of times because it is not just sand all the way down; there are some layers of really course pebbles and larger cobbles that hurt like hell when you step on them! But once at the bottom, I took a quick dip in the lake and started back up the dune. All in all, I think Ruth and Mary said it took me ten minutes and the score became Sign: 0, Eric: 1.

300-foot drop from the top of the dunes to the bottom!

Mary and Ruth at the Log Slide overlook

Our fun little weekend group!

And with one final stop on the way out of the park on Sunday, we accomplished a little bit of everything Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore has to offer: hiking, boating, waterfalls, dunes, lighthouses, you name it! Though it's a smaller, lesser-known unit of the National Park System, its remote location has kept the ecosystems here fairly well in-tact and you can enjoy a weekend away for next to nothing! The National Lakeshores are little gems scattered across the Great Lakes and though I've been to three of the four, I can wait to go back to all of them!!

Good Weekend!