Day 8 in the UP – Our Last Day In Michigan

Tuesday, August 13, 2024

We were up bright and early again today to return to the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park. We were the third car at the trail head. The parking lot was almost full when we left. Today our focus was on the Presque Isle East and West River Trails. These trails follow the Presque Isle River, the largest river in the park and three of the biggest waterfalls in the park. The hike includes sections of boardwalk and stairs, wooded trail, and a suspension bridge. Usually, the two trails make a 2.4 mile loop but currently one section of the west trail is closed to hiking due to erosion. This means that the hike as we hiked it today was almost 4 miles. All-Trails classifies it as an easy hike even though there were a lot of stairs on the boardwalks – mostly on the West trail. There were also many roots to navigate especially on the east trail along with elevations changes. The waterfalls were very nice. We enjoyed the east trail as it was very quiet and peaceful with fewer hikers. We were also able to follow the river to the juncture with Lake Superior which was really nice on this beautiful day.

Might be the last time we use our Michigan Non-resident Annual Recreation Passport. But we got our money’s worth.

If you remember, we were in another Presque Isle a few days ago. A ranger explained that there are several because Presque Isle in French means “almost an island.”

The West River Trail boardwalk has a lot of boardwalks.

The East River Trail was a little more rustic.

The largest of the falls we saw on the hike.

We waited for a family to get out of the way to get a good picture of these falls.

These falls are best viewed from the east side of the river.

The trails are in an old growth hemlock forest. Some of the trees are over 400 years old. This is a hemlock cone.

One more brief stop on a Lake Superior beach

Apparently mountain trails have plenty of stairs.

It’s nice to come back to the van and have everything you need to rest and fix a meal.

When we were planning our route today, we had an icon pop up for Interstate Falls. On a whim we decided to find it. The parking lot is in Wisconsin but the state line between Wisconsin and Michigan goes through the the falls. It was a short 1/3 mile hike. While viewing the falls we met a nice couple from Wisconsin. We had a nice conversation with them. They gave us some suggestions on other things to do in Wisconsin. They have done Habitat projects in the past but now work in the Habitat ReStore. They were very interested in BB and requested a tour. After their “tour” we had lunch before leaving the parking lot.

The Porcupine Mountains area is ski country

This picture of Interstate Falls in the winter is posted at the trailhead.

We even took time to find a couple of geocaches today along the trail.

As we pulled onto the road, Max looked across the way and saw another white Beyond in the veterinary parking lot. We pulled across the road and parked right beside the other Beyond. As it turns out, we were all at the Ocala show in March. We spent the next hour talking all things Beyond. They just got their rig in December and wanted to see all the mod’s we have make to BB and asked lots of questions. We of course exchanged contact information and they generously invited us to their home. We already had commitments in Wisconsin but we may visit them another time.

Another chance meeting with a Beyond family

We had a wonderful time visiting the Michigan UP. We are a little sad that time is over. We have some new places to explore but just might plan another summer trip to the UP.

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