The Upper Peninsula - and thus the lamentation begin

After leaving Canada (too soon), we dropped down into the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan. We had only planned a three night stay in the Hiawatha National Forest, figuring it'd give us time to run up to the Lake Superior side one day, down to the Lake Michigan side another, and toddle around the forest for the surrounding bits. Holy shit were we wrong (thus beginning both the lamentations and the swearing).

Lamentations of the best kind, I mean. The ones that are along the lines of "I wish we had more time" and "Gosh this is gorgeous " or "How have we never heard of this" with only a "Gah! How can there be no cell service " gripe now and then for good measure. I'm sure at some point we'll get numbed to the beauty that we see, but we're hoping that it's not for a good long while.

But, you're here for the UP recap. The first thing you should know is that you'll see signs for "pasties" everywhere! And before you think what we thunk, it's pronounced pass-ties, and you generally are okay not getting explicit permission before putting one in your mouth! They're a type of meat pie along the lines of a portable pot pie.

The next thing to know is to plan much more time than we did. We barely had enough time to explore Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We never did more than drive by the Lake Michigan side of things and aside from camping and an awesome mountain bike ride - Hiawatha National Forest retains its mysteries.

The shorter highlight first - mountain bike or trail run Bruno's Run (we biked). We got on the trail from the Pete's Run area off Forest Road 13 and it was amazing. Flowy singletrack through different types of forests, along lake shores, across bridges and boardwalks through bog/marshy areas. The trail was just twisty and rocky and rooty enough for us to pay attention, but not so crazy as to miss the scenery we were riding through.

The longer highlight - Pictured Rocks. Made a stop at the Interagency Visitor Center - we're generally anti-people, but we knew nada about this poorly advertised national treasure; they were super helpful and hooked us up with solid advice and options. Why this place doesn't show up in National Park guidebooks is astounding. Apparently since it's along a lake, it gets a "Lakeshore" designation rather than the word "Park." Before I digress too badly - it's a park and it's a park you should go explore.

The Lakeshore is roughly in thirds as we came to understand. The southwestern third near the town of Munising is the cliffs, the middle third is a basin/valley, and then the "farthest" third is 250-foot (plus) sand dunes. We only had time to explore the sand dunes and the cliffs in 1 1/2 full days.

We started at the far side opting to keep the hike and boat tour for the full day. At the far point of the dunes, there's a lovely trail to see the Sable Falls and where the Sable River flows into Lake Superior. From the beach you can look up and down the coastline and see down to the cliffs and lighthouses. Do not miss the Log slide area - the overlook is closed, but that just means you get to walk to the edge of the dunes and peer over the edge. Or, in Dean's case, you slide/jump your way down the steep near-1/4 mile sandy slope to the beach and then scramble your way back up! Pictures don't give the scale of the slope or how sugary sandy the dunes are.

Looking northeast from where the Sabke Falls meets Lake Superior

Dean scrambling back up the Log Chute - much steeper and longer than it looks here.

We wanted to hike a bit and opted for the Chapel Basin area loop. We went counter-clockwise on a ranger's recommendation and it was the right call. We started out past Chapel Falls and Chapel Rock to get up on the cliff tops for the stretch to Mosquito Beach before cutting back inland to catch Mosquito Falls. Again, words and pictures don't really do the hike justice (lamentation alert!). Things to know: muddy sections so wear boots, our loop option was about 10-miles and we planned enough time to hike it but didn't account for time to ooh-aah and ended up rushing the end in order to make our boat loading time.

Chapel Rock - the tree is sustained by roots that are connected over air to land as the rock eroded into a pedestal

Pictured Rocks cliffs from the boat with kayakers for scale.

We opted for the Spray Falls version of the boat tour. Totally worth it. And not just for the dad jokes that the boat captain/narrator provides! It was extra cool taking the boat after the hike, because for a lot of it we could look at the landmarks and realize that we had been up on top a little while previous. The cliffs are close to 200' tall in sections and it's a different experience from water height than looking along and down them from up top.

Things we wish we could have had time for - Grand Island, Beaver Lake Basin, sea kayaking tour, more of the cool things inside the Forest, Seney National Wildlife Refuge, etc etc etc (lamentation!). Oh - we did catch a range light tour that let us up inside - super cool thing if you happen to get lucky timing-wise (or actually plan these things). We also didn't even realize that the Keweenaw National Historical Park existed. So, yeah, our stay wasn't nearly long enough in the UP!