Fish at Sleeping Bear Dunes

On our second day we biked out to a fishing weir on Platte River. There were no signs or displays to explain what was going on but we talked to a few people that seemed to know what they were talking about. There is a hatchery near here that brought salmon eggs from Oregon back in the 1960’s. Salmon adapted to the area and are still doing well in Lake Michigan. The adult salmon come in from Lake Michigan to spawn in Platte River in the fall and luckily we were here at the right time. They control the flow of fish back to the hatchery from this weir and only allow 20,000 or so fish in during a season. The center gate is opened to allow a few thousand in every few days. Somehow they keep a count of them. A sign said they had let in 10,000 so far.

The rest are harvested at this weir.

The day we saw them (9/27/18) there were several thousand salmon trying to get up the river but stopped by the fence. The solid dark mass is all the fish with some swimming separately on the edges. 

Everyone once in a while a fish would jump up in the air. We've never seen so many fish in one area and these were big fish so it was quite fascinating.

There were kayakers who were floating just outside the ropes. We were told this stresses them and isn’t a great thing for the fish.

Upstream were a bunch of people fishing (we saw 22 people). The fish they catch can be huge. The salmon were ~3 feet long and can weigh 30 pounds.

The Dunes of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

This is our 133^rd national park or monument that we’ve visited. First thing we saw after the visitor center were a couple of deer crossing the street. There were several sightings of bear near the campground, but we never saw them.

While there are a lot of places to visit in the park, the thing- to-do is called the Dune Climb. Everyone goes out to the section with the tallest dunes and climbs them.

If you are hard-core, you hike 3.5 miles climbing 9 different dunes to get to Lake Michigan. We weren’t that hard-core since John was tired from the drive and we just wanted to get to the campground to set up. But we climbed a couple of dunes.

There was a crew filming while we were there. I think it was a local group.

I walked out to Lake Michigan from the campground. The part I hated was that they called it a Beginner's Trail. Walking very far through sand does not feel like “beginner”.

Straits State Park

The Straits State Park is right at the bottom of the Upper Peninsula. From our campground we could see the Mackinac Bridge. The weather has been windy and sometimes foggy. With the wind around here they require RV’s and trucks to drive across the bridge at 20 mph. The other day when winds were much higher they closed the bridge to everyone for a while. We talked to a couple who said they were one of the last ones to go across. Even cars had to go 5-10 mph to cross the bridge.

The Mackinac Bridge is the 3^rd largest suspension bridge in the U.S. At the park they make it a point to say it has a longer suspension span than the Golden Gate Bridge but all the lists online say overall the Golden Gate Bridge is longer.

Beside the park is a cemetery. Several interesting stones included the obelisk for a sea captain. The view of the bridge between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan makes it an appropriate placement.

We took a long walk into town. Our “goal” was to buy fudge (and it is great!). But the walk was quite interesting. The town of St. Ignace is on Lake Huron. This makes our third Great Lake for the trip (Lake Superior and Lake Michigan are the others).

A monument to commercial fishermen who lost their lives fishing in this area.

St. Anthony’s Rock is a sea stack. It is a mixture of limestone, dolomite, and calcium carbonate to make a harder rock than the limestone that used to surround it. So the rest of the stone is gone leaving only this stack.

We’ve seen several lighthouses of various ages along the road. The Wawatam Lighthouse is a modern automated lighthouse. Interestingly, it was built of steel plate in 1998 as a roadside attraction at a Welcome Center near Monroe Michigan (btw, we saw another of these at a different Michigan Welcome Center). This one was moved to St. Ignace (and finally near water) in 2006 and is now used as an aid for boat navigation. Of course it is still a tourist attraction.

On the way out of the park, we visited the Father Marquette National Monument. The Straits State Park is a bit weird. This half of the park is across the highway so there isn’t a way to walk there without running across I-75. So, even though it is close, you have to drive. Father Marquette came here in the 1660’s from France to convert the natives but he also explored the Mississippi River.

Grand Marais

We’re stayed one night at the campground in Grand Marais, Michigan. The campground had wifi, electricity, water, and a dump station which were all needed after Pictured Rocks. We were having problems getting campsites on this trip but things are opening up in late September. It is windy, colder (50’s during the day), and many places in the area close up after Labor Day or by the end of September.

