Today we visited Michigan's largest waterfall. Tahquamenon Falls actually has a distinct Upper and Lower falls, with the Upper being the one with the "largest" designation. There's technically a 4.5-ish mile path that runs along the Tahquamenon River between the two so you could park at one and walk to the other, but most people opt to skip the 9 mile round-trip hike and drive to each of the falls instead - which is what we decided to do as well.
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Saturday morning, we got up and drove the T42 five miles down the road to the Tahquamenon Upper Falls parking lot before doing our morning routine because we heard that "it's small and fills up early". In truth, it's not that small and didn't really fill up, but it was fine - the beauty of having an RV is that it doesn't really matter where you have breakfast and get ready in the morning.
Our first stop was the "Fact Shack" near the parking lot. (Read the bottom-right of the sign outside carefully 😉.)
Then we walked the path to all the viewpoints for the falls. Some were visible from ground level, but the interesting ones involved going down stairs into the gorge.
This sign along the way explained why the water has a distinct brown color to it (tannic acid from the decomposing vegetation coming from the cedar, hemlock, and spruce forests found in the drainage basin) and is so foamy (low mineral content in the water combined with lignin-protein complexes from the decaying plant matter and turbulence from the falls); the combination of the two has earned the falls the nickname of "Root Beer Falls".
Tom also started experimenting with slow shutter speeds on his Nikon, to get those "dreamy water" versions of flowing water that are popular in some waterfall photography. But without a neutral density filter in his kit, he was limited in the usable shutter speeds available on the bright, sunny morning.
After spending a bit of time browsing the sizeable gift shop at the Upper Falls, we drove back to the Lower Falls parking area (very close to our campground). Lower Falls are a bit unique in that they actually span two sides of an island.
The cloudy afternoon made it easier for Tom to achieve the slower shutter speeds he needed for his "dreamy water" versions of the falls.
The trail heads right, for closer views of the falls on that side of the island.
Prior to 2022 the only way to get out to the island was to rent a rowboat; but thanks to the the construction of a new aluminum bridge, you can just walk out there now.
Once on the island you can walk the loop trail to see the falls on the other side.
As well as get a closer look at the island-side of the right-hand falls as well.
We popped into the considerably smaller Lower Falls gift shop on the way out, and then had lunch in the parking lot. After a brief stop back at camp for showers, we drove 12 miles to the little town of Paradise to park outside the Whitefish Township Community Library. Although the library was closed, they were kind enough to post their WiFi password on their front door so we were able to write and post the South Dakota, Part 4 blog post from there.
Tomorrow we'd be leaving the Tahquamenon Falls area, and continuing our Upper Peninsula adventures.
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