Michigan, Part 11 - Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park [240618]

Our last "stop" on our way out of Michigan was at Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, to do some hiking and waterfall-peeping.

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It had started raining around 9 pm Monday, and the rain continued through most of the night.  We didn't think much of it - until we opened our shades Tuesday morning to find something of a Noah's Ark situation, with the T42 completely surrounded by water.

Our site appeared to be at one of the low points of the campground.  Luckily the water was only a couple of inches deep and the ground was still pretty solid underneath, so we didn't have any problems pulling out - but it was definitely a "thank God we weren't tent camping last night" moment!

As we left Munising behind and headed west, we passed through Christmas - a little town that really leans into its name.

We stopped in the city of Marquette 45 minutes away to pick up the Amazon order containing our replacement tire pump (which you may recall had burned out on June 11) and then continued onward for another 2.5 hours until we reached our main attraction for the day:  Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park (165 miles west of Munising).  Upon arrival, we noticed that we had hit a somewhat amusing milestone on our odometer.

A fly snuck in when Christine popped outside to check our parking position, and promptly bit Tom - so he hunted the little bugger down and fried him with one of our electronic fly swatters, and then applied a layer of picaridin before exiting the T42.  The plan for the day was to hike the 2.7 mile loop trail that goes by three water falls, starting with the West River Trail.

This sign explains the interesting geology of the riverbed, and why the "potholes" form.

The first falls we encountered on our hike was the largest - Manabezho Falls - which is named after a powerful Ojibwa spirit god.

Following the rapids upstream brought us to Manido (the Ojibway word for "spirit" or "ghost") Falls.

Last, but not least, was Nawadaha ("in the midst of a rapids") Falls.

Crossing over onto the East River Trail, the scenery got a little less exciting - with lots of forest and river views, but the falls no longer really being visible.  There was the occasional wild life, though.

As we reached the end of the East River Trail near Lake Superior, the path got a little dodgy.  The map showed that there was supposed to be a suspension bridge to cross back over the river, but there was no bridge to be found.  The trail just seemed to end at the river.  Was the map wrong, and we were going to have to retrace our steps and walk the 2+ miles back again?  We eventually figured out that they really did want us going into the river and walking across the exposed shale there, to climb up onto a rock plateau that starts about halfway across the river.  Our guess is that this route would be completely unpassable in the springtime when the water volume is higher - but it gave us a much closer look at the terraced "Nonesuch Shale" that composes the riverbed, which is so much different than the granite we're used to.

Once on the rock, we were able to locate the suspension bridge to cross the rest of the river.  (Unfortunately, the flies in this area seemed to not be bothered by picaridin, so we had to cross the bridge and move on fairly quickly.)  Once across the river, it was a short distance more back to the T42.

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Back on the road again, a 1.5 hour drive southwest (crossing over into Wisconsin around 5 PM Central Time) brought us to Copper Falls State Park, where we'd be staying for the next two nights.  Since we'd be staying in more Wisconsin state parks further along in our trip, we now have a Wisconsin Annual Pass sticker on our windshield to keep the South Dakota and Michigan ones company (although Wisconsin requires theirs to be on the driver's side instead of the passenger's side).

Since thunderstorms were forecast for later in the evening, we showered right after finding our campsite - giving Tom a chance to wash off all the residual picaridin.  Dinner that night was rice with the smoked whitefish and trout we had bought yesterday in Munising.  The fish was extremely tasty, and there was amazingly a lot left over:  because of the intense smoke flavor, saltiness, and natural oiliness of the fish, a little went a long way.

We spent the evening finding and frying the mosquitoes that somehow managed to sneak into the van - although most managed to bite Tom before we noticed them.  Tomorrow we'd be hiking to see some waterfalls...