Thursday, August 31, 2017

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

August  20 - 26, 2017:


We leave McLain State Park about 8 AM, one of our earliest starts as we want to be at our destination by noon in hopes of finding an open first come / first seved campsite at Bay Furnace Campground in Christmas, Michigan near the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  It’s closer to 9 AM by the time we really get on the road after using the dump station, getting gas and hooking up the Jeep. We like to live dangerously ! 

The driving conditions are great and it’s about 150 miles on routes 41 and 28 to the campground.  The trip is mostly through the forest passing through several small towns, the Chippewa Indian reservation and Marquette, Michigan.  The highway then becomes more scenic as it hugs the shoreline of Lake Superior.  
Our lucky streak stands for as we are riding around the campground and every site is either reserved or is occupied, we see someone getting ready to pull out of a non-reservable site.  They pull out within a couple of minutes and we back right in, perfect timing !  It’s a nice campsite but not as open to the sun for my solar panels as I would like.  As we use virtually no electric and can run the generator it’s not an issue.
The Bay Furnace Campground is in Hiawatha National Forest, has no hookups, but there is water and a dump station.  It fronts onto the South Bay of Lake Superior and is the site of an historic pig iron blast furnace.  The blast furnace was larger that expected and has been partially restored.  All along the beach adjacent to the furnace are chunks Slag, (it looks like colored glass) a waste product of the furnace process that was dumped along the lakeshore.


The Bay furnace 

The South Bay shoreline at the campground


The small town of Christmas, Michigan has the Kewadin Casino operated by the Sault tribe of the Chippewa Indians.  There are several small tourist shops in town with Christmas related signs, a jam packed junk/antique shop, a hotel and a couple of decent bar/restaurants.   It is located 5 miles from the larger town of Munising, Michigan.


The Kewadin Casino with Santa out front and a Christmas
decor inside did put us in the mood and I came out a few
dollars ahead


Munising is a full service tourist hot spot where you can find about anything you need. In spite of that it still retains an old seaport character and charm.  Munising is situated on the South Bay of Lake Superior with a harbor offering scenic cruises, many restaurants and lodging possibilities and is the gateway to the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  The Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore became the first national lakeshore area designated in 1966.  The area is famous for its colorful rocky cliffs, waterfalls and lighthouses. 


A Munising welcome sign

Street view

Harbor view, to the right is a new modern harbor area under construction

Old street scenes are displayed around town

Also many classic painting on display

The Pictured Rocks Interpretive Center was great

There seems to be much pride in being a Yooper

As I was taking this photo of these unique windows a woman
coming out of the store looked sort of weird at me and then said,
I've walked by this spot a hundred times and never noticed those
very interesting windows before, Thanks for bringing them to my attention.


We begin with a short hike to the Munising Falls a few miles outside of town.  It's way more interesting than this photo shows.






There is much hiking here, plenty of options, and we start with a hike from Sand Point to Miners Castle.  It is a 4.9 mile hike and is a muddy trek through the forest most of the way.  We actually decide to turn around after about 3 1/2 miles, short of the Castle, but in spite of the mud it was an interesting hike.  The forest along this area of the lakeshore doesn’t look very healthy, most of the paper birch trees are dead and have fallen, the only trees that really look healthy are the white cedars.  However, mushrooms, ferns and lichens are plentiful and doing well and there is water flowing everywhere.  We later find that it has been an unusually wet year which explains why the trail is so wet and muddy. 


In some areas there was a boardwalk

In other areas just mud and water

A small bubbling waterfall along the trail

Lots of decaying birch and ferns

Also mushrooms and lichens

A few openings in the trees to the beautiful
aqua blue water of Lake Superior


Later back at the Sand Point parking lot, we run into a young couple we had passed on the trail.  It turns out that they had hiked from Miners Castle to Sand Hill, intending to hike back, as their car was parked there, but they were out of water and there was none available at Sand Hill.  They also didn’t really want to hike back, so we offered them a ride as we had planned to go there anyway.  At Miners Castle there is a short trail to upper and a lower observation decks with a view of the Miners Castle sandstone formation.  It was named by a mining party looking for minerals who thought it looked like a castle and surprisingly, it really does.  We are done for the day after about 23,000 steps slogging through way to much mud.  Hours later, while stopped at a traffic light in Munising, the couple crossed the street in front of us, how ironic !


