Another Day, Different Peninsula
2019-09-05
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, MI
Last night was a chilly camping night. It was 56 degrees when I got in bed, and 50 when I got up. I mention it because it is the coldest night I've spent in a tent. It wasn't a problem; my gear is designed to handle a bit colder. Also, it was nice waking to the waves of Lake Superior lapping on the beach.
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is generally flat, and the roads are long, flat, and straight. It is the home of "Yuppers" (UP'ers, pronounced "Yoo-pers"). They call anyone who lives on the lower peninsula "trolls" because they live below the (Macinac) bridge. The rest of us are known as "flatlanders" although living in PA I really have no idea how they arrived at that. The local delicacy is a "pastie" (pah-stee) which is an old miner's food that consists of a thick stew sealed inside a doughy bread. It's designed to be a lunch portable into the mines. I think the local sports are snowmobiling and shoveling snow.
With your culture lesson out of the way, on to today's activities. In the Pictured Rocks peninsula there are a handful of sights to see, and there are two ways to tackle it: by land or by sea. A boat ride will show you all the colors in the cliffs from the bottom, while a hike will let you look at it from the top. I figured I could take a boat ride when I'm older; for now I'd hang one lantern and hit the trail. Before you decide, you should know that the hike that will show you all the sights is around ten miles long. With a few photo stops, I turned it up to eleven.
The hike itself is generally flat (a Michigan specialty!) and is mostly dirt path. Compared to Lions Head from a couple days back, this trail is much less technical and more forgiving. The basics sights on the trail are Mosquito Falls, Mosquito Beach, numerous cliff overlooks, Chapel Rock, and Chapel Falls. Some of these like Chapel Falls or Mosquito Beach were not terribly photogenic; the former due to a lot of foliage, the latter because it was pretty dull. But Chapel Rock was definitely worth the hike. Here's a sampling of the views.
What comes after that hike? Christmas of course. Christmas, Michigan was one of the towns I passed through as I left the park. They leaned into the name; it is completely decorated for the holiday. Needless to say I stopped there for as long as I do for a normal Christmas sale: zero minutes. Continuing on through town (as rapidly as traffic allowed) I drove through yet more rain (I haven't seen a day without any rain since Saturday) to Wisconsin to catch some z's at Copper Falls State Park.
Hiking Distance: 11 miles