Midwest Guest

Canyon Falls and Gorge: The "Grand Canyon of Michigan's Upper Peninsula"

Michigan has some pretty roadside parks, and one of the nicest has to be at Canyon Falls and Gorge, just off of U.S. 41 near Baraga on the Sturgeon River in the state's Upper Peninsula.

We discovered this spot while making the 10-hour drive from the Detroit area to Copper Harbor at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula. The convenient location right along US-41 makes it a nice place to stop and stretch your legs before heading on north up the Keweenaw to one of the farthest reaches of the Michigan's U.P.

The trailhead for the walk back to Canyon Falls and Gorge is in a park with a parking lot, restrooms, a picnic area, and drinking water.

The walk out to the falls and back is a little less than 2 miles on level terrain, with a short stretch of boardwalk over some swampy areas. So, it's possible to can check out Canyon Falls and catch a quick picnic lunch before continuing on your way in less than an hour.

The trail takes visitors through mature hardwood forest along the river before arriving at the Canyon Falls.

We visited Canyon Falls during early September, well after spring when the water is highest, and just ahead of the fall color. It was still a scenic trip with several small rapids and waterfalls along the river, and good water flow at the 15-foot-tall Canyon Falls.

If you have a little more time to spare, you can continue a way past the falls on an older trail that leads further along a canyon with walls formed by straight line faults that give it a boxy appearance.

Travelers don't particularly know Michigan for deep canyons or gorges, making this gorge a pretty impressive sight for many visitors and earning it the nickname of "The Grand Canyon of the Upper Peninsula" or "The Grand Canyon of Michigan".  

Canyon Falls and Gorge is part of Michigan Technological University's research forest.

The roadside park is open on a seasonal basis, as the parking lot remains unplowed during the winter.

 

Want to learn more about Canyon Falls and Michigan's many other waterfalls? Check out A Guide to 199 Michigan Waterfalls by Laurie Penrose, a book we've found very helpful when traveling and looking for waterfalls.

 

Canyon Falls is quite near the shrine to Bishop Baraga, the first bishop of the Upper Peninsula and a priest known particularly for his work among Native Americans, who learned the native languages so he could author grammar, dictionaries, and prayer books for Native American readers. Check out my story about Bishop Baraga: the Snowshoe Priest.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Baraga

Midwest travel links for January 2010

Let's start the new year with a new list of Midwest-related blog posts from other writers I've enjoyed reading this past month:

• Cave Point's Icy Cliffs-I enjoy Bo Mackison's beautiful photos at Seeded Earth Photography, and you can just feel the wind-whipped chill as she ventures out to Cave Point County Park in Door County, Wisconsin, to capture this image of the icy cliffs along Lake Michigan.

• Fried Chicken and Frozen Waterfalls-This may sound like an unlikely pairing, but check out Illinois' Starved Rock State Park with Justin at The Windy Pixel. This grand old log lodge reminds me of the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

• In-Town Tourist: Frozen Falls in Hocking Hills-People often express surprise when we mention the waterfalls we've visited in Ohio. Join hometown tourist Heather as she shares some beautiful winter views of the frozen falls in southern Ohio's Hocking Hills area.

• Hocking Hills Winter Hike-It's obvious that Hocking Hills isn't a secret to the 5,000-plus people who joined the park's traditional winter hike this past month. Join Joe at My Quality Time for this six-mile trek through nature's winter wonderland.

• Get Out on the Lake!-I've often seen gaggles of ice fishing shanties out on the frozen lake, but Amy gives us an up-close look at some fun and unique ice shanties created for the Art Shanty Projects on Minnesota's Medicine Lake.

• Across the Icy Green-Hard-core golfers will enjoy this story a winter golf tournament born of cabin fever during a particularly harsh winter in Grand Haven, Michigan. Check out the Look blog at Seeking Michigan for more fun blasts from Michigan's past.

• The best time for a public art inspired tour of Chicago-Chicago has some really fabulous public art, and Helly at Travel by the Calendar tells us that spring is a great time to plan an art-themed trip to the Windy City.





• Kerycik Riverview Elk & Buffalo Ranch-Join Melissa at Midwest Girl as she gets up close and personal with elk and buffalo at this Nebraska ranch.

• Wakarusa Dime Store-Who doesn't love an old-fashioned dime store? Jessica checks out this 100-plus-year-old store in Indiana's Elkhart County that is home to the giant jelly bean!

