Hiking, web development, best practices, and general awesomeness
Morning sun shone bright over the trailhead to Bare Bluff. It was early, mere hours since the sunrise, yet there already was another vehicle sitting here. The chance I would run into these hikers was low. The first part of today's hike may be along the main trail but I had an ambitious side trek…
Between the months of April and October a plague of insects descends upon the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. A variety of biting and blood-sucking bugs, flying and crawling, lie in wait in the woods for unsuspecting visitors to lash out. Swamps, rivers, hills, beaches: no place is safe. Rumor has it…
Point Abbaye had lured me out many years ago during some of my first adventures east of L'Anse. The long peninsula separated Keweenaw and Huron Bay and looked like a tiny version of the great Keweenaw Peninsula itself, stretching out into Lake Suprior like a crooked finger. Also, it promised (and…
Familiar green woods pressed around me. I was on my way out to Black Rock Point, a place north of Big Bay that I had visited several times before. A few discussions with a fellow hiker, Joel, had sparked my interest in the cliff base here. It was late in the evening and the sun had less than an hour…
Moonlight trickled down through bare branches and spilled out onto an overgrown track in the woods. It was a full moon that morning, or pretty close to one, and the sun had yet to rise in the eastern sky and brighten my passage. I wasn't too worried. Aside from a few deep mud puddles the road over…
Presque Isle is one of those delightful city parks with some neat and unique spots that I usually avoid on my adventures. While it is a bit removed from the hustle of Marquette, perched on the north shoulder far from the main byways, the sounds and smells of city still float through the park like an…
On a small point of land north of Ontonagon, MI sits an abandoned lighthouse. Built in the 1890s to help guide traffic from Houghton to Ontonagon along the unmarked coast this lighthouse was in commission for over fifty years before it was snuffed out. In 1984 a fire consumed everything but the…
As the Lake Superior shoreline stretches north from Big Bay two named features, Black Rock and Salmon Trout Point, make a bitter stand against the pounding waves. The shore here is mostly composed of straight, towering sandstone cliffs with the exception of these two basaltic outcroppings which…
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,…
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…