Our first full day at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, which fell on July 27, we spent mostly driving from site to site, seeing as much as we could. We are based on the west side of the park, and unfortunately, part of the main road through the park is closed (the park stretches about 40 miles along the coast of Lake Superior, from Munising to Grand Marais ). The only way to get to sites on the eastern end of the park is to go way out of the way on a gravel road and approach them from the east. As a result, we put about 200 miles on the car the first day we were there.
In the UP, we seriously got more brochures and maps from various businesses and tourist stops than we have at any location on this trip. The problem, however, is that the information that is on one map may not be on another, but the other map has other information we need - so we ended up shifting mostly between three different maps: One an index of waterfalls and lighthouses in the area; one a forest service map of Hiawatha National Forest and the state forests in the area; and one a map of Pictured Rocks itself. We managed to make sense of it all, however, and spent most of the first day checking out waterfalls all over the park and amassing passport cancellations at various visitors' centers.
The main attraction at Pictured Rocks are the incredible sandstone cliffs on Lake Superior, which often include fantastic wind-swept and ice-carved pillar and arch formations along the shore. The best way, supposedly, to see much of the cliffs is to take a boat ride down the coast - and in Munising, there are also glass-bottom boat tours of shipwrecks, which I think sounds like pretty much the coolest thing in history. But since we're doing this on a budget, we had to skip that. We loved the UP and Pictured Rocks, though, so we plan on going back eventually - and maybe we'll have money that time. Who knows.
Pictured Rocks also had a large dune much like the Lake Michigan Overlook dune at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore - the incredible sand cliff dropping 450 feet to the lake - called the Log Slide. It was apparently precisely that in the days that the UP was a logging hot spot - the workers would slide the logs down into the lake. The dune had more vegetation at Pictured Rocks, however, so it didn't have this terrifyingly steep crazy sand-cliff effect like the one at Sleeping Bear did. This one was more like a narrow flume going straight down.
Near the Log Slide (about two miles away) is the Au Sable Lighthouse, which is only accessible by trail; there is no road leading there. It's one of the most remote, isolated mainland lighthouses in the US, and I was really interested in getting out there. They even have ranger tours for much of the week. Unfortunately, it was getting late by the time we finally got there on the 27, and if we'd wanted to go back on the 28, we would burn up a ton of gas in the car going out of our way to get there. So we had to leave Au Sable for the next time too.
Our best time in Pictured Rocks, however, happened the next day, which we dedicated to a hike to Chapel Rock. The trail leads to a waterfall about 1.5 miles into the woods, and then another 1.5 miles past there brings you to Chapel Beach and Chapel Rock itself. Patrick was mostly just desperate to get on a trail and do some real hiking, so we chose the hike mostly because it was there - but what we ended up finding was one of our favorite wilderness spots thus far.
We got a relatively early start, hitting the trail at about 10:30 am. It was supposed to be a cool day, in the 70s, whereas the previous day had been in the 80s, so we figured it would be the perfect day for walking. We got to Chapel Falls, which was pretty and all, but you can only see so many waterfalls in one week. The Pictured Rocks area has almost 20, and while we didn't see them all, we saw a lot.
Once we got past the falls, the trail started slowly descending, and by the time we got near the beach it was a sharp drop-off of about 100 feet where you have to climb down roots and rocks to get to the lake level. When we reached Chapel Rock, it was really impressive. It was a pillar like we'd seen at Miners Castle, but it had a full-grown tree on top of it! Just West of the rock was a large outlet from the woods where the creek we'd seen rushing over Chapel Falls finally reached the lake. It flowed into a large brown tidepool on the beach which was sometimes breached by waves from the lake, but flowed a little to the east and eventually joined in with the lake.
This day, the waves were particularly impressive, probably cresting at 6 to 8 feet! Not only were they large, but as they crashed into the sheer rock face that made up the area around Chapel Rock, I didn't doubt for a second that we were on the shore of a considerably powerful body of water.
Patrick and I sat on the beach for a while, and even though it wasn't very hot, we had both brought our swim suits and knew we had to go in. We took turns hiding in the brush near the beach to change our clothes, then ran into the water. It was pretty cold, but not as cold as I'd expected it to be - besides, you get used to it pretty quickly. The waves were just as strong as those of the ocean, and we found ourselves knocked around and pushed with the current - only we didn't have nasty, briney water to deal with. Only the fresh lake water, which was blue enough that you'd think you were in Bali.
After a while, we retreated from the water and sat on a piece of driftwood to dry off. As time went on (it was a little past noon by now), more and more people started flowing down to the beach. By the time we found a good hiding spot and put our clothes back on, there were probably 15 people on the strip of sand. We started heading back up the trail and, whereas on the way in we had passed a grand total of 3 people on the trail, we probably passed 40 to 50 people as we left. Yet another reason to get your kicks early! Most people on vacation don't want to rouse before 10 am, so if you can get anywhere by 10:30, you're pretty much guaranteed to have any given destination all to yourself.