• Karmageddon's gonna getcha!-Eating Flint can be a blog with bite, but check out Bob's tasty visit to this Flint, Michigan, gem-the Most Beloved Farmer's Market in the country. This reminds me that I need to drive on up to visit the market one of these days, and Steady Eddie's sounds worth a stop as well.

• US-27 in Michigan-Michigan in Pictures is always worth a visit as it showcases wonderful images from around the state. The site also occasionally features a vintage shot like this mid-1950s shot of the old two-lane highway that served as a major route to northern Michigan. This view reminds me a bit of present-day M-115 that runs northwest from near Clare to Frankfort-the favorite part of our drive when we head to that area of Michigan.

  © Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: Lingering at Ohio's Chagrin Falls

We love visiting Chagrin Falls whenever we're near Cleveland, Ohio. This cute little village sits around a waterfall and offers plenty of photo opportunities whatever time of year we visit.

We've often visited town during the winter or early spring, so getting down to the foot of the waterfalls isn't usually possible because of snow or ice-slicked steps leading to the river shore.

It was a treat when we could get down to the foot of the falls during our most recent visit to Chagrin Falls this summer. I posted a story and photos earlier this week from our summer visit to the falls, the village and a landmark grapevine gazebo in town.

I hope to get back to Chagrin Falls soon, but meanwhile, here are a few more photos of the village with its waterfalls and vintage buildings.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

Don't forget to check out my road food book giveaway. Tell me about your favorite road food or roadside "joint" and win!

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Revisiting Ohio's Chagrin Falls

We've visited the village of Chagrin Falls, just east of Cleveland, multiple times over the years--but we'd never seen the town from a vantage point at the foot of the waterfalls in the center of town until a recent visit.

Visiting Chagrin Falls in the winter or early spring means that you can take some great photos from the top of the falls. Taking photos from the bottom of the falls is another matter because the village closes the steep steps leading down to the river during those times of year.

We didn't have the problem of snow-covered steps last time we were at Chagrin Falls this summer, so we took advantage of the opportunity to check out the waterfalls from a different angle.

There is a nice wooden viewing deck on one side of the falls about halfway down the stairs. You can get a close-up shot of the falls from here or just stay a while to watch the action at the foot of the falls as you enjoy an ice cream cone you got in town at the top of the falls.

The wide wooden stairs with handrails end at the viewing platform, but we took the lower flight of old stone steps right down to the rocky river shore.

Some visitors are even more adventurous and trek out onto the rocks into the middle of the river--something I wasn't quite willing to do with my big DSLR camera!

The village of Chagrin Falls originally grew up around the falls as a busy industrial area with factories, mills and other businesses taking advantage of the ample water supply provided by the falls. Today, the village center consists of businesses like restaurants, small retail stores and a large park bordering the falls.

The village center also has a smaller triangular park surrounded by businesses, many in well-preserved mid-to-late-1800s buildings. This particular park has a beautiful garden and a striking 1877-vintage gazebo constructed largely of grapevines.

I looked around the Web for a little more information about the gazebo and found a personal history of the town by Robert E. Cathan who said his great grandfather, Orrison Cathan, hunted elk (!!) in the area and built most of the gazebo. Check out Cathan's memories and some other tales from long-time village residents at the Chagrin Falls Alumni Association Web page.

There are still a couple of things I've yet to do in Chagrin Falls, though.

One of the readers of my previous Chagrin Falls post left a comment about the Pumpkin Roll, where village high school students smash and roll pumpkins down a hill hear the center of town to use as a gooey base for sliding and sledding down the hill. The Alumni site has a couple of stories about the Pumpkin Roll and its possible origins.

The grapevine gazebo also serves as the starting point for a Ghosts of Chagrin Falls walking tour of the village. The 60- to 90-minute tours sounds like a fun way to learn a little more about the village's history. (Have any of my readers taken this tour?)

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Wagner Falls and Munising: Gateway to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Michigan’s Upper Peninsula has many beautiful waterfalls, and Wagner Falls near Munising is one of my favorite falls.

Alger County is home to 17 waterfalls, ranging from small unnamed falls to much larger falls along the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

Some Alger waterfalls, like Chapel Falls, are a long walk in from a trailhead.

Some of Alger’s waterfalls are quite readily visible, although the roadside Alger Falls on M-28 at the M-94 junction is a little tricky to access because of its location along a busy highway with little parking along the road’s shoulder.

