Hiking the Falls

There are several water falls in Upper Michigan, and we spent the day hiking near the largest of them:  the Tahquamenon Falls.  The second largest falls east of the Mississippi, they are 50 feet high and fall into a pool 50 feet deep.  That brown streak you see on the side of the falls isn't man-made pollution; rather, it's tannin, an organic substance found in the trees native to the area.  Back in the day, this tannin was used to give leather its darker color.  There's so much tannin in the Tahquamenon River that Whitefish Bay (where the Tahquamenon ends) also has a golden-brown tint to it.

As we were hiking toward the Upper Falls, we heard them long before we saw them.  We caught our first glimpse here:

But when we were up close and personal, we were even more impressed.

We spent the afternoon on a fairly challenging, four-mile hike down (but not all down-hill) to the Lower Falls, and by that point I was really glad I had decided to invest in new hiking footwear for this trip.  I nicknamed this path the "Tree Root Trail."  In spite of all the roots that at times seemed to leap up from the ground in an attempt to trip us up, this hike was gorgeous and we completed it unscathed.  With partly-cloudy skies and temps in the mid-70s, we couldn't have asked for better hiking weather.

The Lower Falls may have an inferiority complex, but they are gorgeous in their own right.

Best part of the deal?  There's a shuttle that took us from the lower falls back to our car at the upper falls!  That allowed us to get back to our campsite and cook supper before dark.


I know, I know, I know:  lots of sunset pics this trip. I just can't help it.  Watching the sun set over water is something with which I am totally enamored, and the views of the sun over the river are available to us this week while we sit at the picnic table and enjoy a late supper.  They're just too good to pass up!  Tonight's sun honestly was so huge and red as it went down, it looked like Jupiter.  For a moment it seemed like we were on another planet.