Waterfalls of the Keweenaw

Conditions:

Warm, sunny, humid, buggy, little recent rain

Companions:

Logan

Vehicle:

Ford Taurus

I had been to West Branch Sturgeon and Hogger Falls earlier in the summer. In fact, I scouted out quite a bit of the area upstream and downstream to make sure that there wasn't other falls in the area, which took a good chunk of time and made me get home quite late in the evening. However, I decided to revisit the area to get some better pictures during the day, especially of Hogger Falls, and also hit up Prickett Dam while I was near Sturgeon River.

After getting the puppy ready to go early in the morning, we headed out in hopes to make it back before an event, Schoolyard Olympics, at Tech was finished. Many of my friends were helping with the event and I planned to stop by with Logan and see how they were doing. We left the house and headed straight down to West Branch Sturgeon Falls along Newberry Road and stopped at a gated drive on the left. It was the wrong one.

We ended up wandering over a mile down the road and cutting a fair distance to the right before I realized the error. Both the dog and I were getting hungry and tired, so I cut straight south from the road and soon bumped into the correct path a fair distance east of the falls. Wandering around a bit down different paths that lead to the river, we finally bumped into West Branch Sturgeon Falls over two hours from the time we entered the woods.

The falls were a bit lower then last time, but the daylight helped a lot with the pictures, even though I was using an old camera. Someone had recently camped here too, so it was easy to cut through the grass near the river. After spending a bit of time getting pictures and relaxing at the river's edge, we headed upstream, walking near or in the water, and hit up the next three falls along this chain, and finally ended up at Hogger Falls.

Hogger Falls was very impressive during the day. Though it isn't a direct plunge, the size of the falls combined with the stark rock walls of the riverbank was very dramatic. After a few pictures, we headed directly up the falls and attempted to follow the river to Newberry Road. Once again, we got quite lost and confused in the underbrush.

Defeated, we headed due north to the trail, found it, and headed back to the car. Over four hours in the woods left us hungry, thirsty, and a bit done with falls for the time being. I was kind of hoping to visit Vista Falls that morning but decided to head back up to Houghton with a brief stop at Prickett Dam.

After visiting Redridge and Victoria Dams, I was a bit optimistic about dams still having natural-looking waterfalls. Unfortunately, Prickett Dam was a very industrial-looking dam, with the water spilling out of a metallic stop onto a cement riverbed. It did have easy access to a bridge crossing below the dam, though, and also appeared to have an old, washed-out boat launch just above the dam. The water gushing out of the dam looked pretty amazing and powerful, too.

Overall, it was a rather nice day to be out looking at falls. Though we only visited two falls and a dam, the dog and I were plumb tuckered out. We headed back to the house, grabbed some food, and relaxed with friends for the rest of the day.