Waterfalls of the Keweenaw

Conditions:

Cold, cloudy, very snowy

Companions:

Katie, Logan

Vehicle:

Saturn Vue

There was still quite a few waterfalls in the southwest that I wanted to visit. The hardest ones, Gleason and Sandstone Rapids, were already pushed off to the spring, but I still had about ten for this Sunday. However, when I woke up at five to start getting ready, I was disappointed to see that we had gotten several inches of thick, wet snow during the night. Katie was worried about my trip, especially with many of my waterfalls on two-tracks, so we slept in until about six thirty and set off together with a shorter list of stops and Logan.

The roads were simply horrible out, and we slipped our way south along M-26 until we hit Ontonagon County, which had been plowed several times that morning. Our first stop was O Kun de Kun Falls along I-45 at the North Country Trail trailhead, but we were surprised to see several parked vehicles there already. We stuck to the two-track on the way out there. It's a bit longer of a trek then the NCT to the falls, but with the wet snow it was a much safer walk. It took us close to an hour to reach the falls.

O Kun de Kun looked perfect this morning, with the snow draping the sandstone ledges and the water cascading down onto icy rocks below. We spent a good amount of time on the falls before heading down to the bridge across the Baltimore River, passing a few campers on the way. This group ended up being some friends of mine from Michigan Tech, so we stopped and talked to them for a bit before heading down. Walking across the bridge wasn't too bad, even with the snow, but we opted out of climbing around the opposite bank for a better angle with the slick rocks.

I headed up alone the NCT for the upper falls while Katie waited by the two-track. Logan and I climbed around these a bit, but the sandstone here was much icier, so we didn't spend much time. I entered into a short but enthusiastic snowball fight with Katie on the way back, and we headed out on the two-track to the car.

Getting a bit hungry, we headed out to Silver City in hopes of finding an appealing restuarant but didn't find anything open. I drove around a bit, searching for an easy access point to Pewabeck Falls, but the two-track I had seen from the satellite photos was gated off from the town. Heading to our next stop, Bonanza, I braced myself and Katie for a disappointment based on the images I had seen online.

There was an nice parking spot near the falls, so we parked and started heading to the roaring falls. Surprised at the noise the river was making, I was shocked to see the size and drop of the river at Bonanza Falls. The main drop was located right off the lot, and there were multiple drops below it for almost a half mile. From the images I had seen online, I didn't expect to see anything more then a foot high, but the two main drops were several feet high and roared with the high flow. After walking downstream to all of the falls, Logan and I headed back to a waiting Katie and we headed south to Bergland and lunch.

The only restuarant in Bergland didn't accept credit, and neither one of us had cash on us, so we headed on to Bruce Crossing. Luckily, we found a great small restuarant here and had lunch in the early afternoon. Unfortunately, during our drive we passed most of the falls that I had hoped to visit, so we reviewed the atlas to find other places to visit. Katie decided on Bond Falls. I had been to these before, but the summer rush was a bit too much for Logan and I, and I didn't wander around too much to get good photos. With slick roads and snow on the ground, I hoped that there wouldn't be any visitors today.

While most of the trails were closed for the season, Katie and I managed to make it down to the falls along some steep icy stairs without mishap. There was only one other car parked by the closed gift shop, and it was pulling away as we parked. The falls themselves were beautiful, and we spent over an hour walking around and taking pictures. There were a few footprints along the walks from earlier in the day, but the area was otherwise untouched. We also found a number of upper falls that I hadn't noticed during my first visit.

Heading out in the late afternoon, we drove east to Kenton and Duppy Falls. I wasn't sure if they were in Iron or Houghton County, but I really hoped to finish off another county's falls before the end of the year, so I decided to go ahead and visit them while we were in the area. The roads down here were quite bad, and we didn't drive far off the road once we reached the two-tracks that led to the falls. Katie decided to stay in the car, so Logan and I headed down in search of the trailhead for the falls.

Thanks to the amount of snow they received this far south already, we weren't able to make out much in this area. I did venture down a good distance on several of the trails radiating from what I thought was the parking lot, but Logan and I didn't find anything besides small rapids and swamp. We headed out defeated before Katie could get worried and set out back to Houghton along NF-16, which ended up being unplowed and a horrible drive. Luckily, we didn't end up in the ditch, though the bumper did the majority of the work for our car. We made it back safe in the early evening to Houghton, but didn't stay awake long after our day of adventuring.