The amber-colored Upper Tahquamenon Falls in Michigan's Upper Peninsula earned their nickname of "Root Beer Falls" for their resemblance to a cascade of root beer tumbling over a nearly 50-foot drop.
The falls' color comes from tannins leaching into the Tahquamenon River from the cedar, spruce and hemlock swamps along its shores.
The Upper Falls and the Lower Tahquamenon Falls are the centerpiece of Tahquamenon Falls State Park, which attracts nearly 500,000 visitors each year to its 48,000 acres of wilderness.
The park stretches over 13 miles of mostly undeveloped woodland without roads, buildings or power lines.
What the park does have is nearly 40 miles of hiking trails, 13 inland lakes, 24 miles of the Tahquamenon River, a portion of the North Country hiking trail and, of course, the Upper and Lower Tahquamenon Falls.
The Upper Falls are more than 200 feet across and are especially impressive during the spring when as many as 50,000 gallons of water cascade over the 50-foot precipice each second.
A 0.4-mile paved walkway leading through hardwood forest from a parking lot near the Upper Falls offers easy access to overviews of the Upper Falls.
Get a close-up look at the brink of the Upper Falls by taking 94 stops down to the main viewing deck, or you can take 116 steps down into the gorge for a panoramic view.
I ventured down (and back up) the 94 steps to shoot a few pictures and a short video clip at the top of the waterfalls.
A four-mile hiking trail goes from the Upper Falls to the Lower Tahquamenon Falls. You can also drive the four miles along Highway M-123 to park and take a 1/4-mile boardwalk to the series of falls cascading around an island in the Tahquamenon River. View these waterfalls from the riverbank, rent a boat at the falls for a closer view or walk a little way upstream where many people like to wade in the river.
Most park visitors come to see the waterfalls. In 2013, total attendance at the park was 483,436 with 369,147 people visiting day-use areas of the park. The park recorded 21,207 booked camp nights at modern and rustic campsites at the park during that year.
Other park activities include hiking, picnicking, fishing, photography, kayaking, hunting, fall color tours, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling and dog sledding.
Birders flock here during the fall and spring migrations with over 300 species of birds documented as passing through the park.
Sharp-eyed visitors may see animals like moose, bald eagles, coyotes, otters, deer, foxes, porcupines, beavers, minks or black bears at the park. I remember seeing a snapshot of a black bear lounging at a picnic table near the Upper Falls gift shopduring one of our visits to the park about a dozen years ago.
A year-round schedule of events includes naturalist-led programs with opportunities to try things like geocaching or archery or to participate in an event called "Owl Puke Investigation" (yup, it looks like the program is pretty much what the title says it is!).
Upcoming events through this fall and winter include a 17-mile Wilderness Canoe Race (September 13), a guided hike between the Upper and Lower Falls via the River Trail (September 27) and a Harvest Festival (October 11), as well as guided snowshoe hikes and lantern-lit cross-country skiing (every Saturday in February).
A popular stop for many park visitors, especially after scaling the steps to and from the falls, is Camp 33, a restaurant and brew pub near the trail to the Upper Falls.
Logging played an important part in the settlement of the area during the late 1800s, and restaurant founders Jack and Mimi Barrett established it to resemble a vintage logging camp. The couple purchased land next to Tahquamenon Falls in the late 1940s when you could only reach the falls by boat. Jack Barrett worked to get an access road to the falls and negotiated with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to sell the land to Michigan, requiring that the state open it as a state park and retain most of its wilderness character.
The state accepted Barrett's terms and paid him $1 for his land, with the exception of a 2-acre plot that Camp 33 now occupies.
I'd say that has to be one of the best one-dollar investments ever made by the State of Michigan!
The Barrett family rebuilt Camp 33 in the 1990s, with Jack and Mimi's grandchildren establishing the Tahquamenon Falls Brewery and Restaurant in 1996.
The Upper Peninsula is a big place, so it helps to have a good map book and guide to the area. I'd suggest checking out the Michigan Atlas & Gazetteer by the Delorme Mapping Company. Our in-dash GPS is nice, but we still keep one of these books in our car when we're traveling.
© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved
We learned the value of having maps with us when up in the Upper Michigan Peninsula last summer. We took a stop here and loved the falls. We did take guidance of others before heading there and made sure to have bug spray with us as we were there during the height of bug season. We would love to go back to explore the park further.
Posted by: Lisa Trudell | September 11, 2014 at 11:56 AM
Maps are good! We've run through multiple copies of the Delorme books for several states...we really put our Michigan Gazetteer to work this week as we had Tim's car in northern Michigan and no in-dash GPS.
I'd love to see more of Tahquamenon Park, too!
Posted by: Dominique King | September 15, 2014 at 04:17 PM
This looks like a great place to visit and those falls really do look like root beer!
Posted by: Tonya {The Traveling Praters} | September 18, 2014 at 04:21 AM
I have another friend who tells me she and her family always called these waterfalls the Coke falls!
Posted by: Dominique King | September 18, 2014 at 05:08 AM