Water, Water Everywhere_ and Every Drop to Drink

As much fun as Chris and Jay had messing about in Copper Country, after two weeks, it was time to move on and they did so on Saturday, July 24^th. Route 41 took them east through Marquette, and along the Lake Superior coast, to Munising, a little tourist town on the west side of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore; an absolute jewel of Lake Superior. Its diverse natural offerings ranged from miles of sandstone cliffs, gorgeous, deserted beaches, and waterfalls of every description to thousands of acres of pristine woodlands and all competed for Chris and Jay’s attention.

Pictured Rocks got its name from the colorful, up to 200 foot high, sandstone cliffs that stretch along its 42 miles of Lake Superior coastline. The colors are created by groundwater leaching out of the rocks and along the way picking up red from iron, yellow from limonite and pinks and greens from copper and depositing the colorful residue on the rock faces as it trickles to the lake. The rays of the setting sun intensify the colors and hence their name – Pictured Rocks. At the easternmost part of the Park, the cliffs give way to massive sand dunes that rise hundreds of feet above the water.

To Chris and Jay one of the biggest surprises of the area were the beautiful, deserted beaches. Derived from eons of waves pounding the sandstone rock, they were deep, immaculately clean and similar to the beaches of the Atlantic coast. Some were a short walk from a parking area and others required a one to three mile hike through dense forest. Those the furthest away were the most spectacular as they stretched as far as one could see and seldom had more than a dozen people enjoying them at one time.

The beach at the end of Beaver Trail. We loved the emptiness of it.

Like the Keweenaw Peninsula, waterfalls abounded. Some were visible from the road, others a short walk into the woods and others were set deeply into the forests that bordered the Lake and required full hiking gear to get to them. They ranged from small streams dropping less than 10 feet to larger ones spilling more than 100 feet into pools strewn with boulders.

Miner Falls: The setting is absolutely stunning!

These beautiful features were encapsulated in over 73,000 acres of pristine woodlands marred only by a few, well-maintained dirt roads leading to the trail heads which accessed the features. To Chris it was a veritable photographer’s playground but she could not jump right in due to a commitment of Jay’s. His 50^th high school reunion was scheduled for the weekend after their arrival and they decided it was best for him to attend without her so that she could catch up on some much needed work on the blog and photo editing. So the first few days of their stay they drove to a few of the falls within easy walking distance from the road to gauge when was the best time of day to photograph them, and got a lay of the land in general.

Jay returned from his Reunion with a tired derrière from all the solo driving, but was happy he got to see friends and classmates again; some for the first time in 50 years. He was shocked at how quickly the years had passed and how old they all had become. He was pleased that the years had not affected him as it had the others. [Yeah, Right! ;-).

With Jay (and the truck) back it was time to get busy and see the sights. An afternoon was spent visiting the Grand Sable Dunes. A detour near the end of the trail that led to an overlook terminated at the top of an old log slide that was used in the late 1800s to quickly transport felled timber down the 300 foot long slope to vessels waiting on the Lake. A caution sign, complete with photo of an ambulance, explained that if one chose to descend the slope they could but warned that people with heart conditions may have difficulty ascending as the 300 foot vertical drop was actually 500 feet of soft, sand and although it only took minutes to get to the bottom it could take an hour or more of considerable effort to return to the top. Chris and Jay were tempted to run down the log slide but the thought of the ascent quickly dispelled the idea.

The buff-colored sand of the dunes contrasted starkly against the Caribbean blue-green water of Lake Superior making for interesting abstract compositions that Chris just had to capture so they made their way over them stopping occasionally to set up the camera and play with the pixels. She and Jay were admiring the brilliance of a massive, white cumulus cloud that made its way over the dunes when the sunny area where they were standing suddenly went into deep shadow. The brilliant cloud was the leading edge of a dark, sinister looking cloud bank that surely had “bad storm” written all over it and they made a hasty retreat to the truck.

The contrast of the water and sand was breathtaking.

Since they were restricted to the vehicle for a while they decided to drive the short distance further east to the town of Grand Marais to see what it was about. Upon arriving at the town jetty, the heavens opened and torrents of rain reduced visibility to a matter of feet. A man standing on the porch of a nearby house waved at them and Chris waved back. Moments later they realized he was trying to get their attention. It seems he lived in the town, had taken an evening walk and took shelter from the storm on the porch. He was seeking a ride home as he didn’t know how long the storm would last. The torrents abated somewhat but his dash to the truck wasn’t fast enough to keep him dry.

He was a wealth of information about the town as they slowly drove away from the jetty past an old Coast Guard building and down toward the local marina on the way to his home. By this time the rain had stopped and a double rainbow arched from one side of the harbor to the other. Not knowing how long it would last, Chris dashed out of the truck with point-and-shoot in hand and snapped away. They lingered, absorbing the moment, until it faded then continued through the town, their guest spouting information as they went.

Notice the fainter rainbow to the right.

Both of them stretched completely across the harbor making a perfect double arch.

They pulled into his driveway at the end of a sparsely populated residential area while he told them about the bears he occasionally saw meandering through his yard and how the former owner of the home that, over several decades, had assembled a rock collection that sold for over $10,000. With the setting sun beckoning, they said goodbye to their passenger and headed for the lake to scout the best location to capture the colors and reflect on the events of their unusual day.

When severe storms roll through, brilliantly clear skies and strong winds normally follow and the next day was no exception. The gusts make it difficult to capture long exposures where foliage is involved but the frothy waves it creates are spectacular. Such was the case on their next day’s adventure to Chapel Rock, an unusual sandstone formation, which is found on the shoreline at the end of a three-mile trail. The inviting but chilly, fresh, blue-green water rolled into shore via pure white, capped six foot high waves. The contrast of a crystalline blue sky, jewel tone waves and golden sands was breath-taking. Chris wasted no time in discarding her shoes and socks, setting up the tripod in the surf and capturing all of the views possible for the next few hours.

The waves pounded Chapel Rock.

Additional hikes on the Beaver Lake trail, where they found the cutest, tiny, orange mushrooms just inches from the path, and the aptly named, Mosquito Falls trail, plus a surprise, afternoon visit from Merrill and Mona Wood filled the remainder of their time at Pictured Rocks. Chris was loath to leave not only the location but the near perfect weather. But, due to problems with the renter making payments, they had to start their way south to ultimately arrive back home in Maryland after Labor Day.

This cute cluster of mushrooms was right next to the trail and the largest only about 2 inches high.

They reluctantly left Munising on August 9^th. The transition on the drive south was somewhat disappointing as the beautiful, lush, greenery of the Upper Peninsula gave way to the dry, dusty, flat terrain of Mackinaw City where another chapter of their travels would unfold.