June 1st – 11th, 2022
I have completed my 11 day sojourn at the Hemlock Campground near the Lower Falls. The stay was mostly enjoyable. I say mostly because you had to be alert to avoid being carried off by the swarms of Mosquitos. Fortunately, nights and mornings were cool, so there at least was some respite from the blood suckers.
When I reserved a site online, there were only a handful from which to choose. However, the park was nearly empty most of the time. The first weekend saw occupancy at about 20%, but during the week, it dropped to about 10. I am not sure whether this was due to predicted cool and sometimes rainy weather or cancellations due to high fuel prices. Regardless, it made for a quiet and uncrowded campground. There were also fewer people on the trails and at the overlooks above the falls.
Cell signal was weak this far into the wilds of Upper Michigan. It was enough to allow me to log into work each morning. The speed was a little low, but did finally allow me to get these pictures uploaded.
In the afternoon of the second day, I hike the mile down to the lower falls to take a few photographs. The Lower Falls are a series of ledges in a shallow gorge. Each drop is only a few feet. The water is the color of root beer. As runoff seeps through the area bogs, it picks up tannins from the Cedar trees, giving the clear water a yellow brown color. Michigan DNR has built a number of boardwalks that provide views both above, below and at the brink of the various drops.
After the hike, I visited the brewery near the Upper Falls for a Whitefish dinner with Brown Ale. There were only a few other diners, but many animal heads watched over the tables.
On Sunday, I made the 35 minute drive up to Whitefish Point on Lake Superior. It is administered as part of the Seney National Wildlife Refuge and is a bird observatory area. Each spring, migrating birds get funneled into the point as they traverse Lower Michigan. There they rest before crossing Whitefish Bay on their way up to Ontario, Canada. On the day I was there, large numbers of Blue Jays were present. You don’t normally think of them as a bird that forms a flock. But at any given moment, I could see many dozens circling overhead. There is a boardwalk to the shore where one can potentially see plovers, sandpipers and other shore birds. I was there early in the morning, but if one were there later in the day, a visit could be made to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. The waters off of the point contain many sunken vessels that failed to make the trip into the confines of Whitefish Bay prior to entry at the Sault Locks.
Later in the week, I decided to do the Clark Lake loop hike of 5 miles. Most of the loop is through a cedar and evergreen forest, skirting a few bogs. I sprayed down liberally with Deep Woods Off. While that did keep the insects from landing on me, it did not keep them from swarming around my head. To combat the swarm required a very fast pace and sometimes I needed to filter my inhalations with a hand cupped over my mouth. That way I only swallowed around a dozen mosquitos.
I noted a number of small brown and green toads along the path and closer to the lake, quite a number of Painted Turtles made use of the sandy trail for building egg nests. As I paralleled the lake shore, I was accompanied by a large beaver swimming 20 yards offshore. The were quite of few moose tracks in the trail (not ice cream, but real tracks). I kept a sharp eye out to avoid running into one. They are generally meaner than bears. Should you wish to hike this loop, I would strongly recommend the fall season, when there are fewer insects. Also, make some noise while you hike to avoid any frisky moose. The trailhead is just over a mile from the main road on a two track that will require a high clearance vehicle.
Part way through my stay, I needed to make a run the few miles back to the small village of Paradise for groceries and a few gallons of gas. I tried to calculate how much gas to get in order to make it to a larger town on my way west. Gas in Paradise was $5.29 per gallon. Food was also rather high.
This is my last stay in Michigan State Park. Next I will be moving on to the state of Wisconsin.
Starting All Over 