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Trip to Michigan UP

Greenley

Well Known Member
Today started a much needed vacation to the upper peninsula of Michigan, the UP.

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Left Dowagiac (C91) and flew north over some beautiful Michigan farmland and lakes.

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Passed Traverse City, then over Traverse Bay and on to Beaver Island. Beaver Island is a nice Island with some great beaches, great beach combing, and two airports.

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From there we went on across Lake Michigan (37 miles) to the UP.

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Landed at K I Sawyer, and spending the first night in Marquette.

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Tomorrow spending the day in the air and on the water along Pictured Rocks. More pics to come.
 
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Beaver Island has some crazy history. At one point it was declared independent of the United States by a self anointed king. He was later killed by one of his subjects (apparently not such a nice guy).

Some of the residents even set up a false light house to wreck ships on the island for plunder back in the 1800s. Now just a sleepy little summer get away for the residences.

Have a great trip!
 
Day 2 in the UP

The idea was to fly out of Sawyer (KSAW) and do a little air to ground target practice with my Canon, unfortunately low clouds and trying to stay 1,000' above the part kept us from seeing much of Pictured Rocks from the plane. Got a few pictures.

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From there took the rental car and drove to Munising to explore waterfalls. The first was Wagner falls.

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From there we visited Alger Falls, Munising Falls, Elliot Falls, and finally Miners Falls. Yes, there are a lot of waterfalls in the UP.

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(continued on day 2 part 2)
 
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Day 2 in the UP continued

After waterfalls, what better way to end the day then with a cruise. Took the 7:00pm sunset cruise along Pictured Rocks.

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In this next picture, look closely at the tree on the rock column, there is hardly any soil or water there. You can see roots draped over to the mainland where it gets it nutrition and water.

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The coloring on some of the minerals weeps through the sandstone was amazing.

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Back to the Bed & Breakfast by 10:30pm and the end to a beautiful day in the UP. Tomorrow, Sugarloaf mountain and more falls, maybe a little canoeing.
 
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We did Pictured Rocks a couple of years ago. You are having much better weather than we did. Great photos!
 
Beautiful!

This trip is on our list! Did you take a look at the little strip at Munising 5Y7?

Would be interested to see if it is RV friendly.
 
I did not look at 5Y7. I was going to but could not find a rental car in that area. Ended up flying to KSAW because I could get a car there. Doing more driving then I wanted to. At least I had a nice 2 hour flight up here from the southwest corner of Michigan instead of an 8 hour drive.
 
I especially like the tree with its roots reaching over to the mainland. That is one smart tree.:D
 
Day 3 in the UP

No flying today but still a lot of things to see. Started out the day with climbing Sugarloaf mountain, it commands an excellent view of the Marquette area shoreline. There is a touching memorial built at the top by Boy Scout Troop 1 of Marquette for the assistant scout master after he was killed in WW1. They put it there so his mother could see it from her house.

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We then hiked to Dead River Falls, strange name, but a great series of water falls, the further you hiked the hard the hiking, but also the more spectacular the falls.

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Now to Au Train for some canoeing. A very slow wide river heading to Lake Superior.

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On the way back to Marquette we stopped by Whitefish Falls. A very nice .6 mile walk through the falls, an amazing array of ferns through the woods. They build a very complex set of stairs to take you down to the bottom of the falls.

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Next, the Porcupine Mountains.
 
While we did not make it to the Porcupine Mountains today, we did reach Ontonagon (On-ton-a-gon), the gateway to the Porkies. On the way we stopped in L'Anse and hiked to Canyon Falls. Some describe it as the grand canyon of Michigan. While impressive, anyone who says that has never been to the actual Grand Canyon.

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From L'Anse we went to Bond Falls, it was very impressive, one of the largest I have seen in the UP. Hint, if you visit, park at the top and walk down, there is free parking there, if you go to the bottom you have to pay to enter that park. This falls consisted of many smaller cascades and on final very large fall.

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Finally we ended up in Ontonagaon at our hotel, not much of a sunset, but it was very beautiful and peaceful at the lakeshore.

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Tomorrow we will get to the mountains.
 
Spent some time at KI Sawyer back in the early 70’s and enjoyed many visits to Sugarloaf Mt.
Parked just South of the Mt were 25 - 30 retired Soo Line Steam Locomotives and related equipment from the steam era, interesting to look at that old technology.
 
The UP, the saga continues

Today, Saturday started out at with heading to a tiny church in Greenland, I have never attended church in a log cabin before, but it was quote nice. I am looking forward to the day when we do not have to stream everything online for all the people who are afraid to go to church.

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After church we visited the Ontonagon airport, there were even a couple if RV's parked there.

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We went into the Porcupine Mountains and visited the lake in the clouds. It is a beautiful undeveloped lake in the middle of the park.

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We then hiked up Summit Peak, it used to be considered the tallest point in Michigan at 1958', but there have now documented two other peaks that are 15-20' taller. There was a great view from the top.

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Of course after that we had to visit another waterfall, we had heavy rains last night so it was flowing much heavier then normal.

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In the evening it was a lovely walk along the Superior lakeshore.

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Tomorrow is our last full day to explore the porkies, then back to the plane to finish our flight around Lake Michigan.
 
Trip ending

Last day on the ground in the UP, tomorrow, back in the air.

This morning on the way back to the Porcupine Mountains from Ontonagon I was looking out over Lake Superior. The view reminded me how dangerous over water flights can be in the wrong weather conditions. Notice the "clear" horizon. The conditions were reporting as legal VFR, 4,000' ceiling, 10 mile vis.

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Someone looks like they are ready for homebuilding. :)

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Sometimes this whole flock disappeared under the water at once.

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Of course, a couple more water falls, these are from the Presque Isle River on the western end of the Porcupine Mountains.

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Now on to studying the weather to see what will be the best route for flying back home tomorrow.
 
Very nice report Bill thank you. Have fun circumnavigating. I flew around the lake 5 years
ago very picturesque.
 
Homeword Bound

Plans do not always work out. The idea for this trip was that we would head up the east side of Lake Michigan and back home down the west side. Well Monday morning checked the weather and K I Sawyer(KSAW) was reporting 200' and 1 mile. Not something I am comfortable departing in, I would not want to have to turn around and land in that if something went wrong. By the time the weather started lifting a big storm was heading across Wisconsin and Illinois so the west coast of Lake Michigan was out. Finally got off IFR and went down through Michigan dodging a couple of smaller storms on the way. Other then a few breaks it was IMC the whole way till just before Dowagiac, so was not able to get in an IFR approach. :(

Up through the clouds and over the UP.

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Got a few breaks on the cloud over the Traverse City area.

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Broke out at the end approaching Dowagiac (C91).

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What a wonderful magic carpet, 2.3 hours, compared to a 7 hour drive.
 
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