Once you’re at Alger Falls, the access point for Wagner Falls is about a ¼ mile away.

Wagner Falls is a classic cascade and easily accessible via a half-mile long boardwalk trail leading in from a small parking area on M-94 and just off M-28.

There are some staircases along the walk to Wagner Falls, but short length of the walk and the level surfaces of some of the wider spots in the trail make it easier to pack in a tripod if you want to spend a little time and experiment with slower shutter speeds while taking photos of the falls.

One of my favorite memories of visiting Wagner Falls is a time we spent nearly an hour at the falls with no other visitors around. The end of the trail had a few benches, which made it a nice place to just sit, meditate and listen to the roar of the waterfalls.

The Munising area is also home to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, the Hiawatha National Forest, the Alger Underwater Preserve where divers can view remains of over a dozen shipwrecks and Grand Island National Recreation Area.

While we were able to stop by Wagner Falls and Alger Falls the last time we visited the Upper Peninsula, it’s been quite a few years since we’ve been able to see a lot of other attractions around the area.

We especially enjoyed traveling the nearly 70 miles of H-58 from Munising through large swaths of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, past the access point for the isolated Au Sable Point Lighthouse, through Grand Marais into more forests in Luce County. The road, which is the main access for Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, was mostly gravel or sand when we last drove it at least five years ago. Driving the road in some sections was a bit of an adventure as the sandy soil threatened so slide off into Lake Superior at a few points, but the lightly traveled road offered a beautiful view of some of the most wild and isolated areas in the eastern Upper Peninsula.

We’ve watched anxiously from afar as a huge paving project along this route continues through at least 2010. It will probably be a couple of years before we can drive H-58 again, so I’m very curious to see the finished road. I also wonder how much of the sense of adventure and closeness to nature along H-58 will remain at the paving project’s completion.

© Dominique King 2009

Cozy B&B and spectacular waterfalls draw visitors to Ohio’s Brandywine Falls

I love waterfalls, and I love small Bed & Breakfast inns, so staying at the Inn at Brandywine Falls turned out to be the perfect way for us to spend a long Easter weekend.

The spectacular 60-plus-foot bridal-veil Brandywine Falls is just few steps from the inn, a historic 1848-vintage home with six guest rooms that innkeepers George and Katie Hoy lovingly decorated with period furnishings and antiques from the area.

We picked a relatively quiet weekend in early spring to stay at the inn, but quickly found ourselves part of a large extended family as George and Katie’s adult children and their families gathered at the inn for the holiday weekend. The spacious James Wallace Parlour room where we stayed during the weekend offered us a quiet and private retreat, but Easter morning brunch was an especially festive occasion as the extended Hoy family gathered for a meal. The gregarious group readily included us as family-for-the-weekend and made sure the Easter rabbit delivered a couple of extra chocolate bunnies for their guests from Michigan.

The Inn at Brandywine Falls feels particularly homey because the innkeepers live on-site and the home offers plenty of common areas to visit with the Hoys and their other guests, get a little work done (the inn offers free Wi-Fi), relax or borrow a book from the inn’s library to read during your stay.

Settlers who came to the area in the early 1800s saw Brandywine Falls as a ready source of power. The Village of Brandywine became one of the earliest settlements in the Cuyahoga Valley with numerous saw, grist and woolen mills relying on the falls for power and driving the development of the area starting around 1814. Brandywine Village eventually faded into history, with the exception of the James Wallace house built by the son of one of the area’s first settlers and now serving as home to the Inn at Brandywine Falls.

The inn is part of the 33,000-acre Cuyahoga Valley National Park and is on the National Register of Historic Places, although a special arrangement allows George and Katie to continue operating and living at the inn for their lifetime.

We loved being able to step out of the house and walk over to Brandywine Falls via the 1.5-mile Brandywine Gorge Trail. The trail’s boardwalk follows along the gorge’s edge and a series of fairly steep steps takes hikers to the lower Brandywine Creek level for a closer look at the waterfalls.

Brandywine Falls seems to top most lists of favorite park attractions, and we spent much of our weekend taking photos of the falls. There are also several smaller waterfalls in the park and surrounding area worth seeking out if you have a couple of days to visit the area.

Read more about our visit to the rest of the park in History and nature trace a path through Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

We have some great National Parks in the Midwest. Read about seven of these wonderful parks in my story, Seven sensational Great Lakes National Parks.

Also check out nearby Chagrin Falls, another one of our favorite small-town destinations in the Cleveland area in my story, Chagrin Falls conundrum.

