I RV UP
When we decided to travel the Midwest this year, we set the goal to visit the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the summer. This became the "big dot" on our travel route, aka the sought-after destination that we would plan other travels around. We knew we wanted to create a loop, either clockwise – up through Wisconsin, to the UP, and then down through lower Michigan – or counter-clockwise, starting in lower Michigan and hitting Wisconsin afterwards. Given our last few posts, it's probably no surprise that we chose the former, but we haven't yet disclosed our reason why. We'll cover that in a blog post soon.
We were pleasantly surprised with Wisconsin, but we know we barely covered even a small portion of the state. Our repair schedule in late May set us back a week, so we had less time to spend heading through Wisconsin than we initially hoped. We will certainly need to return! But for now, it was time to continue northward, into Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Only...what section of Michigan actually is this?!
Zoomed out, we can see that it is in fact part of the UP, but we had no idea that the Michigan border was so far south. That means when we were in Door County, looking across Green Bay, we were looking to Michigan. To make things more confusing, that little section that we now call the "lower Upper Peninsula" is still on Central Time. Nevertheless, we technically hit the UP right after leaving Door County, when we did an overnight at a county park in Menominee, MI. Cute campground on the Menominee River, if we ignored the vast amounts of "geese fece" all over the place. It was a rainy evening, but we loved having a long pull-thru site where we could stay hitched, plus a grocery store within walking distance so we could top off on sustenance.
River Park Campground, Menominee, MI
After our overnight, we started the planned portion of our Upper Peninsula trip, staying at Bay Furnace Campground in Hiawatha National Forest, just a stone's throw from Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We were so excited to be in a territory with ample opportunities for outdoor recreation and had big plans for hiking, biking, and boating. Unfortunately, these plans didn't coincide with nature's.
In our week at Bay Furnace, it rained 5 of the 7 days. One of the sunny days was unseasonably hot and humid. Still, we did what we could.
At the Campground
Bay Furnace Campground is the site of the ruins of a pig iron blast furnace that operated in the late 1800s. There is a small interpretive trail that leads there from the day use area. The day use area itself is worth a visit too, with a field full of picnic tables, a restroom, and a small beach. These areas made our campground walks much more pleasant, especially when we got caught in the rain for half of them. The upside to the rain was that one day, the moisture created a gorgeous line of fog on the lake.
Lake Superior is our fourth Great Lake we have visited of the five, but it stands above the others due to its size, ample shoreline, and cliffs. It's the largest lake in the world, far larger than all of the other Great Lakes combined. Seeing it in person for the first time was a special moment. Until then, we couldn't quite grasp its magnitude.
If you're one of a lucky few to get a lakeview site, then you must have booked at the very second the site availability was released six months in advance. We did not, but you really can't go wrong with a site here. They are all spacious and private, with varying levels of shade. We reserved a site that was the perfect balance of forest and field, with enough openness to get some Starlink coverage. Cell service here exists, but it's not the best, especially for getting internet.
Our site had a couple of obstacles to watch out for when we backed in, including low-hanging branches and a tree stump right in the middle of the site. We were just happy that the ground was solid. With our site being a combination of dirt and grass, we worried that all the rain would sink us, but we were fine. The other issue with our site was the mosquitoes. The moist air certainly didn't help matters, but this site probably landed in the top five buggiest sites of all time. Granted, the winner of that list will probably never be topped (at least until Alaska), so comparatively, this bug level was tolerable. One thing we didn't have here that people warned us about were the flies, which are apparently "worse than the mosquitoes" this time of year. We had no issues with them in our site...the operative phrase being "in our site."
We wanted to be near Pictured Rocks, and this site put us only minutes away. We also loved being a stone's throw from ample hiking trails, especially when we had to squeeze in hikes between rainstorms. Bay Furnace Campground has no hookups, as most National Forest campgrounds don't, but we have never had a National Forest campsite we didn't like, so we prioritize them when we can and when it makes sense. We expected moderate temperatures, as usually in June the highs don't surpass the 60-70°F range. That was obviously not the case for us when our mini heatwave rolled in, but thankfully it only lasted a day, and it was nothing like what other parts of the country were experiencing at that time.