View of Miners Castle from overlook trail

Looking down on Miners Rock with a Pictured Rocks cruise
boat going past


It rained heavily during the night and is very cloudy in the morning as I head to the very popular coffee shop in Munising called the “Falling Rock Cafe and Bookstore”.  It is a good coffee shop with good eats, an ice cream counter, a bookstore and gift shop, a wining combination.  It also has many tables, working WiFi and live music a couple of times during the week.  On Wednesday evening a group of about eight locals play mostly old seafaring songs and sound very good. 


This seemed to be everyones favorite place in town


Our second hike is to Miners Falls which is a waterfall accessed by a .6 mile trail.  It seems as if everyone has decided to do this hike today, it is super crowded and there is a waiting line to get onto the falls viewing areas.  It is a great view and you don’t have to work hard for it.  I suggested to Twinkles that they should reroute this trail to make it considerably longer to cut down the traffic.  I’m only have serious, but some of these areas are sort of being loved to death.



Miners Falls


We then go to nearby Miners Beach where the beach views are excellent as the wind has whipped up sizable waves on the lake and the sky is much clearer.  It is bright sun by now, but the strong wind blowing over the average 40 degree lake makes it feel like an arctic blast which sends us back to the Jeep for our jackets.  The view was worth it ! 


Miners Beach was a good place to chill out, what a view !


The stairway to the beach


Our next hike is from the trailhead at the end of Chapel Road to Mosquito Falls and then on to Mosquito Beach. This is another popular trail and very crowded as the beach area is very scenic.  The viewpoints for Mosquito Falls were not so good although Mosquito Falls is a great waterfall.  We see this often on trails and roadside scenic viewpoints where trees or brush have grown up which almost totally blocks the view.  Usually the trees could easily be trimmed or removed, they are not 1,000 year old giant sequoias.  More amazing to me was of the quantity and variety of mushrooms along this trail.  In fact I am thinking that the waterfalls and lighthouses are overrated, the mushrooms are equally impressive here.  At trails end, there was no beach access as the 5 -6 foot waves were pounding right against the cliff walls.  The prominent rock formation there, Chapel Rock, is amazing with a large tree growing out of it’s top but it was mostly obscured by the trees.  It must be a gorgeous view on a calm day when you can view it from the beach.


Mosquito Falls

The surf was ominous looking from the cliff edge

Chapel Rock must be seen from the beach or lake, but very
impressive from the overlook also.  The tree growing on the
top is the most interesting part of it.

A view along the lakeside

Beautiful layers of colors in this fungus on a dead piece of wood  

The mushrooms were in all shapes and colors

These reminded me of Reeses peanut butter cups

Such a bright red, Tomatoes ?


Our final hike was from the Log Slide Overlook to the the Au Sable Light Station.  This area was heavily logged, as was everything here in the early 1900’s which is hard to imagine today.   The way they moved the logs out of the forest was to push them over the edge down a log slide virtually straight downhill into the lake where they could be loaded onto ships or barges.  These hillside are actually sand dunes hundreds of feet high. You can go down the sandy hillside here at the log slide fairly easily, but coming back uphill is a killer climb.  There are serious sounding warning signs to that affect on the top, but we saw many going down.


The Log Slide from the top

View from the trail of the Au Sable Light House in the distance


The crystal clear rocky shore near the lighthouse

Great place to pick rocks


The hike traveled in close proximity to the lake with many viewpoints and additional log slides areas.  In places the lake waves were within 20 feet or so and beautiful.  After two miles we arrived at the Au Sable Lighthouse which is a beautiful 86 foot high structure that went into operation in 1874.  We visited the lighthouse museum but passed on the lighthouse tour as we have done several already and it would have added about another two hours to our hike. There have been many ship wrecks along this coastline and Au Sable Point is particularly treacherous area. 


