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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…
The cliffs along the southeast wall of Mulligan Plains is one of the most rugged and tempting hikes I've found since I first viewed them in late 2008. Towering hundreds of feet above Mulligan Creek, often with sheer rock faces that are rare in the Upper Peninsula, they promise of awesome views of…
Mount Mathew is located just north of Three Lakes within a few miles of Marquette, Michigan. Less than a thousand feet in height, it is dwarfed in both stature and awareness by Sugarloaf and Hogback to the north. Even the Three Lakes area is only known by its closeness to the Dead River Falls…
The sun had barely reason on this brisk fall morning when I stepped out of my car. I debated throwing on a fleece under my worn-thin jean jacket but decided that a quick-paced hike would keep me warm enough. Today would be started off with a visit to the familiar Dead River Falls, which had been…
Finding my way back to the small campsite on the Dead River, where it enters the Silver Lake Basin, was more difficult than I had planned. A maze of logging roads, mostly impassable in my small car, wound their way from the Peshekee Grade (north of Champion, MI) past Wolf Lake Road and over to…
Cliffs have quickly become one of my more recent hiking interests. Like mountains, they offer some excellent views of the area, and the sharp relief can make for some interesting routes and rock outcroppings. Good cliffs are hard to find in the Upper Peninsula, thanks to the millennia of erosion…
The -15ºF air hit me like a brick wall as I stepped outside of my car at Mulligan Plains. Unaccustomed to the cold Upper Peninsula mornings I quickly covered my nose and mouth with a warm scarf before heading down the plowed two-track. The sun's early rays had only just begun showing over the…
Most visitors to the Keweenaw Peninsula will remember The Cliffs by their name alone. A sudden up thrust of stark rocky cliffs stretching from Mohawk past Phoenix along US-41 with towering trees and large piles of poor rock is hard to miss, and for those adventurous enough, rewarding to climb. A…
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…
Falling over eleven hundred feet from the Peshekee Highlands, the Dead River empties into Lake Superior near Marquette. Thanks to this large elevation change and route through the southern reaches of the Huron Mountains, there are many waterfalls and dams along the Dead River. The water takes after…