Hiking, web development, best practices, and general awesomeness
North of Palmer and the sprawling open pit Empire Mine M-35 winds its way around Goose Lake. I rarely drive past it on my way to my usual hiking spots in the Huron Mountains, with 553 providing a more direct route to Marquette through the Sands, but when I do I always crane my neck around to check…
A welcome sun warmed my body after several nights of cold camping. I stood on the shore of the Dead River between Silver Lake and the Dead River Basin on the southern end of Mulligan Plains, looking northeast at my next hike. Even though I was near a major route to these basins with open grassland…
Soft, cold rain drizzled down around me. I was attempting to cross Lower Silver River Falls, a waterfall near Skanee, MI that I've visited at least a dozen times (and even proposed to Katie at). The river was higher than normal and the rocks were wet-slick, making a crossing tricky and dangerous.…
As the Panorama Hills head east to the lake, away from the lofty Yellow Dog Plains, they lose much of their commanding height. The tallest of the eastern peaks is just a bit above 1100, fairly low in comparison to the surrounding area. After visiting the taller central and western hills I was still…
A year had passed since I first found the Panorama Hills, located off of County Road 510 just north of the Yellow Dog Falls. My initial visit was a brief excursion, mostly exploratory in nature. I was more ambitious this time around with plans to hit up the far western peaks.
Parking once again…
Finding good hikes in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is not always easy. I prefer to stick to remote areas that, by their very nature, don't get a lot of traffic. Reading history articles or essays can sometimes uncover mentions of interesting features worth exploring, and it was while researching…
Several years had gone by since I last drove through Dodge City on the Northwestern Road up past the Yellow Dog Plains. Back then I had been hunting for Hogsback Falls, the only named drop on the Salmon Trout River that is not on Huron Mountain Club property. There is a logging road that extends…
Standing on the shore of the Yellow Dog River I took a deep breath, letting the cool fall air fill my chest. This was a familiar spot, where a remote USGS station measured the river a few miles upstream from Pinnacle Falls. The two-track had taken me from the AAA road to here, the southern edge of…
Boise Creek Valley is an awkward, sand-filled depression just north of the Dead River Basin. There are four main creeks that flow through the valley: Clark Creek flows in from the highlands to the west, Wilson Creek seeps along the towering eastern cliffs, Deer Creek drains a large swamp to the…
Rising up like a large, gnarly growth, Mt Benison stretches from Mountain Lake to Little Huron River and from Howe to Cliff Lake. Similar to Ives Hill far to the east and Superior Mountain just to the west, Mt Benison is not a simple peak with a distinct shape or defined outcroppings but a whole…