LoganTag | Jacob Emerick's Blog

Snowy Drive Down the Peshekee Grade

Katie and I woke up at a small Ishpeming motel to find the ground covered in snow. This was more than a little surprising, as it was the second week of May, but the Upper Peninsula likes to misbehave in the late spring. We packed up the car with Logan and headed west on US-41 towards the Peshekee Grade to find the remains of the Iron Range & Huron Bay Railroad.

Straight portion of the old grade

During the turn of the century, when the Champion-area iron was first discovered, an ambitious plan was made to build a 36 mile-long railroad to Huron Bay, MI. The track would go through the Huron Mountains and involved deep rock cuts, woodland trestles, a huge ore dock, and a dangerously steep northern grade. Because of the grade and the poor quality of work it was torn up, never to be used. $2.2 million was spent with only vague remnants of the grandiose plan.

We turned north on the Huron Bay-Peshekee Grade Road, which follows the railroad's route fairly close (at least the southern portion of it). The first section of the ...

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• katie
• logan
• peshekee highlands
• snowstorm

Rocking Chair Lakes

Perched high above Mulligan Plains are the two small Rocking Chair Lakes. A rustic camping site of the Escanaba River State Forest, these lakes offer scenic views and a peaceful escape for the adventurous. Ever since I first visited Mulligan Plains in the October of 2008, I hoped to have the chance to visit the lakes, and I got my chance almost a full year later.

It was a cool, rainy July morning in 2009 when Logan and I headed to Mulligan Plains after a night of camping on the Yellow Dog Plains. While the official route to the lakes involves driving up County Road AKC, I doubted my vehicle could make it more than half a mile on the poorly maintained route. I headed up the unnamed but well-kept county road on the west side of Mulligan Plains and cut over on a convenient driveway near the lakes. As the plains are only two thousand feet wide or so, this route got me close to the start of the trail without damaging my car more than necessary.

Eastern side of Mulligan Plains

I had to double back to find the remains of ...

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• campsite
• logan
• mulligan plains
• old growth

Clark Creek and Island Lake

Due to the rugged nature of the Peshekee Highlands, the Dead River's upper reaches are quite unique. From its headwaters in the McCormick Tract, it drops over 400 feet before reaching Silver Lake Basin, the first of five reservoirs along the Dead River. The surrounding land doesn't drop as quickly as the river on its route to Lake Superior, with the deep river valley surrounded by soaring cliffs and towering hills. There are two interesting tributaries flowing from the north that drop several hundred feet before joining with the Dead River: Mulligan Creek and Clark Creek. On a hot, humid day in July of 2009, I decided to visit the Clark Creek area to hike along the creek and its wide, deep valley near the Dead River Basin.

Clark Creek near the Dead River Basin

I took a long, but personal favorite, route out of Ishpeming along Deer Lake Road. This road is really curvy and busted up, but it offers amazing views of Deer Lake Basin and the wilderness surrounding the Dead River Basin. Unfortunately, I did get stuck behind a logging ...

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• huron mountains
• logan
• old growth

Superior Mountain Hike

Superior Mountain is a lumpy set of peaks located west of the Mouth of Huron river. Rising from the edge of Lake Superior and sandwiched between Little Huron River and Mount Benison, the mountain has many rocky outcroppings with excellent views of the surrounding area, some over 1400 feet of elevation. This rugged peak offers some of the best climbing and hiking options of the western Huron Mountain range outside of Huron Mountain Club boundaries.

Foggy view from Superior Mountain

Starting on the western end of Little Huron River, a number of rocky outcroppings rise before the large, forested Mount Benison. These peaks do not have official names, but the majority of them are grouped together as Superior Mountain (or Clause Mountain) with the two southern ones as Tick Mountain. While I had visited two tough rocky mounds of Superior Mountain during my Tick Mountain climb, I never attempted climbing the bulk of the peaks. The sheer, south-facing cliffs blocked my usual route from Little Huron Road, and I thought I would have ...

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• bushwhack
• huron mountains
• logan

McCormick Tract

Located north of Champion, the McCormick Tract is a 16,850 acre wilderness in the Peshekee Grade. Originally owned by Cyrus McCormick, inventor of the reaping machine, the land was donated to the USDA Forest Service in 1967 and is now available for the public to enjoy. In July of 2009 I visited the south west corner of the tract along a historic route to the old camp on White Deer Lake.

Starting from the Peshekee Grade, which follows the old Iron Range & Huron Bay railroad grade from Champion up to Mount Arvon, I parked at the access area with some fellow hikers. The small parking spot had a restroom as well as some informational signs and maps. There is no trail markers allowed on the McCormick Tract, so it was nice to get a short refresher from these maps. After crossing the bridge over the Peshekee River, we followed a well-worn path northeast towards White Deer Lake.

Trailhead sign for the trail

While the trail was easy to follow, the rain-covered, thick undergrowth soon had us soaked. For the first mile or two, ...

