Lakeshore Trail - Pictured Rocks

Lakeshore Trail: Grand Marias to Munising, MI

4 Days 3 Nights - 39 miles

September 1 - September 4, 2012

Here's the highlights from the Lakeshore Trail, repeatedly referred to as the crown jewel of the North Country Trail (NCT). The weather was awesome. Lake Superior was warm enough to swim, and the trail has incredible views. What a great labor day weekend! This trip required special advance reservations through the NPS of the backcountry sites because those fill up, and you are only allowed to camp in these designated spots in the park.

Day 1 : Grand Marias to Benchmark Campsite

We drove up Thursday night to be able to start our trip first thing in the morning on Friday. We prearranged with Trailspotters to meet us at the Munising Fall Interpretive Center at 9 am. We left our car there and got a ride to Grand Marias Visitor's Center where the trial began. The next time we would see the car would be 4 days later when we would be finishing the trail.

This put the actual start to the hiking around 10:15 am. The first 5 miles of the trail is a nice, wooded section, then at Log Slide, the Lakeshore trail drops you to look along Lake Superior for the rest of the time. You aren't on the sand, but instead looking down at the water from above. This makes for easy hiking, but also boarder views of the shore - hence the trail name: Lakeshore Trail.




View of Log Slide dunes from a lookout point.



 Along the way to Benchmark Campsite, there is the Au Sable lighthouse. This is a great place to stop - we ate lunch here - because there is a small museum and little shop to learn about the history of this lighthouse. If you are willing to take the time for the $3 tour of the lighthouse, you can climb to the top and absorb the view (we didn't do this but heard the pictures from there are very nice.) This is the only part of the trail on the first day where we really saw larger groups of people. The NPS Hurricane River Campground is within a 1.5 mile walking distance, so this is a popular day hike. However, all the folks we ran into were so friendly. We even met an older gentleman who had done the AT with his brother, and he now working on section-hiking a trail from the east coast the west coast in small chunks. It was pretty impressive.



Au Sable lighthouse as viewed from Log Slide.



Au Sable lighthouse

Just next to the lighthouse: Mike puts his hand in Lake Superior for the first time.

Benchmark campsite was a great location - pretty much in the dunes right near the lake. At first with the lack of shade it was alittle hot, but the view it offered with the lake-access quickly trumped that. Each of the backcountry campgrounds have 6 sites for up to 2 tents (although some of the sites would have a hard time fitting 2 tents.) You could have fires there, but you have to share the common fire pit. In a way, this is almost better because it give you a chance to hear from the other folks staying in the backcountry site. This is where we ran into my brother's friend, who ended up taking us to watch the Michigan game in town the following night. (Although this turns to not be as great as we had imagined.) At this campground, we were really the only ones there that were hike-in campers. The rest of the individuals had their cars park 0.5 miles away.




First night's tent pitch. Just behind those trees is the beach!

 

On the Lakeshore Trail. Look to the right, you can see the Lake right there!

Day 2 : Benchmark Campsite to Beaver Creek Campsite

The main portion of this day's hike covered Twelve Mile Beach. The name of the beach literally matches with what you would imagine with 12 miles of white sand and most open, natural beach. At some points, you had to ask yourself if you were looking at Lake Superior or the Caribbean.




View of Twelve Mile Beach





Our tentsite at Beaver Creek. This site had a ton of space and was more wooded.



We left early in the morning, so the hike to Beaver Creek was quick. Once we arrived, we had time to relax and go swimming/wash off in the lake. It was a warm, sunny day. So perfect.



Beaver Creek campground's bench!



Here is Beaver Creek ending into Lake Superior. This beach spot went on for miles with practically no one there.



Again we were the only folks in the campsite doing the complete Lakeshore trail, but we did meet some people who had kayaked in. Another group was on a fishing trip in Beaver Lake. They were alittle rowdy, but jealous we were going to watch the Michigan game.

Side note - due to the sandstone at the pictured rock cliffs, there isn't really any vegetation in the lake near here...so no fish in Lake Superior in this section. So, if one wants to try to fish around this area, you should go in Beaver Lake, the big lake would be a waste of effort.

