Hiking Category | Jacob Emerick's Blog

Blind 35 Hills - South Side

Sleeping in through the cloudy sunrise, I woke up on a rocky outcropping west of Big Bay. I had spent the previous evening hiking around some of the hills on the north side of Blind 35, finding plenty of western views towards Ives Hill and even a limited shot of the Keweenaw Peninsula to the north. You can read about those adventures on my previous post (Blind 35 Hills - North Side). This morning it was time to head south and west to explore more of the hills.

South, across Blind 35, to my morning hike

I packed up my gear and headed down the steep slope, trotting and sliding down the pine-covered slope to Clear Creek. Leaving most of my stuff in my car, I set a brisk pace westwards along the road past muddy holes and huge rocks far too large for my small vehicle. Blind 35 continued to degrade, slowly resembling a well-traveled four-wheeler path more than the beginnings of state trunkline. After a bit of walking I came to the bridge over Snake Creek, a small two-lane concrete piece ...

• Tags:
• bushwhack
• huron mountains

Blind 35 Hills - North Side

West from Big Bay is the Huron Mountain Club, stretching over some of the most pristine land in the Upper Peninsula. An old, abandoned road stretches out towards the club, surrounded by tall, forested hills, before suddenly ending at the property line for the Club. These hills are cut in half horizontally by the road, also known as Blind 35, and range around 1300' in elevation. After a brief visit to some of the northern outcroppings over a year ago, I returned to this area in hopes of finding some good views of Lake Superior and the untouchable Huron Mountain Club property.

Looking east along a steep outcropping

The drive from County Road 510 is not a gentle one. Blind 35, once the makings of a state trunkline, has been poorly maintained for years. My small car lurched and shuddered over the rutted road as I tried to avoid the large rocks and deeper mud pits. The road is interesting to drive on - it is straight and relatively level, and it's easy to imagine this being a paved throughfare straight through to Big Erick's Bridge. However, in ...

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• campsite
• huron mountains

The Ives Exploratory Trip

This exploration turned into the best camping experience I've had in the Upper Peninsula. When I started the hike I was only interested in doing some exploring around Mount Ives area, a large chunk of land I previously thought to be within Huron Mountain Club borders. What I found was a beautiful campsite with captivating views that I eagerly look forward to revisiting.

Sunset over Ives Lake

After a long drive west from Dodge City, I parked off of the Northwestern Road at a gated logging road. I was less than two miles from where Faith, Bryan and I parked for the Burnt Mountain hike, but this short section of road is impassable to most vehicles. Thanks that previous hike I knew there was some logging north of me, so I shouldered my gear and headed up the road. My hope was to follow the recent logging clearings northwards and set up camp once until I got tired.

While the Huron Mountain Club owns both Ives Lake and Mountain Lake (or at least the majority of the surrounding shores), there is a narrow finger of ...

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• campsite
• fall colors
• huron mountains
• old growth

Wetmore Hike Part D - Wetmore Pond

The wide path down Hogsback Mountain led me back to the railroad grade a short distance south of where I left it earlier. While the path continued ahead of me something of interest drew my attention to the right. The large, swampy Wetmore Pond stretched out to me along the railroad grade, luring me away from the path. I turned south on the grade again, walking along the western edge of the pond.

First view of Wetmore Pond from the grade

The views from the grade were pretty amazing. Wetmore Pond is a great example of a Huron Mountain swamp, with thick grasslands, rocky outcroppings, and a few deeper portions of water with lilies clustering on the outskirts. While the grade was lined with a thick cover of brush, there was several clear portions that offered me great vistas of the wetlands. I'm unsure if the main trail to Hogsback Mountain, which goes along the northeastern shoreline, offers similar views with the grade in the background.

Eastern outcroppings on Wetmore Pond

I continued south along the grade even as the pond started ...

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• pond
• wetmore

Wetmore Hike Part C - Hogsback Mountain

The sound of crashing waves slowly died away as I headed inland away from Wetmore Beach. Taking the parking lot route out to County Road 550, I was unsure of how I would make it to Hogsback Mountain until I noticed a small two-track across the road from Wetmore's parking lot. It was marked as part of the Harlow Trails. I took my chances in headed westwards along the trail, inland, hoping to find my next climb.

Two bridges along the Harlow trail

The two-track started out wide enough for a small truck but quickly narrowed down after a few fallen trees blocked the path. It crossed a creek flowing into Harlow Lake with two separate bridges, both in disrepair. I was not paying attention to my direction, mostly looking around and enjoying the woods, and found myself heading northwards away from the mountain by the time the trail met up with an old railroad grade.

While the northward trend had taken me away from a direct path to the mountain I wasn't too far from my destination. I headed south down the railroad grade past a tiny ...