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• faith
• logan
• north country trail
• old growth
• ottawa national forest
• peshekee highlands
• ruins

Tick Mountain Hike

Called Tick Mountain by Geocachers, there was a rocky peak on the outskirts of the Huron Mountains that had steadily become a thorn in my side. I first tried to climb the peak with a friend during the winter and was forced to turn around within site of the final climb because of time constraints. My second attempt ended abruptly when both I and my hiking partner fell through the ice of Little Huron River in the early spring. This was my third attempt, in the midst of summer, and I was determined to make the climb.

One of the peaks near Tick Mountain

Tick Mountain rises from the banks of Little Huron River like a long spine of rocky peaks. There are four separate rocky outcroppings, with the eastern one being the tallest at 1342'. This point is separated from the rest of the spine by a 300' dip, which is the challenge I turned away from during my first climb. The first two outcroppings have limited western views of Bald Mountain and an unnamed peak nearby, but the second two have expansive views in all directions. This makes the ...

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• bushwhack
• huron mountains
• logan

A Keweenaw Hike

On several waterfall hikes in the Keweenaw during the summer of 2008 attempting to find Copper Falls, I became confused by different directions and descriptions of the drops along the creek. Owl Creek starts from a swampy lake on the top of Brockway ridge, heading downhill to the north past an old mine shaft (now covered) and mill before meandering through a swamp on the edge of Lake Superior. With a drop of six hundred feet, there are many unnamed drops along this creek, and it is difficult to differentiate the real waterfall.

Jacob's Falls

In hopes to find this creek with actual water flowing down it, as it is usually close to bone dry during the summer, I headed north to the Keweenaw in the spring after a few very warm days. Also, I decided to add a few miles onto the trip by making Jacob's Creek to my route. Logan and I parked at Jacob's Falls, near the Jam Pot along M-26, and headed up a nice trail on the east side of the creek. The trail was very defined and used for the first half mile, where the ...

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• brockway
• bushwhack
• keweenaw
• logan
• ruins
• waterfalls

Waterfalls of the Keweenaw

After graduating from Michigan Tech, I started to realize just how much free time I was going to have after a normal work day. The month of May was a bit hectic; moving into a new house, starting a new job, and adopting an 8 week old puppy was enough to keep both Katie and I occupied, but when my birthday rolled around in early June, we were looking for something new and exciting to do. Remembering a fun adventure in the late summer of 2007, where Katie and I had gotten lost near Skanee looking for the Mouth of Huron and accidentally found Lower Silver Falls, we decided to check out waterfalls in the Keweenaw Peninsula for my 23rd birthday.

Researching for waterfalls to stop at became more difficult then I had originally planned for. Though I found several websites with information, I also found inconsistencies, confusing directions, and poor descriptions of Keweenaw waterfalls. We finally picked out a route that included three waterfalls and several other local attractions, including the Gay Bar and Mt. Horace Greeley. We set off early in the ...

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• introduction
• katie
• logan
• my site
• waterfalls

Bald Mountain

On several adventures east of Skanee, MI during the summer of 2008 I noticed a large mountain near the mouth of the Huron River. It wasn't until I started looking at geocaching websites for interesting hiking spots that I learned its name, Bald Mountain, or noticed that it was the easternmost point of the Huron Mountains. There are several rocky peaks closer to the Huron Mountain Club property, offering potentially great views of their rugged landscape, but Bald Mountain offered three rocky outcroppings, an altitude of 1,184 feet, and a good view of the Huron River and Keweenaw Peninsula. So I decided to climb it.

Hoping for good weather, Cory, Logan and I headed over Big Erick's bridge around 9am on a cold Saturday morning. While the weather wasn't bad during the drive, it was snowing lightly for the entire way down. We were surprised to see that the roads were plowed past Huron River all the way to our planned entry route, allowing us to park several dozen yards from the snow covered two-track leading north to the ...

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• cory
• huron mountains
• logan
• logan
• snowstorm

Bald Mountain

On several adventures east of Skanee, MI during the summer of 2008 I noticed a large mountain near the mouth of the Huron River. It wasn't until I started looking at geocaching websites for interesting hiking spots that I learned its name, Bald Mountain, or noticed that it was the easternmost point of the Huron Mountains. There are several rocky peaks closer to the Huron Mountain Club property, offering potentially great views of their rugged landscape, but Bald Mountain offered three rocky outcroppings, an altitude of 1,184 feet, and a good view of the Huron River and Keweenaw Peninsula. So I decided to climb it.

Hoping for good weather, Cory, Logan and I headed over Big Erick's bridge around 9am on a cold Saturday morning. While the weather wasn't bad during the drive, it was snowing lightly for the entire way down. We were surprised to see that the roads were plowed past Huron River all the way to our planned entry route, allowing us to park several dozen yards from the snow covered two-track leading north to the ...

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• cory
• huron mountains
• logan
• logan
• snowstorm