I never really set a goal of hiking all of Michigan’s North Country Trail, but over the years I’ve logged enough miles that now it seems like something I could actually do. I’ve begun to be a lot more intentional about trip planning to connect the sections I’ve already hiked, and making bolder plans to tackle the bigger sections. But, I still want to hike places just because they’re beautiful, not just to log NCT miles. And so it was that I ended up spending a long weekend in Tahquamenon Falls State Park, getting in some NCT miles, but also exploring the park’s backcountry.
My group of hiking buddies met Thursday night at the Lower Falls Hemlock campground. I figured that since we were arriving from different distances, this would provide us with the best chances for an early start Friday. It had rained on and off all day, but we managed to get a decent window in which to set up our tents and make dinner. After setting up my hammock tarp, I discovered that my hammock straps were missing, so we used the tarp as a dinner shelter and I set up my back up tent under the tarp, as it was supposed to rain overnight. After comparing notes on our dehydrated meals, and catching up in general, we attempted to have a campfire but it was way too damp (I’m going to blame the wood from the party store in Paradise) so we opted for bed. It rained and blew throughout the night, but blessedly had stopped by morning.
Packing up a wet tent is never my favorite, nor is packing up in the dark, but we had a big day ahead, so we tried our best to have an efficient morning. We left several cars at the Lower Falls parking area, and loaded up in my car to head to the NCT trailhead on Tahqua Road, to begin our 8 mile day hike. As we drove back through Paradise, it began to rain off and on again. We began our hike in our raingear, and it was cool enough that it wasn’t uncomfortable hiking that way.
As we headed along the trail back toward the Lower Falls, we passed through forests still gold with fall color, and some beautiful bogs that thankfully had boardwalks to aid us along. The sun came out occasionally. We stopped at the Old Stove backcountry campsite for lunch, where it began to rain again. While there was not a clear view of the river, and no obvious reason why the site was called “Old Stove,” we did enjoy spotting an unusual lichen growing from a tree–it looked kind of like kelp.
As we continued along, I began to count down hours of daylight left. We still had to get to our cars at Lower Falls, swap out day hiking gear for backpacking gear, drive to the Upper Falls, and hike three miles to our backcountry site for the night. Luckily, everything went smoothly, and we arrived at the backcountry site with enough day light to easily pitch our tents, although the utter lack of flat ground was a bit of a challenge! It would have been a great place to have a hammock! (Where are those darn straps…)
After cooking dinner, we marveled at the starry sky as the clouds cleared. We headed off to bed when it got too chilly, forgoing any attempts at a fire, since it had been so wet all day. I listened to my audiobook for a little while and then fell asleep, tuckered out from our 11 miles of hiking.
It was a chilly night, and I was so cozy in my down cocoon that I was grateful we didn’t have to get up early Saturday, as our next campsite was only about 4 miles away. We had an incredibly leisurely morning, finally getting on the trail at 11! While we were sipping our coffee, we had the good fortune for “Trailhawk” (Mike Dunn) to mosey on by and say hello. (Most of us in the group had been following his adventures backpacking the NCT through the Upper Peninsula on social media over the last few months.) If memory serves me correctly, he was the only hiker we saw once we got away from the parking area(s). It was cool to meet him after reading so many of his posts and viewing his pictures that either jogged my memory or inspired ideas for future hikes.
Eventually we did get hiking though, and were rewarded with a perfect day of weather–blue skies, sheer clouds, and reasonable temperatures. Our path left the NCT almost immediately, and we followed the Wilderness Loop towards our second backcountry campsite. (See map here.) We encountered some “bridges” that were quite primitive–logs held together by nails and bolts that looked to be in way better shape than the logs. Although each log bridge crossing was slippery and a bit anxiety-provoking, none of us broke a leg or ended up in the drink, so it was all good.
We stopped for lunch at a spot where we had a great view of some open water and marshland–it was just gorgeous: amber waves of grass, some sort of red-leafed shrubs, and that beautiful blue sky.
Clark Lake appeared as we got close to our 4-mile mark, and we hiked up the hill to discover what our campsite would be like. While we couldn’t see Clark Lake, it did have a bit of a view of the marsh down the hill, and it was a pretty space on its own merit. Once again, there were virtually no flat spots to be found, so we all tried to find the least degree of tilt for our tents, which we hung out to dry before pitching so the morning’s frost could dry off.
We set up chairs down the hill to take in the views of Clark Lake, which was calm and lovely. It was such a nice lazy afternoon. We had discussed possibly hiking after setting up camp, just exploring and coming back, but all of us seemed content to fritter away the afternoon, which we should all probably do more often!
That evening, we managed a fire–hand sanitizer for the win! It was clear and chilly again, and we went to bed fairly early, having agreed to get up and packed by 9ish the following morning so that those who had a long drive home wouldn’t be zombies at work Monday. I was not feeling it when my alarm went off at 7:30, but it wasn’t too bad once I got moving.
We set off down the trail pretty close to our goal time. The chilly temps froze the mud in the trail, which was an unexpected benefit of the cold temperatures. Near the Clark Lake parking area we encountered a boardwalk that led out to a bog viewing area–the boardwalk was floating on big plastic barrels. Debbie and Rebecca spotted numerous pitcher plants in the grasses of the bog. Everything was covered in frost, twinkling in the sunlight–just gorgeous!
We easily hiked our five miles or so back to the Upper Falls parking area, where Jane headed off, and the rest of us checked out the brewery for lunch. After retrieving my car from the Tahqua Trail parking area, we were ready to head our separate ways until the next adventure!
This trip resulted in about 11 new NCT miles for me, and the opportunity to see a gem of a state park–while the falls get most of the attention, the trails we traveled were gorgeous–huge old white pines and hemlocks, various ecosystems, river, marsh and lake views. Definitely a great destination for a backpacking trip. (After mosquito season has passed, that is!)
Note: Backcountry sites must be reserved in advance using the https://midnrreservations.com/ website. Dispersed camping is not allowed within the state park boundaries.
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