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• huron mountains
• waterfalls
• wetmore

Wetmore Hike Part B - Wetmore Beach

After climbing Sugarloaf Mountain, just a few miles north of Marquette, I headed down the eastern flank towards Lake Superior. With Wetmore Beach to the north and Partridge Bay to the south I stepped out of the cold, soaked woods and was greeted by an amazing view of waves pounding against huge, black rocks.

Waves crashing on the rocky shoreline

I carefully crept out on the slick boulders until I could feel the spray of the waves as they crashed onto the shore. My hike had been rushed to this point... I woke up early, quickly packed up my campsite, and scrambled up a mountain. This was a great time to catch my breath and really enjoy the scenery.

Cloudy skies loomed angrily over Lake Superior, with a few whitecamps visible far off to the east. I was on a bit of a point, and I could make out both Presque Isle and Little Presque Isle along the shoreline (in opposite directions). The black rocks I were sitting on were ancient, with lichen-covered crags and deep, worn grooves. Some of the waves barely curled over before ...

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• sandy beach
• shoreline
• wetmore

Wetmore Hike Part A - Sugarloaf Mountain

Just a few miles north of Marquette is a small collection of interesting locations that I had ignored for far too long. Casting them to the bottom of my list as 'easy tourist' stops, I've driven past the Wetmore area to more appealing remote locations beyond Big Bay numerous times. I rolled into the Sugarloaf Mountain parking lot on a cold, damp morning with an ambitious plan to visit several of these locations in one fell swoop.

Looking north towards Wetmore Beach from Sugarloaf

My first destination was an easy climb up Sugarloaf Mountain. It had been a rough night camping near Diorite, with high winds and freezing temperatures robbing any chance of a restful sleep, and I was thankful for the wide paths leading up the mountain. There are two trails leading up the mountain, an 'easy' and 'difficult' route, and I took the difficult route uphill (I'm pretty sure it's shorter). Both trails were well-trod and easy to follow with stairs built on the steeper sections.

The air was cold and damp with a thin fog clinging to ...

• Tags:
• huron mountains
• north country trail
• shoreline
• wetmore

Lookout Mountain

Emily and I had just finished a long hike along Norwich bluff which left us soaking wet, cold, and tired, but there was still several hours of light left in the day. We drove down the bumpy Victoria road east from Norwich Road to the start of the houses near Victoria Dam, parking at a small gravel turn off by an unoccupied white house. Lookout Mountain was south of here, along a section of the North Country Trail. North of us looked a bit interesting, though, so we took a short detour to the top of a large poor rock pile.

Cloudy view from the poor rock pile

The Victoria area is built around the ruins of a large, profitable copper mine from long ago. A historic town, some old names, and a large dam are all that remain here today, though. I am not sure where the exact shafts are located, though I did hold a small hope that Emily and I would find one today. We stood atop a large poor rock pile that cascaded down the hill below us, clearing a view of the Ontonagon River valley and some rain-shrouded hills in the ...

• Tags:
• north country trail
• ottawa national forest
• trap hills

Norwich Bluff

A cold, misty morning wrapped around Norwich road like a tunnel as I barreled south from Ontonagon. I was meeting a friend at the North Country Trail parking area near FR630 and was running late. It turned out that Emily was also behind schedule, and we met at the small parking area at the same time. We both donned extra clothes in hopes of keeping dry through the slow drizzle before jumping into my car and driving up Victoria Road.

Misty two-track on the way to Gleason Falls

The Norwich Bluff hike had been on my radar for several years. Most of my hikes tend to be circular - I dislike backtracking and usually have access to a single vehicle. This adventure was a bit too linear to make a good circle. Starting at Gleason Creek, we were going to follow the the edge of a south-facing bluff over hilly terrain to Norwich Road. If there was a single vehicle, I'd have to either walk along Victoria Road for three miles or retrace my hike over the rough terrain. Thanks to Emily and her truck parked on Norwich, we could cut out several extra miles of ...

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• cliffs
• north country trail
• ottawa national forest
• trap hills
• waterfalls

Nealy Falls

A short, bumpy drive along the powerline's service road brought me to a dirt four-wheeler track heading south. I stepped out of my car and immediately felt the heat rising from the ground like a swelling pool of water. Grabbing some water and a few granola bars, I entered the green forest on the overgrown track at a brisk pace, not particularly looking forward to this hike through the sweltering heat.

Power lines north of Ishpeming

After finishing my waterfall project several years ago and putting together my waterfalls of the keweenaw area website I began to explore other Upper Peninsula features, like mountains and lakes. I still visit waterfalls if they are along my route or when I'm with curious friends. However, falls started to crop up that I had missed... deep in the Peshekee Highlands, in a remote area of the Keweenaw, or in unexplored reaches of the Ottawa National Forest luring me back to adventurous bushwhacks through unmarked areas searching for the right creek flowing ...

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• bushwhack
• waterfalls