Back in Michigan

Sunday, September 20th

Got an early start from Duluth today as we have a 200 mile journey ahead of us.  The weather has been great and makes the trip much easier.  Most of it is on US 2; mostly a 2 lane road.  Our destination is Ontonagon.  I bet that’s a town some have not heard of.  So why are we going there?  Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

We last visited the park 45 years ago, on our honeymoon.  We are planning our visit there tomorrow, so more about it then.  Ontonagon derives its name from the river of the same name, the largest that flows into the south shore of Lake Superior.  The origin of the name is Ojibwa meaning “river of the lost bowl” and later corrupted into French, then English.  It has a population just under 1500.  Ontonagon County is 3rd lowest in population and 3rd highest in area in Michigan, giving it a population density of 6 people per square mile.  So if you are looking for a place that is out of the way and off the beaten track, this is it.

Monday, September 21, 2015

As we said, Porcupine Wilderness State Park is our main reason for being here.  The Porcupine mountains are almost entirely in the park. The Lake of the Clouds is the main feature of the park; here are a couple pictures.

There a few more feature we were interested in.  The first is the Presque Isle River area in the west area of the park with its waterfalls.

 

The next is the highest point in the park and nearly the highest elevation in Michigan; Summit Peak, 1958 feet.  The highest is Mount Arvon at 1979 feet in L’Anse.

However, one could make the argument we were above that because we climbed a 200 ft observation tower, from which this picture was taken.  The leaves are just starting to turn here.  In full color this view would be pretty awesome.  Getting up here…. 226 steps.

This park has not been nice to us.  First, the shower house and toilets are being renovated in the campground so they brought in porta johns.  The semi truck trailer ones you see at car races.  Euchh!  We are staying in Ontonagon at a city park.  Actually quite nice, but a 15 mile commute to the park.

The road connecting east to west in the park was closed, so there’s a detour of 55 miles to get to the falls and Summit Peak.  And finally, a trail to the falls was closed for boardwalk repair, requiring an extra mile of hiking to get to them.

The Porcupines are pretty spectacular and the park is worth the visit.  We just did not see and do everything we wanted, due to all the extra time wasted.  Guess we picked the wrong time to visit.

Tomorrow (actually today as we write this) we are going to hang around Ontonagon as the weather is deteriorating.  Rain is predicted.