The campground is on a cliff above a beach. The view from the campsite was wonderful.

Lots of people walk the beach looking for rocks or just exercise. They are just dots at the water's edge.

I took a morning walk.

I tried to walk farther but was stopped at this point. These are the dunes and cliffs along the water.

In town we visited a brewery/restaurant. The only problem is that they were already sold out on the local whitefish so we missed out on trying it.

Leaving Pictured Rocks

Since we aren’t towing a car, we have to schedule visits to distant parts of the park either coming into the park or leaving. We stopped at Sable Falls and Grand Sable Dunes in Pictured Rocks which were too far for us to walk or bike from the campground. The falls was bigger than I expected.

In Pictured Rocks are “perched dunes”. These are sand dunes on top of a bluff. Past the falls is a hike to these dunes. All quite nice, though walking in the sand is tough.

However, I freak out about heights. I am fine on a path on a tall dune, but the path along the top edge of the dune was too much for me. I walked out a few yards and froze. I gave my phone to John to take pictures further on and crept back all hunched over in fear. John (and the next hiker who came out) just laughed at me. As John told me, all that would happen if I fell is that I'd roll down a sand dune.

Oh, well. At least I can look at John’s pictures.

BTW, we had an issue with our front slide on the RV as we were leaving the campground. We had to ask several strong young guys from nearby campsites to help us push the slide in. There’s always something while RV’ing but at least we got to meet some nice people.

Rocks on Lake Superior

The beaches of Lake Superior are full of small pebbles to large boulders. The types of rock vary from gray basalt, rhyolite, and quartz, to the mythical Lake Superior Agate which is the Minnesota state gemstone. I can identify some of them by sight, but mostly I just look for “pretty rocks”.

Even sandstone is interesting. The beach near our campground in Pictured Rocks had pebbles, boulders, and slabs of this sandstone.

One problem with collecting rocks along the shore is that the rules in most national and state parks forbid rock collecting. So, we were allowed to collect rocks at beaches outside of the park or when we visited a city park, but not in the parks.

Of course that doesn’t prevent us from taking pictures of rocks. Plus, we’re not about to lug a boulder in our RV no matter how pretty it is!

I am pretty sure this is considered a rock. It was at the base of a cliff of sand. It was like shale but it simply crumbled when you touched it. Pre-shale?

I like to try to find most of the rocks in my rock collection myself, but I broke down and purchased a few pieces. I bought some native copper that I would never find myself. I bought a few pieces of agate and petoskey stones (formed from coral) at an interesting rock store in Grand Marais, Michigan. The owner freely shares her knowledge and her shop was full of people captivated by the stories and the stones.

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

We spent three nights at Pictured Rocks. The campground had nothing (no electricity, no showers, no wifi, no cell phone service, etc.) but was wonderfully quiet when it wasn’t storming. It rained most of the first day so we couldn’t hike much except a bit up the beach.

The second day was windy. Really windy. We walked 1.5 miles to the lighthouse. There is a part along the water where you can see shipwrecks but it was closed due to the wind and waves. The lighthouse was picturesque.

On the way back we got caught in a light rain. The rain stopped quickly but it was the wind that was exciting. They closed the lighthouse trail soon after we got back with tales of 35-45 mph winds and 60 mph gusts along with 10’ waves. We definitely believe the wind velocity since we heard trees falling in the woods around us and picked up some rather large branches on the road by our RV. The beach area near the RV was covered by waves. Logs that previously had been thrown up to the top of the beach were swirling around in the water. For most of the night it sounded like we were parked beside a train track with an infinitely long train running.

By morning things were calmer. There was a beach again. We actually slept well but I felt sorry for the campers in tents near our site. We walked down the beach one direction and went the other way to see the shipwrecks. The park lists at least 10 ships that were shipwrecked here due to the shallow bottom. What you can see are the bottoms of the ship with iron bolts sticking up.

Part of our hike was through the woods. I thought it was like traveling in Narnia. John thought Hansel and Gretel. Either way, pretty cool!

We’ve seen plenty of trees with lots of woodpecker holes. I think they are interesting looking.