It all started with an advertisement on my Facebook feed this past April:
Kayak at Pictured Rocks on Lake Superior - What a fun idea! Especially for someone who's only kayaked twice before (and knows nothing about Lake Superior, the largest freshwater "ocean"). I found three friends
The weather was clear and sunny. Unfortunately we hadn't thought about wind. Our sunset boat cruise was cancelled on Monday evening due to high winds/waves on the lake with a similar forecast for Tuesday. We ended up revising our plans a bit but still got to kayak on Lake Superior, do the boat trip (a day later), and even got some hiking in. It was a wonderful three days.
Monday evening's hikes:
Munising Falls
Miners Falls & Miners Castle
We were a little nervous about kayaking on Tuesday after seeing the wind/wave forecast and hearing how dangerous Lake Superior can be; we almost hoped the trip would be cancelled. The kayak company (Paddling Michigan) decided it would be safer to kayak along the east side of Grand Island instead of along the Pictured Rocks because the island would block the wind. The hardest part was kayaking across the channel to get to the island (against the wind) and we did have some waves, especially in the afternoon. But we had an excellent guide and saw some arches, rocks, and a waterfall as well as learned a bit about Grand Island. (We might have to return and do some hiking on the island some day.)
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| Deb, Melanie, Jodi, Karen |
After returning from our kayak trip we soaked our aching muscles in the hotel hot tub for a bit before grabbing supper and catching the sunset cruise (http://www.picturedrocks.com). Wow! Pictured Rocks are spectacular! Pictures can't do justice to God's artistry in these colored rocks.
We had time for a 2 mile hike to one more waterfall on Wednesday morning before heading back to the Lower Peninsula.
Mosquito Falls
We drove along the scenic route to where Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore ends and saw the dunes where they used to slide logs into the lake back in the logging days. We ended up in Grand Marais and had a delicious lunch.
We stopped at Oswald's Bear Ranch in Newberry on our way home so we could finally see some bears.
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| She's seven months old; her name is Audrey. |
This bear cub was hungry!
We actually stopped here (Tasty Treat in Lake City) on the way up and on our return trip - you can't go wrong with ice cream for supper!
Thanks Deb, Jodi, and Karen for joining me on this adventure!