One thing that I know Patrick and I will have to contend with on this trip is the fact that I don't like to exert myself too too much. Don't get me wrong - I like a challenging hike just as much as anyone else, but sometimes it seems like Patrick feels like he's not doing anything at all unless he's climbing a sheer cliff face or running up a 60-degree incline. I, personally, don't have fun when I'm in pain and uncomfortable, which I don't think so so radical a concept. So while I know I could do any hike if given enough time, Patrick doesn't like to take that time. If he had his way he'd run circles around me the whole way back to the car. But thankfully he knows that would get him slapped.
The Chapel Rock hike was only about six miles, so I can only imagine what I'll encounter once we get further West. Hopefully it won't get ugly.
After the Chapel Rock hike, we returned to the campsite to find it swarming with mosquitoes. The night before had seen the thunderstorm I wrote about earlier, and it brought out ridiculous numbers of bugs. They were biting us right through our clothes. We tried to eat by the light of the propane lantern only to feel like we were sitting inside a giant cloud of monster fruit flies, only these fruit flies wanted to drink our blood. Needless to say, it got pretty old pretty fast and we headed in to bed.
All in all, we loved the UP. The towns were tiny and the people welcoming. Pictured Rocks was an amazing landscape. The tourist traps were fantastic (yes, we went to Da Yoopers Tourist Trap and Museum). We'd love to go back again eventually.
We got a relatively early start, hitting the trail at about 10:30 am. It was supposed to be a cool day, in the 70s, whereas the previous day had been in the 80s, so we figured it would be the perfect day for walking. We got to Chapel Falls, which was pretty and all, but you can only see so many waterfalls in one week. The Pictured Rocks area has almost 20, and while we didn't see them all, we saw a lot.
Once we got past the falls, the trail started slowly descending, and by the time we got near the beach it was a sharp drop-off of about 100 feet where you have to climb down roots and rocks to get to the lake level. When we reached Chapel Rock, it was really impressive. It was a pillar like we'd seen at Miners Castle, but it had a full-grown tree on top of it! Just West of the rock was a large outlet from the woods where the creek we'd seen rushing over Chapel Falls finally reached the lake. It flowed into a large brown tidepool on the beach which was sometimes breached by waves from the lake, but flowed a little to the east and eventually joined in with the lake.
This day, the waves were particularly impressive, probably cresting at 6 to 8 feet! Not only were they large, but as they crashed into the sheer rock face that made up the area around Chapel Rock, I didn't doubt for a second that we were on the shore of a considerably powerful body of water.
Patrick and I sat on the beach for a while, and even though it wasn't very hot, we had both brought our swim suits and knew we had to go in. We took turns hiding in the brush near the beach to change our clothes, then ran into the water. It was pretty cold, but not as cold as I'd expected it to be - besides, you get used to it pretty quickly. The waves were just as strong as those of the ocean, and we found ourselves knocked around and pushed with the current - only we didn't have nasty, briney water to deal with. Only the fresh lake water, which was blue enough that you'd think you were in Bali.
After a while, we retreated from the water and sat on a piece of driftwood to dry off. As time went on (it was a little past noon by now), more and more people started flowing down to the beach. By the time we found a good hiding spot and put our clothes back on, there were probably 15 people on the strip of sand. We started heading back up the trail and, whereas on the way in we had passed a grand total of 3 people on the trail, we probably passed 40 to 50 people as we left. Yet another reason to get your kicks early! Most people on vacation don't want to rouse before 10 am, so if you can get anywhere by 10:30, you're pretty much guaranteed to have any given destination all to yourself.
One thing that I know Patrick and I will have to contend with on this trip is the fact that I don't like to exert myself too too much. Don't get me wrong - I like a challenging hike just as much as anyone else, but sometimes it seems like Patrick feels like he's not doing anything at all unless he's climbing a sheer cliff face or running up a 60-degree incline. I, personally, don't have fun when I'm in pain and uncomfortable, which I don't think so so radical a concept. So while I know I could do any hike if given enough time, Patrick doesn't like to take that time. If he had his way he'd run circles around me the whole way back to the car. But thankfully he knows that would get him slapped.
The Chapel Rock hike was only about six miles, so I can only imagine what I'll encounter once we get further West. Hopefully it won't get ugly.
After the Chapel Rock hike, we returned to the campsite to find it swarming with mosquitoes. The night before had seen the thunderstorm I wrote about earlier, and it brought out ridiculous numbers of bugs. They were biting us right through our clothes. We tried to eat by the light of the propane lantern only to feel like we were sitting inside a giant cloud of monster fruit flies, only these fruit flies wanted to drink our blood. Needless to say, it got pretty old pretty fast and we headed in to bed.
All in all, we loved the UP. The towns were tiny and the people welcoming. Pictured Rocks was an amazing landscape. The tourist traps were fantastic (yes, we went to Da Yoopers Tourist Trap and Museum). We'd love to go back again eventually.
No comments:
Post a Comment