Black River Harbor, Upper Peninsula, Michigan

On August 1st I took a day road trip to Black River Harbor in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was a gorgeous day and it was exactly 98 miles from my driveway to Black River Harbor. I stopped at the information booth in Wakefield, MI and picked up a map.  The best part of visiting Black River Harbor was actually stopping at the several waterfalls located along the route between Bessemer and Black River Harbor. The falls are located along County Road 513, also known as the Black River Scenic Byway. None of the falls involve a very long walk from the parking lot to the falls. A few did involve a long walk down to the falls however, which always means a long walk back up. But if I could handle it at 70 you know it isn't too much of a walk. The water level is down this summer so there wasn't a lot of water flowing over any of the falls. I plan to revisit in the spring. I met a very nice couple at the first falls I stopped at, Potawatami Falls, and we ended up following each other the rest of the day and have stayed in touch. I was wearing one of my ocular melanoma awareness tee shirts which is how they started a conversation with me as he is a melanoma survivor.

Here is a link to a friend's photos taken in the spring, showing more water. She advised me to be aware that when you visit in the spring it is black fly season.  Black River in spring

If you go down you must of course come back up, and this is only part of the stairs!

As you can see the river bed is largely dried up. I can only imagine what it looks like in the spring.

Thimbleberries

Black River on its way to Lake Superior

The beach at Black River Harbor