Spring in Dah UP

upcruiser

Perpetual Transient
The snow is melting, albeit slowly, and spring is starting to take hold in upper peninsula of Michigan. I thought I'd post up some pictures from my last roll of film. I've been home for close to 2 weeks now after a hectic travel season for work. I've managed to cramn alot of hiking, canoeing, kayaking, and biking in since I've bee back, and thus is the theme really for these shots. Enjoy..

1. Dana standing by an ice formation at the Dead River Falls.
2. Shot of the lower falls from another angle.
3. Looking out towards Little Presque Isle while hiking on the North Country Trail. The beach in the foreground is called hidden beach and is surrounded by striped sandstone (great place to swim in the summer).
4. View of Little Presque from the beach
5. Some of the last remnants of ice loosing their hold on the shoreline.
6. I snapped this shot from my kayak on Lake Superior with random icebergs littering the waters.
7. Again from my kayak looking at the ice formations on the shoreline on my way towards the mouth of the Chocolay River.
8. On the banks of the Dead River.
9. An April storm serves up some rough seas on Lake Superior, taken from Presque Isle park.
10. The upper harbor breakwall taken from Presque Isle park.
 

upcruiser

Perpetual Transient
1. One of the first iron ore freighters of the season works its way through the pack ice.
2. Dana at the Eben ice caves.
3. ""
4. Light creeping into the ice caves
5-7 One of the support rigs for the adventures.
 

Moistmutt

New member
Great Shots

I'm in MN, & my wife has roots in Copper Harbor. So we spend several weeks a year up der in dah UP. I'd welcome any expedition suggestions...
 

computeruser

Explorer
Great work, as usual. The UP Tourism Department should pay you for all your photos and write-ups.

Got 2 LP trips already lined up for May, but I gotta get back up to the UP this summer...
 

upcruiser

Perpetual Transient
Moistmutt said:
I'm in MN, & my wife has roots in Copper Harbor. So we spend several weeks a year up der in dah UP. I'd welcome any expedition suggestions...

Absolutely. When are you planning on coming over this way? Any suggestions I might have are definately seasonally dependent. What kind of stuff do you want to do or see?
 

upcruiser

Perpetual Transient
computeruser said:
Great work, as usual. The UP Tourism Department should pay you for all your photos and write-ups.

Got 2 LP trips already lined up for May, but I gotta get back up to the UP this summer...

Ha ha, maybe I'll suggest that to them. :D I don't know if I want to promote it that badly though, don't want to spoil all the seclusion!:1888fbbd:
 

Moistmutt

New member
Approach from the West

Hi Cruiser.
Since we come from MN, we'll start with the western edge of the UP. It appears that the Ottowa NF is wide open to off (or back) road adventuring. What I'm looking for is to get to the remotest (somewhere you can't get with a Winnebago) interesting stuff in the UP. Interesting places might be old mines, waterfalls, isolated lakes etc. When I look at the gazetteer it looks like if I go NE from Wakefield, then there is a lot of open NF land with logging roads and the like, and a quite few waterfalls to track down. I've never been on the back roads out there. For me it is a little tricky figuring out where the NF boundaries are, and which parts of private land are owned by lumber companies that don't mind me bashing around.

Our current plan is just to take a long weekend in May (hopefully pre bugs) in this area and explore the logging roads. We'll look for good back country camping spots as we go. We may try to stay in some improved camps as well.

I also noticed some long "official" off road trails on the map that I intend to try when we go to and from the Keeweenaw in early July. I don't have that map handy, but as I recall one of the trails starts North of Bruce Crossing, and ends at Atlantic mine, with some old mines along the route.

If you have any suggestions to narrow down the area of exploration, or other spots we should check out, I'd love to hear them. Likewise, If I make any discoveries I'll pass them on.
 

upcruiser

Perpetual Transient
Moistmutt said:
Hi Cruiser.
Since we come from MN, we'll start with the western edge of the UP. It appears that the Ottowa NF is wide open to off (or back) road adventuring. What I'm looking for is to get to the remotest (somewhere you can't get with a Winnebago) interesting stuff in the UP. Interesting places might be old mines, waterfalls, isolated lakes etc. When I look at the gazetteer it looks like if I go NE from Wakefield, then there is a lot of open NF land with logging roads and the like, and a quite few waterfalls to track down. I've never been on the back roads out there. For me it is a little tricky figuring out where the NF boundaries are, and which parts of private land are owned by lumber companies that don't mind me bashing around.