Site 31, back-in, no hookups
Has a fire ring and picnic table
Campground recommended? Yes
Site recommended? Yes
Pictured Rocks Boat Cruise
We lucked out when we booked a boat cruise for one of the only sunny days of the week, the hot and humid sunny day. However, our cruise was for sunset, which at Summer Solstice was setting close to 10PM. Between the late start time and the breeze, we had beautiful boating weather. Most of our RV friends recommended that we do a kayak tour, but we're not huge fans of kayaking. The cool part of kayaking is that you can get up close to the arches and caves, but with the weather we'd been having and the wind that day, we're very happy we were on a big boat that could handle the waves. The tour lasted two hours and took us along the lakeshore. We saw tons of waterfalls – more than usual, since the recent rainfall kept many from drying out. We also saw the famous formations of Pictured Rocks, including Heart Rock (an arch that looks like part of a heart), Broken Flower Vase (a partially collapsed rock formation with trees sticking out the top), and Battleship Row (a series of cliffs that look like several ships lined up next to one another). The cliffs have various mineral deposits running down and along them, creating a multicolor effect on the rocks.
The sunset tour is great for photography because we got the golden glow on the rocks on our way out, then the dark hues of dusk on the way back. The almost-full moon rose over the cliffs during our voyage.
Marquette-Area Hikes
On another humid day that called for rain, we squeezed in a couple of shorter hikes while we were running errands in Marquette, about 45 minutes west of Bay Furnace. We're not necessarily opposed to hiking in the rain, but here the ground was already wet and muddy, so adding extra hazards for slipping didn't seem like a good idea. We also needed to play it safe because some of the storms brought thunder and lightning. We had to deal with lots of bugs on these hikes, but at least the rain mostly held off. The first hike was Sugarloaf Mountain, 1.3 miles of tons and tons of stairs leading to a gorgeous lookout and memorial obelisk at the summit. This was where we had our encounter with the flies, but they honestly didn't bother us. They seemed to prefer reading the informational boards. The summit of the mountain was covered in puddles, so we had to be careful of our footing. However, the multiple overlook decks were fantastic.
On our way back to camp, we hit up the 1-mile hike to Laughing Whitefish Falls State Park to see its namesake waterfall. Despite knowing how much rain the area had been getting, we were not expecting the immense flow of this waterfall. From the photos we saw on All Trails, this waterfall usually has less than half this flow rate in the month of June. I went onto my RiverCast app to see if I could find any information on the river that runs into this waterfall (Laughing Whitefish River), but nothing came up. The amount of dirt that was getting carried by the river meant that erosion was occurring. The falls also created so much foam, the pool looked like a bubble bath! We've never seen anything like it.
Hodgepodge of Hikes
Thursday was our charmed day: 60°F and sunny. We took advantage, and so did everyone else! It didn't help that this was the day that we did all of the touristy hikes, aka the really short walks to various views and features. We didn't mind, though. We were just happy to have cooler weather and less bugs.
First, we went to Miners Falls and then Miners Castle, ending with a picnic lunch on Miners Beach. It was here that we realized, flights upon flights of stairs was the norm here on the lakeshore. It makes sense because people somehow have to get up and down the cliffs, and as arduous as these staircases can be (they are often steep and unlevel), we appreciate having the lookouts. Many even had upper and lower viewing platforms.
Next, we went to Munising Falls, another short but steep climb to a waterfall observation duplex. We did the upper level deck first, passing beautiful layered rocky ledges along the way. Then we went to the lower deck, which also had a third platform up another staircase, but we opted out of that one. We had to conserve our energy because more stairs were to come!
Our last stop was Wagner Falls, the shortest walk to the least enthralling waterfall of the day. Not that it was bad or anything, but lots of trees had fallen in front of it, and it only had a single-level viewing platform. We know. Terrible.
That was all we had time for during our week in this part of the UP. We may have gotten the short end of the stick weather-wise, but at least we spent enough time here to have some nice days. That's one of the best parts of RV travel. We move slow, so we don't need to worry about short vacations getting rained out. We also know that we can always return another time; we just need to plan it into our travels.
Even with the little bit we saw, Pictured Rocks was just as spectacular as we had envisioned. These cliffs were formed less than 10,000 years ago, and they are still very fragile. We even saw a small rockfall during the boat cruise! This is another reason why the lookouts have the wooden walkways and stairs; the ground is not safe to walk and climb on. As we walked back to our truck from the boat dock, we remarked once again on how incredible the landscapes of the United States are. We feel so lucky to be able to experience them all. Even if sometimes the weather isn't on our side, we don't let the rain dampen the gift that is this life of travel.