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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.

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

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• Tags:
• logan
• peshekee highlands
• old growth
• ruins
• faith
• ottawa national forest

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.

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 lower set of waterfalls are, but as we gained elevation along the steadily...

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• Tags:
• logan
• waterfalls
• keweenaw
• bushwhack
• brockway
• ruins