The Au Sable Lighthouse and attached light keepers house

A lake view looking towards the sand dunes
   

On Tuesday evening there is a music event in the downtown Munising harbor park.  There was a bluegrass band called the “Sparrow Tree Band” playing which were very entertaining, the turnout was good, there were dancing girls, both young and old and it was a beautiful evening.
   

The Sparrow Tree Band were entertaining


We were concerned about our reservations for the Pictured Rocks cruise on Thursday afternoon since all cruises had been cancelled due to rough seas on Tuesday and Wednesday, but luckily the weather improved on Thursday and we made it.  It was still about a 10-15 MPH wind blowing which makes for a cold wind over that 40 degree water, but we had a few layers of clothing and were fine.  It was a 2 1/2 hour narrated cruise of about 30 miles along the Pictured Rocks Lakeshore to view the colorful rock cliffs and formations.  The only way to really see the best of the pictured rocks is from the lake either taking the cruise or in a kayak.  It was a beautiful cruise with equally good interesting narration, better that anticipated.


The boat cruise crowd looking a little tired on the return

Miners Castle from the boat

Bridal Veil Falls

Kayakers in front of a colorful section, the colors come from minerals in the dripping water that runs down the cliff faces staining the rock

Another very colorful area with large rocks that have fallen due to erosion

There are many sea caves formed where softer rock has eroded away

This is a sea cave that has eroded completely through forming an arch

A prominent rock face called Indian Head, you need to see the profile
to really see it

The historic Grand Island East Channel Lighthouse, now abandoned


We have enjoyed our week here, but need to move on, summer is fast coming to an end, it was 43 degrees this morning.

The next stop is Tahquamenon Falls State Park;

Twinkles and Slick

Saturday, August 26, 2017

Keweenaw Peninsula travels

August 17 - 19, 2017:


We decided to tow the Jeep today as the forecast was rain and it was a longer ride and we are fast wearing out the Jeep.  I fully expected it to rain at the campground dump station and the gas station and while hooking up the Jeep, it looked threatening, but we stayed dry.  Actually there were only a few periods of rain during the ride, it mostly was just dark and gloomy.  We went through several towns all claiming to be the greatest logging town, how many can there be ?  Also I noted many old decrepit dairy farms with barns falling apart, no cows, just hay fields, it pays better.  It was 160 miles with only a couple of stops, at the Michigan border for Michigan travel information and at "Krupp's" all season general store where I saw the sign for Pasties.  The woman inside said, we don’t have any now, but if you wait 3 minutes, we have a fresh batch coming out of the oven.  Those were magic words to me and it was a beautiful looking Pastie, I just had to stare at it with admiration for a while and it tasted as good as it looked.


At the crossroads

Beautiful !


Our destination F.P. McLain State Park is the first Michigan State Park for us.  It is a nice park right on Lake Superior about 8 miles from Hancock, Michigan.  These State Parks sometimes annoy me as they can be more expensive than a private campground after they add in all the daily vehicle fees.  We ended up getting the annual pass as it’s only a few more dollars and if we stay at one more park will probably come out ahead.

 We go to the towns of Hancock and Houghton which are across Portage Lake or Canal (not sure where to draw the boundary) from one another connected by a lift bridge.  The Portage Lake and ship canal flows into Lake Superior and affords Great Lakes ships to travel and harbor inland.  These were both copper mining towns with the Quincy Mine a few miles north of Hancock on route 41.  The remains of the  Quincy Mine are now part of the Keweenaw National Historical Park and are open for tours.  This section of Michigan, the Upper Peninsula or Keweenaw Peninsula had the largest deposit of pure elemental copper in the world. In time the mining here became more expensive as they had to go deeper and deeper and new mines in the west were developed that could operate cheaper resulting in closure of the last mine in 1996.


