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Waterfalls of the Keweenaw

Conditions:

Cool, cloudy, very windy, some recent rain

Companions:

Katie, Logan

Vehicle:

Saturn Vue

Today my girlfriend and I went on a Keweenaw County excursion that was sprinkled with a few waterfalls. She usually doesn't go on waterfall trips with me, as they often involve lots of hiking/searching with plenty of annoying bugs, but as most of the falls in the Keweenaw are easy to get at, I convinced her to come with on this trip.

We left the house around 10pm and headed to McLain park, stopping briefly to check out the waves. It was quite windy that day, with an overcast sky and mild temperatures. After checking out the crashing waves against the breakwall near the Portage, we headed up the Veteran's Memorial Highway to Five Mile Point Rd off of Ahmeek.

Our first stop was near the end of this road, a few miles out of Eagle River. Silver Creek had a sign as it crossed under the road, and we went in on the E side of the bridge. There's a network of trails going back in the woods, and the easier ones aren't that close to the creek. A lot of trees were knocked down over the creek close to the bridge, so the trail we took made a loop around the downed trees and came back to the creek upstream of the falls.

Though the banks were pretty steep in most places, we were able to get down to the creek upstream of the falls fairly easy, even with our puppy. Walking downstream along the creek to the falls was more difficult, though, and my girlfriend headed back the way we came down. It seemed that only accessible path to the actually falls was along/in the creek, so I continued down the slippery rocks to the actual falls.

The area was conglomerate rock, similar to Upper Gratiot falls, but the slopes above the falls were more pronounced. The actual falls were very pictueresqe, with a straight drop of close to five feet into a small pond. The area was mossy with slick rocks, though, but you can get a bit of a view from overhead on the main trail.

After meeting back with the girlfriend and venturing along the steeper trail littered with fallen trees, we headed to Eagle River Falls. These falls are located right in town with a pedestrian bridge near the highway giving a great view of them. We didn't spend much time there, as you couldn't go down into the gorge thanks to chain link fences. These falls are impressive and easy to get to, and they really appear different based on the waterflow that you catch them at. I preferred semi-dry conditions, as you can see the small wooden dam atop the basalt rock wall.

We then went back up M-26 towards Phoenix, away from Lake Superior, in hopes of finding Fenners and Ten Foot Falls. We only found Ten Foot, even though we pulled off at two different locations trying to find Fenners. Ten Foot was close to the road and even had a few flat areas for camping. The falls tumbled over heavy basalt rocks, spliting into two main flows. The main flow is on the far bank, which is difficult to see from the road side.

Our next stop was supposed to be Copper Falls, both the city and the actual mines. However, I didn't have good directions to them, and we drove right past them after stopping at a small roadside park. There was a watchtower in the park that provided a nice view of Eagle Harbor, though, and we even convinced our puppy to climb up it. He needed to be carried down, though, and was ridiculously scared the entire time.

After failing at Copper Falls, we headed into Eagle Harbor and turned SW along M-26 to visit Jacob's Falls, which is right along the road. We had both been there several times before, but had never climbed up the rock face to see what was upstream. It was a real treat, as there was several smaller falls scattered upstream from the road. This area was lots of basalt, but the small size of the gorge and mossy rocks made it difficult to view all of the falls. I saw at least four distinct rapids before it seemed to level out. This was a surprising find, and with the recent rain in the area, Jacob's Falls ended up being a great visit.

We then stopped along the Great Sand Bay to eat our lunch. It was too windy to eat outside of the car, so we just watched the waves of Superior from inside the vehicle. After relaxing a bit and playing with the puppy, we headed NE towards Eagle Harbor, briefly stopping at the lookout near their lighthouse.

The next stop was Silver River Falls, which was also right off of M-26. Located right between Eagle Harbor and Copper Harbor, with a sign marking the river, it was very easy to find. Parking was on the S side of the road, away from the lake, and you have to cross the road to see the falls. The trail was pretty easy to follow, even with a few trees across it.

There were several falls along the river, with two main ones. The first one you that you see has the stone bridge with M-26 in the background, and is more of a steep conglomerate slope than a falls. With the quaint bridge and trees, though, it was rather purty. Further down the trail is the main falls, which had a basalt bed. The falls weren't straight down, but the water did jump around over the basalt in a noisy and impressive manner. The trail appeared to go down to the lakeshore, but we turned around at the second falls in the interest of time.

Our next goal was ambitious: the Keweenaw Rocket Range. Located on the far east shore of the peninsula, several miles beyond Copper Harbor and the end of US-41, this was the site of some old Michigan Tech/NASA rocket tests in the 1980s. The road was absolutely horrendous, though, and after taking close to 40 minutes to travel less than 5 miles, we turned around. The area was pretty, but the roads were too overgrown to see a lot of the hills and lakes that are in that area.

After stopping at the conveniance store in Copper Harbor, we ventured up Manganese Creek Rd, past the bible camp, to see Manganese Falls. They were marked with some pullouts along the side of the road, and you could easily look down from the top of the falls to see it disappear into the gorge below. There were several entrances into the woods to the falls, and the falls were located very close to the road. I did climb down the gorge to try to get a better picture from the bottom, but the gorge is too narrow to get a good view. After the first dozen feet or so, the water disappears into a mess of boulders and can't be seen until it peeps out at the bottom of the falls. The best view is the one right above the falls. There is a lookout a bit down the trail, but the overgrowth block most of the view.

We then headed back to Houghton after spending over eight hours in the Keweenaw, as I had bowling that evening. All in all, we visited 6 out of the 8 falls planned and spent some time at some of the stops along the way. The best part was knowing that we'd have to go back up to visit the rest of the falls and enjoy some more of the peninsula on another weekend.