Upper Michigan Fall Tour

Planning The Trip

We originally had a camping trip planned to take the 7-hour Plane Crash Trail to the Keweenaw Peninsula over Labor Day weekend, but those plans fell through. Our son was 8 months old and tent camping didn’t sound like the best idea. We had been banking credit card points, so I opened the Chase Travel Portal to see what hotel rooms were available. We looked for a place near Houghton, MI, for one night, and another spot west of the Porcupine Mountains. We planned to head to the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, then make our way west, following every road along Lake Superior possible. In this blog, I’ll share our route and some of our favorite photographs from the trip!

Cheers! 🎣 – Zach

Picking Dates

We live in Central Wisconsin (Green Bay Area), and the fall colors are usually peak around the 3rd week of October. We knew they would come sooner up north, so we decided to plan for the first weekend in October, and that worked for our schedules as well. We wanted to do the trip on a budget, so we opted for two nights and to cook meals from the truck.

There were no hotels left in Houghton, but we found a hotel right on Lake Superior that was available. The Baraga Lakeside Inn. Our window had a direct view of Lake Superior, and there was a full moon. We were able to open the window and checkout the stars, while hearing the waves of Lake Superior.

We found a ski resort to stay in on the West side of the Porcupine Mountains. The reviews spoke highly of it, so we were anxious but excited to check it out.

We left home Friday around noon, and that gave us just enough time to check out one thing on our way to our hotel. We started north and our first stop was Bond Falls.

Destinations (Quick LInks):

Bond Falls State Park

I have never been to Bond Falls before, but having a hobby of taking pictures of waterfalls as a teenager, I had heard of this and wanted a chance to take pictures of it myself.

The waterfall did not disappoint. It was a short but very nice walk into the waterfalls. Big wooden deck that allowed you to see if from nearly all angles, including walk across where the water flowed underneath. We continued on our way, got to our hotel. On the next day, we got up early and went on a search for coffee and headed to the tip of the Keweenaw to watch the sunrise at…

BrockWay Mountain

We were pulling up to the sunrise outlook at Brockway Mountain just as the sun was still half-covered by the horizon. It was beautiful watching it rise, with the crisp fall air blowing by.

We drove to the other side of Brockway Mountain and cooked breakfast on the back of the truck. We had eggs and sausages. There is something special about scenic road trips and meals cooked on the back of the truck. After we finished up with that, we headed to a road I wanted to drive for some time…

High Rock Bay

I have been eager to drive the High Rock Bay road. I have a pretty new F-150 that most owners would be afraid of scratching, but I took this thing down some brushy roads more fit for a 4-wheeler in May and pretty much decided I was going to enjoy the new truck, but still do truck things with it. I won’t go out of my way to hurt the truck, but we’re gonna live life with it.

The road at High Rock Bay was very rough, and had some deep mud holes that had the truck feel like it was floating, but we were glad we pushed through to the end.

Lake of the Clouds

Lake of the Clouds was the typical view, albeit with some fall colors. I was anxious to get to the Presque Isle River side of the Porcupine Mountains to do some waterfall photography. I took a picture of Manabezho Falls as a teenager, and was super excited to retake the picture roughly 10 years later to see how my photography skills have changed. We took the South Boundry Road which is closed seasonally. We weren’t sure if it would be open, but it was. After we were done there, we headed to our hotel.

Davos Chalet

We found Davos Chalet on Chase Travel Portal and it had good reviews so we were excited to check it out. When we showed up, the place was a very dreamy ski cabin on the side of a mountain. Sunrises come up directly out the view from the front deck. We drank our coffee, enjoyed the popping fall colors, and talked about coming back during ski season! Our trip wasn’t over yet, so we packed up and headed to Copper Peak.

Copper Peak

The Copper Peak Ski jump was a spectacular area in general. It is roughly 20 minutes from Ironwood. The town had an aura that makes me want to go back and experience it more. Along the road that takes you to Copper Peak Ski Jump is also the Black River which has many waterfalls along the way. After this we were running out of time so we headed to our final stop before heading home…

Apostle Islands National Lakeshore

We took the Lakeshore Trailhead roughly 2 miles in to see the rock formations along Lake Superior at the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. The wind was blowing around 20 mph, but it was blowing away from shore so the waves weren’t massive, but there was still “Clapping” that sounded like trees snapping in the forest as waves crashed into the rocks. The edges were unprotected and extremely steep.

Trip Summary

Above are a few of my favorite pictures of Lisa and Henry.

Trip Stats:
  • 🛣️ Miles Traveled: 954
  • 📍 Destinations Visited: 7
  • 🧭 States Covered: 2
  • 🌅 Sunrises / Sunsets Caught: 5
  • ☕ Coffees Consumed: 3 each
  • 🏨 Hotels Cost: 29,859 Chase Sapphire Points
  • 🚗 Follow our Path: Our Route on Google Maps

Thank you for reading, and I hope you can enjoy taking a tour of Upper Michigan like we did. If you got this far, drop a comment to say hi!

If you’d like to support us, there are three ways to do so without spending a dime! We aren’t sponsored by any of these companies, but we believe in and use their services — so we’re sharing our referral links:

Catch you on the next adventure!

Zach

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