The lift bridge between Hancock and Houghton 


The Orphem Theater in Hancock

The Finlandia University in Hancock

A series of paintings in the park next to the University
area were somewhat weird

Did they really have to install the AC unit under the
beautiful architectural detail in the plywood panel ? 

The Douglass House in Houghton is a beauty !

The entrance to the Douglass House

That's a beautiful thought, but sadly unattainable 

Old Houghton Daily Mining Gazette sign

Many nice old buildings remain in Houghton

The Lode Theater remains as an insurance agency, that's just wrong !


Next we go to the town of Calumet which is quite renown for its abundance of early 1900’s buildings.  Calumet was a copper mining boom town with the establishment of the Calumet and Hecla Copper Mines.  These mines prospered and were consolidated into the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company (C &H) in 1871when they accounted for approximately 57% of Michigan’s total copper output.  Calumet was not exactly a company town, the term used is corporate paternalism, as C&H provided many employee amenities such as schools, english classes, health services, bath houses, a library, a swimming pool and donated land for several churches and fraternal organizations.  The mine started to decline during the depression years and due to western competition, unstable prices, having to go deeper for the ore and increased labor issues they never recovered.  They were taken over by a large corporation, Universal Oil Products, who shut the mine down in 1968.

The whole city is practically a historic district, or should be.  We did a tour of the Opera House where they were setting up for a wedding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calumet,_Michigan  


Just happened to be in the right place at the right time to see this antique car pass


The Michigan House has quite a history as the
Bosch Brewerey

A great painting over the bar

Calumet firehouse with its American LaFrance fire truck

Looking down from balcony in the Opera House 

Another view in the Opera House


Liked the Copper Queen whiskey sign

Independent Order of Odd Fellows Hall window

Many buildings like this in town 

Keweenaw Heritage Center in the old St. Anne's Church

The remains of Italian Hall where 70 people died at a 
Christmas party when a false cry of "fire" was yelled 
causing a panic attributed to anti-union members.
  


The National Park Service has done an interesting thing here in the Keweenaw Peninsula area of Michigan.  They have partnered with various municipalities, private individuals and organizations to develop and manage various historic areas all over the peninsula.  The Calumet Unit of the Keweenaw Historic Park is located in Calumet Visitors Center in the beautifully restored "Union Hall". Outside of Hancock is the Quincy Unit of the Keweenaw Historical Park at the former site of the "Quincy Mine" and have stabilized many existing buildings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keweenaw_Peninsula

The Union Building which was built in 1888 as a hall for Masonic Lodge and the Odd Fellows.  It was purchased by the park service in 1999 for the Calumet Visitors Center

  
Many bars, fraternal organizations and churches in Calumet

Mother Jones at Calumet to support the striking miners

The tragedy at the Italian Hall prompted Woody Guthrie
to write a song

The striking miners


I ride north up the peninsula on routes 26 and 41 to Eagle Harbor and Copper City.  I happen upon the Eagle River Waterfall and the Eagle Harbor Light Station on route 26.  The lighthouse displays were very interesting, but the most fascinating display was the story of the shipwreck of the Bangor.  The Bangor was carrying 220 new cars, mostly new 1923 Chryslers and a few Whippets when it beached on the a reef during a storm.  Several cars were swept overboard and most of the remaining cars were salvaged.  One of the cars is on display at the museum.
At Copper City, a craft festival was going on, I saw nothing at the craft festival that I had to have, but the roasted corn and hot dogs were excellent.



The Eagle River waterfall

The lake shore drive bridge at Eagle River

The Eagle Harbor Light Station from across the Bay

Ship wreck painting in the Light Station

A Coast Guard hero at the shipwreck of the Waldo

1923 Chrysler rescued from the shipwreck of the Bangor 

The cars on deck were encased in blocks of ice

The Copper Harbor Lighthouse in Ft. Wilkens Satte Park


The wreck of the American Fur Company vessel
the "John Jacob Astor" outside Copper Harbor

Art in the Park at Copper City Park
        

For more of the same, check out;  hitchupandgo.com

Next stop is Bay Furnace Campground in Christmas, Michigan,
Twinkles and Slick