© Dominique King 2009

Chagrin Falls conundrum

Driving home from a conference east of Cleveland Ohio along a particularly beautiful stretch of Chagrin Road, I spotted a sign with an arrow pointing towards Chagrin Falls.

The sign immediately sparked my curiosity. I love waterfalls, but more importantly in this case, I remembered Chagrin Falls as the title of a tune by Canadian rockers, The Tragically Hip. I couldn’t help turning off onto the side road where the arrow pointed me to see the infamous Chagrin Falls.

Chagrin Falls sits in a relatively affluent area about a half hour east of downtown Cleveland. Centered around its namesake waterfalls, the village originally grew as a busy industrial area with businesses clustered around the ample water supply provided by the falls. A historical marker near the high falls lists an ax factory, a foundry, two flour mills, four woolen mills, two sawmills, three paper mills and a woodenware factory as part of the bustling business community in mid-nineteenth century Chagrin Falls.

Today, the factories are largely gone from the immediate area, and the village center’s business community consists largely of a few restaurants and small retail stores.

A wealth of well-preserved buildings dating from the mid- to late-1800s, a large park bordering the waterfalls and the falls themselves draw tourists and day-trippers to Chagrin Falls. In warmer weather, steep staircases lead from the street level to the lower portion of the falls for those wanting a closer look at the rushing water. But the village still seems to draw plenty of visitors during colder weather like the recent sunny, but snowy, day we returned to Chagrin Falls to stroll around town and take a few photos of the waterfalls.

You might wonder why such a picturesque village has the shame-faced Chagrin in its name, and the origin of the name is even a matter of debate among village historians.

The historical marker at the falls says the Chagrin River drew its name from a French trader named Francois Seguin, who traded with Native Americans in northeast Ohio during the mid-1700s. The Chagrin Falls Historical Society offers a couple of other possible explanations for the name, but says the most accepted story is that the name represents a corrupted and Americanized version of trader Seguin’s name.

Connections like the Tragically Hip’s obscure lyrics about a wandering spirit, the fact that Stone Temple Pilots/Velvet Revolver vocalist Scott Weiland spent part of his childhood in the village, and the possibility that Chagrin Falls resident Bill Watterson used the village as the primary setting for his popular Calvin and Hobbes cartoon mean that the village’s contemporary history may be every bit as fascinating and puzzling as its early chapters.

© Dominique King 2009

Nature’s Sacred Sanctuary

Visiting Hocking Hill’s Ash Cave on a sun-dappled Sunday morning makes me think of entering nature’s own sacred sanctuary.

The quiet hush of the wooded walk, culminating in the protective bowl of a natural amphitheater created by recessed caves offers plenty of little niches where visitors can simply sit and meditate on the area’s beauty. During spring and summer, Ash Cave serves as a seasonal showcase for a slender waterfall that drops into a pond nearly 100 feet below the cave’s rim, and every season offers ample opportunity for photographers to take beautiful pictures.

Even as the area draws more photographers, hikers, families and others to explore and enjoy the area as summer mornings segue into busy summer afternoons, visitors can still find a quiet nook where they can relax to enjoy the passing parade and beautiful surroundings.

Ash Cave is just one of the natural features that draw photographers, hikers and nature lovers to the Hocking Hills State Park in southern Ohio.

The park’s caves and natural features tell the fascinating story of Ohio’s early history, as millions of years’ worth of erosion and the weathering of time created majestic formations and gorges in the area’s Blackhand sandstone.

Men first lived in the area about 7,000 years ago, and Ash Cave derives its name from piles of ashes discovered by early settlers in the sheltering recesses. Some historians believe the ashes came from early Native American campfires in the area, although no one knows the source of the ashes for sure.

The quarter-mile, paved trail into Ash Cave makes it one of the more accessible areas in the park, while longer trails like the path into Old Man's Cave offer varied and challenging terrain for more experienced hikers.

I often just use a hand-held camera when I travel, but the relatively easy trail into the park’s Ash Cave and the half-mile Cedar Falls trail made carting in my lightweight tripod for steadier shots no problem. It’s best to allow plenty of time to spend at each area you visit in the park as it’s easy to spend several hours just shooting the falls, wildflowers and interesting rock formations along each trail.

I’m reluctant to leave the park when I visit, but I always come home with plenty of photos to help me remember the feeling of peaceful serenity I experience each time I’m there.

© Dominique King 2008