Our current plan is just to take a long weekend in May (hopefully pre bugs) in this area and explore the logging roads. We'll look for good back country camping spots as we go. We may try to stay in some improved camps as well.

I also noticed some long "official" off road trails on the map that I intend to try when we go to and from the Keeweenaw in early July. I don't have that map handy, but as I recall one of the trails starts North of Bruce Crossing, and ends at Atlantic mine, with some old mines along the route.

If you have any suggestions to narrow down the area of exploration, or other spots we should check out, I'd love to hear them. Likewise, If I make any discoveries I'll pass them on.

First off, here are a couple of links to trip reports that I've posted from the UP for ideas in a couple of areas, specifically Marquette to the Keweenaw and Marquette to Whitefish Point.

http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6186&highlight=keweenaw
http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6469&highlight=whitefish+point

I believe the trail that you were referring to is the Bill Nicholis trail, here is a link to a map and other ORV trails in the UP...
http://www.superiorsights.com/recreation/orv/orv.html
I personally haven't run that trail but from what I hear, it is an old railroad grade and mostly used by snowmobiles and ATV's. I believe that it is easily passable in a 4wd vehicle.

I personally haven't spent much time exploring west of the Keweenaw, maybe Arrivalsend (member here from the western UP) could chime in. Here are a list of great places to check out that I'd recomend in no paticular order other then from west to east....

Porcupine Mountains State Park- http://www.porcupinemountains.com/
lake_of_the_clouds_sunrise_.jpg

Paulding Light- Unexplained phenomenon that has been featured on Unsolved Mysteries and Ripley's Beleive it or Not.. http://www.pauldinglight.com/

Keweenaw Peninsula- highlighted in a previous link

McCormick Tract Wilderness area- http://www.mccormicktract.com/

Craig Lake State Park wilderness area- http://hunts-upguide.com/michigamme_craig_lake_state_park.html If you are looking to do some paddling this is a great place. Similar in ways to Boundary Waters but on a smaller scale. May is great there due to lack of bugs and few people (though there is rarely ever alot of people.

Yellow Dog Plains- mentioned in the same link (AAA road)

Pictured Rocks National Lake Shore- Lots of info in the 2nd link as well as info from Grand Marais to Whitefish Point area/Taquemenon Falls

Those are the big ones to see, I'm leaving out alot of littler cool stuff that is kind of along the way. Those should get you started.

A great route would be to incorporate the Keweenaw, Yellow Dog Plains, to Marquette as you could tie in alot of cool trekking off the beaten track along with hiking, paddling, etc. You could spend a ton of time in these areas and still not begin to see all the cool stuff. There are a lot of old mines and towns that are walk into the past especially up in the Keweenaw. Prioritizing what you want to spend your time doing will be the key to locking in on your final routes.
 

Pad

Adventurer
Always wanted to check out the U.P., now it looks as though it will have to get added to the master list. I'll have to dig up some of your old post for more info. And somehow make a 53rd. weekend in the year. Wouldn't it be cool to have a meet/greet/camp/wheel weekend for expo.'s up there? The 6 months of non-winter is apon us.

Thanks for the photo's upcruiser

Pad
 

upcruiser

Perpetual Transient
Pad,

Northern Explorer and I are planning on putting together an Expo "North Coast" meet here sometime this summer. We're just trying to put together some dates that would be favorable for our work/travel schedules and that would allow for good weather and conditions. We'll post up some potential dates here soon.

The idea would be a weekend event with an overland route connecting some cool places and activities that we could set up. I think there are enough Expo members in the region that it could prove to be a pretty cool experience. The tough thing with exploring around this region is that it is so vast and very few people really know alot of areas that are the must sees. Travelling across the UP via paved highways you really don't get to see much of the cool stuff. There are alot of unmarked/named dirtroads and out of the way spots that are pretty neat. Anyway, keep an eye peeled in the "Planned Adventures/Events" section.
 

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