.
The Place
The western end of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore has the 15 miles of cliffs that give the Lakeshore its name. These sandstone cliffs reach up to 200 feet high and are vividly colored with minerals carried in water that has run down the cliffs. They have been eroded by water, ice and wind over the millennia into interesting shapes and formations. The Pictured Rocks are best viewed from the water. After all, from the land you would be on top looking down…
The western end of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore has the 15 miles of cliffs that give the Lakeshore its name. These sandstone cliffs reach up to 200 feet high and are vividly colored with minerals carried in water that has run down the cliffs. They have been eroded by water, ice and wind over the millennia into interesting shapes and formations. The Pictured Rocks are best viewed from the water. After all, from the land you would be on top looking down…
Munising is the town on the western edge of the National
Lakeshore. It has a beautiful bay with
an enormous island (appropriately named Grand Island) at the mouth of the
bay. The island blocks some of the winds
and waves, so while we have been here the bay has been very calm. The Munising Tourist Park campground, where
we are staying, is right on the bay’s edge.
I am looking at a beautiful view of the water and the island right
now. The campers gather at the water’s
edge to view the sunset each evening.
The Adventure
First, we drove through the length of the National Lakeshore
to get to Munising. We stopped at the 500
long and very steep “Log Slide” that loggers used to push logs down the 300
foot sand dunes (mentioned in the previous post) to the Lake below to be towed
to a sawmill in Grand Marais. The view
from the Log Slide is spectacular. The
central part of the National Lakeshore is a wilderness area, and the road
curves outside of it. We didn’t go
in. You can access the Pictured Rocks from
the road at the Miners Castle and Miners Beach.
The name Miners refers to the Miners River which enters the Lake at this
point as well. Miners Castle is a
beautiful turret overlooking the bay.
Miners Beach is a beautiful sand beach
.To view the pictured rocks from the water, we took a kayak
tour along the cliffs. The weather was
perfect with calm winds and cloudless skies.
The water was a bright Caribbean blue!
The cliffs are beautiful! They
have red markings from iron, white from calcium, and blue and green stripes
from copper. In many places there are
light sheets of water trickling down the face of the cliffs. We went into a cave where it was “raining”
water through the ceiling of the cave.
So much fun!
We passed the Bridal Veil Falls, the tallest waterfall in
the Park. It can only be viewed from the
water. We also passed through Kissing
Rock, where a huge rock has fallen off close to the cliff, yet appears to be a
face kissing another face on the cliff.
You can float in your kayak under the kisses. We also passed a huge rubble pile where a
part of the cliff fell off this spring.
The ice this winter had weakened that section of cliff.Not pictured here, we also passed over a shipwreck in 25 feet of water. The water was so clear that you could see the individual boards on the wreck.
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| Faces kissing at Kissing Rock |
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| Kissing Rock Pass Through |
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