Like mentioned, we did go see the Michigan game, but I won't elaborate too much on that for a few reasons. The first is that the game result was miserable. The second was that in order to get to our "ride" to the game, we underestimated the distance would have to hike - an extra 6 total miles round trip. While it was nice to get to see the trails around Beaver Lake, there wasn't much to see at 12:30 am when we had to hike back to our tent in the dark - thank goodness for headlamps! In the end, Mike and I both agreed...breaking the original hiking plans wasn't something we will plan to do in the future. The late night just snowballed the next day, which would have been a better start with a good night's rest.

Day 3: Beaver Creek Campsite to Mosquito Campsite

Day 3 was by far and away the most scenic. This part of the trail is where you can see the actual Pictured Rocks, which are amazing. It consists of these giant cliffs shooting up from the bright blue water (still looking almost tropical)...but instead of just white sandstone, you have streaks of color! What happens is the water embedded in the cliff walls - rich with mineral deposits - drips down the face of the cliff. It literally looks like someone painted colored streaks down the huge cliff walls: Orange and browns from Iron deposits, white for the Calcium, black for the Magenese, Blue/green from the Copper.

More pictured rock cliffs in the distance.

Chapel Rock - This rock is separate from the mainland. Look carefully, you can see the roots on the right.

The main spots for visitors at the Pictured Rock National Park are Chapel Beach and Mosquito Beach. Both of which have their reasons for being awesome. Even though this is the most popular section, it still didn't feel packed with day-hikers like we had anticipated.

Mosquito beach - this all sandstone cliff

Our site at the Mosquito campground.

Sunset at Mosquito Beach on Sunday night.

Day 4: Mosquito Campsite to Miners Beach (Kayak day!)

Monday was our kayak day! We were worried about the weather because today was to be the first day without sunshine. The cell phone reception at Mosquito Beach was better than some other parts along the trail - meaning that there was some reception. We were able to get ahold of the kayak trip company that morning, and were informed the trip would still be leaving from Miner's beach at 10:00 am.

The hike from our final campsite to Miner's beach was quick and easy (only about 3 miles.)  We arrived at Miner's beach by 9:45 am and had breakfast there on the beach. We did stumble across a small logistical issue when, by mistake, we ended up on the wrong side of the 1-mile-long Miner's beach waiting for Uncle Ducky's Kayaks. Fortunately, despite figuring this out way past 10:00 am, when we did reach the other section of the beach...out kayak trip hadn't left. Our guide, Alexandria, was waiting for a storm to move past us to the north. After about 45 minutes waiting, we headed down to get the instructions on the trip and gear up. We kayaking in a tandem sea kayak, so it was extremely stable and had increased mobility with the rudder in the back. The kayak trip would take us up to where we had been last night (near Mosquito Beach), eat lunch, and them head back to Miners Beach.

The trip in the late morning was awesome. Every bit of the advice to view the Pictured Rocks and cliffs up close was worth it! You can see soooo much more from the water as compared to the trail. With the kayak, unlike the boat tours, you can get right up to the cliff wall; you can even go inside the cliff coves! It was amazing! We both thought this was so worth the cost of the guided tour without question.

After lunch, Mother Nature did throw off the rest of the afternoon by a very strong series of heavy rain and t-storms. We were stuck on the shore until about 3:45 pm, when the rain stopped, and we were able to safely head back to Miner's beach. The unfortunate thing here is that we were only at Miner's beach and still had about 7 miles of trail to go. It was already 5:30 pm by the time we would have been able to leave. We had already eaten all the dinners packed for the trip - because we don't pack more than we need - so with the ETA around 9:30 pm for our hiking arrival to the car, we ended up getting a ride back to the car. I was pretty exhausted from kayaking all day.

Here we are at the end of the trip. All done!

All in all this was our longest distance and number of days trip. With the added kayaking on the end of it, the trip felt extremely well-rounded. We couldn't have asked for a better trip. So Scenic, but still an adventure.