Presque Isle & last bits of the Porkies

We had planned to hike for 3 days in the Porcupine Mountains, but the mosquitoes and biting flies quickly convinced us that 2 days were enough, so we packed everything we wanted to do into just a couple of days!

After hiking Lake of the Clouds we stopped off at the Union Mine Trail, which is a quick and easy 1-mile looop past some of the old copper mines with some really lovely streams meandering through the woods. 

On our second day we headed towards the other side of the park to do the Presque Isle waterfalls loop. It was very rainy so we figured it would be much better on the bugs front. 

Nope! It was hot, humid, rainy, and the bugs just came inside our rain gear to feast. 

But it was beautiful nonetheless! We found that the bugs were extremely thick down by the river so we mostly stayed up on the high ground, except for parts where we had to cross over, like the one pictured below. 



There's a little island just before the river mouth so we walked over to it and found that every pool was full of thousands of tadpoles! Happy hunting, little frogs; there are more than enough bugs to go around. 

Eventually we crossed over on the suspension bridge and came out where the river flows into Lake Superior. My dad had told us that this was the best skipping rocks beach he'd ever seen in his life and he was 100% right. 

Views from the bridge of the river--there were these amazing holes created by the swirl of the water. So neat. 



There were a few people across the river hanging out where the island met the lake, but our side was completely deserted with the exception of our family. And the mosquitoes were minimal!! So we stayed for a good two hours. 



Soooooo many rocks to skip. 

Eventually we made our way back upriver. It really was so pretty. 

Going backward in time but these pictures filtered in later: we stopped at the fire tower that morning to check out the view over the whole park. This would be absolutely breathtaking in fall!

Our campground had this cute little store maybe half a mile away (a really nice walk) that sold great soft-serve ice cream. A necessity!



Soooooo grateful for our mosquito-netting shelter. We spent a lot of time with our sticker books on this half of the trip. 



Throwing a few last rocks into Lake Superior...



And one more sunset meditation!

Union Bay and Lake of the Clouds

After we left the Pictured Rocks, we drove across the width of the Upper Peninsula until we got to Porcupine Mountains State Park. We were really excited to do some awesome hiking here and camp alongside Lake Superior. And we were VERY excited for flush toilets, showers, and laundry. 

 

Then we drove through the campground and I hated it. There are definitely worse campgrounds in the world, but this was very much a campground where all the good sites were along the water and everything else was basically just in a field of should-have-been-mown-more grass. (Our fire ring had 3-foot-tall grass all around it, ugh. We didn't light a fire the whole time we were there though because it went from 30s at night in Pictured Rocks to HIGH 80s!)

And the bugs were horrible. So so so so bad. Tons of mosquitoes and biting flies. I legit cried when we pulled up to the campground office and we could see swarms of bugs out the windows. :-(



The shoreline was really cool though, so we spent a LOT of time down there (there was basically nothing else to do at the campground other than be sweaty and hot while you smacked at bugs). 



The views were pretty amazing though. One night Neil and I sat out for about an hour to watch the sunset which was so beautiful. 


Our first hike was Lake of the Clouds, which is kind of "the" hike to do in the Porkies. It's 8 miles out and back. And this is probably the worst hike we've ever done! It would be fine without the bugs, but there were SO SO SO many bugs. Truly unbearable. Normally we take snack breaks and that helps a lot, but the bugs were so bad that there literally was no stopping. 

At one point a breeze blew up and it started lightly raining and we were like, oh good, this is so pretty so glad we are here and the weather's better! Then about ten minutes later it was swampy hot again and we were back to smacking mosquitoes. I think what made this hike particularly miserable is that there were a few really beautiful views when you were out on the escarpment (rocky bits in the pictures), but for about 80% of the hike you were trudging up and down very steep hills over a poorly maintained trail in the woods, and the mosquitoes & biting flies were just swarming everywhere in the woods. 

It was so bad, in fact, that when we got to our turnaround point at the Lake of the Clouds overlook parking lot, Neil suggested that I run back to the car and then drive up to meet them. Neither of us had any desire to marshall the kids for another 3 hours back through the woods of misery. 

So I ran (in my hiking boots and long pants) back through the mosquito fest. I was pretty worried about bears and definitely had a few heart-pumping moments when I thought burned stumps were bears (I passed maybe 4 other hikers in four miles?). I was also super worried about breaking an ankle since the trail was so rough, so it was pretty stressful the whole time, but SO worth not having to drag the kids back!

Then we got back to the car, checked everyone thoroughly for ticks, and cranked the AC up to the max while we went in search of ice cream. 

The end. See ya never, Lake of the Clouds. I'm sure you're amazingly beautiful in the fall but never ever again will we venture to the Porkies unless there's been a freeze sufficient to kill the bugs first!