Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park
Hiking in Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park | Lake of the Clouds | Summit Peak | Camping on Lake Superior | Michigan’s Upper Peninsula | May 2024
While we have visited Michigan’s upper peninsula several times, before this week we had never been to one of its crown jewels: the Porcupine Mountains. Today, we were going to rectify that by visiting 2 of the highlights within the park. We rose early to get a head start on our day, and successfully left our muddy campsite in Ottawa National Forest. We drove to the park, admiring the scenery of Lake Superior and the ‘mountains’ that went right up to the coast. Our day started with getting a park pass, and we also decided to pay for one night of camping so we could continue visiting the next day without having to return to the muddy national forest campsite.
We began today’s adventures with driving up to the Lake of the Clouds trailhead. It was evident that this is a popular spot within the park with how big the lot was, but since we were here so early (both in the day and in the season) we were the first ones here. Not knowing how far Charlotte would feel like walking, we packed plenty of water and snacks just in case it turned out to be a longer walk. From the parking lot, we began by following the boardwalk loop counter-clockwise to see each of the viewpoints of the lake.
The views here definitely make the area deserving of all the attention it gets — for minimal effort, we found ourselves standing on a rocky outcropping of the cliff (safely, with guardrails around) overlooking the large lake tucked within the Porcupine Mountains. I’m sure it would be even better in the fall during peak colors, or even in the summer with more green, but it was still beautiful today when the trees were still mostly bare. We stayed to enjoy the views for a while until we heard others arriving, then decided to continue on our walk.
We knew there were plenty of other trails in the park, several of which started here, but we weren’t here to backpack and knew that the views we had seen of the lake were likely the best we would see. So instead, we walked just for exercise and to enjoy this beautiful morning. We followed the Escarpment trail as it lost a lot of elevation, and at a trail junction left it up to Charlotte to decide where to go next. She chose to lead us down to the lake and the backpacking campsites scattered around. It was about a 300 foot elevation loss from the top of the lookout down to the side of the lake. Unfortunately there wasn’t much of a lake access so most of the views came from a bridge across the outlet stream. It was starting to warm up as we made our way back up, so we stopped at the trail junction for snacks, treats for Charlie, and a letterbox, then finished our hike going back up to the trailhead. Altogether, this hike was just under 2 miles and you can see our Alltrails recording here.
Since we still had half the day to explore and a reserved camping spot for the night, we decided to drive up to the Summit Peak area, another ‘must-see’ spot in the park. The drive there took about a half hour from Lake of the Clouds, and though the road was paved, it was a bumpy ride. Because it was technically off season, the road all the way to the top was still closed, so we parked in the lot a mile down the road. Our reasoning was that the hike to Summit Peak wasn’t too far from that parking lot, and hopefully the road walk would be in shade and cooler with the higher elevation. However, there was definitely no shade and it felt pretty warm in the sunshine, so right away I knew it was not likely that Charlotte would be interested in this hike. She’s also much better at hiking on trails because she’s more focused on the hike, as opposed to paved roads or sidewalks where she thinks it’s a free-for-all and she can stop and sniff all she wants.
Before beginning to attempt the walk, we had a picnic lunch in the parking lot. We geared up for another hike, but I told Curtis right away that he should just go ahead and not wait for us, that Char would want to take her sweet time and I just wanted her to be happy. So he set off up the road, and sure enough, it wasn’t 30 feet in that Char decided the smells along the road were so much better than walking the road itself. I made my peace about not making it up to the Summit Peaks area, and started to look for a place where Char and I could sit down and relax in the sun.
Just then, I heard a truck coming down the road…the road that was closed. It turned out to be a park ranger, who spotted Charlotte and I on the side of the road and stopped to let me know that he was about to open the gate! Perfect timing! As he was doing that, Char and I slowly made our way back to the van, then hopped in and drove up the rest of the road. Curtis had already made it passed the trailhead and was hiking to the peak at this point. Once Char and I made it to the top, I let her out and led her to the trail. When we made it closer to the trailhead, she picked up on his scent and became much more motivated to walk on the trail and go find him. As we were nearing the wooden steps up to the first lookout, we finally ran into Curtis on his way back down. He took Char from me so that I could walk up the steps and enjoy the views, and Char could skip that part and start on the hike back down. From the top, there are great views of the surrounding ‘mountains’ and the bright blue Lake Superior, and Curtis also claimed he could see the Apostle Islands in the distance. For a long time Summit Peak was also thought to be the highest point in Michigan, but that was later discovered to be Mount Arvon...though the views from here are arguably better.
Once we finished the hike, we made our way back down to near the park entrance and to our campsite for tonight in the group camp area. When we arrived, we found it to just be a big grassy lawn that was very wet and muddy, so we just parked right along the road where we wouldn’t end up getting stuck. We’re noticing this concern to be a theme in our spring travels and might need to invest in boards or something to help ourselves out of sticky situations…
On the plus side, the group camp area is right across the road from Lake Superior, so we walked over multiple times that evening and the next morning to go for a beach walk, and see the sunset. Watching and listening to the waves rolling in made for a relaxing way to end our eventful day in the Porcupine Mountains. I ran into a local who told me that she saw her first hummingbird that day — that they always arrive between May 6-8, and that spring is ‘officially here’. While we agreed that today certainly felt like spring, it wasn’t until the next morning when we drove back up to Lake of the Clouds when we had the realization that all the leaves had budded, seemingly overnight! We felt pretty lucky that we got to experience the arrival of spring in 2 areas this year — in Pennsylvania in April, and the Upper Peninsula in May!
