Presque Isle River Trail, Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park

Yesterday we went back into the Porkies (Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park) to see the Presque Isle River Trail and walk it, if possible.  The word PRESQUE comes up a lot in the Great Lakes and it's French for 'almost' like, almost a island in this case.  This area looks like an island but it is not.  Almost.  Anyhow, found the parking lot which was not marked, we assumed where it was, and donned our hiking stuff, lots of bug spray, and off we went.  Decided to take the trail on the east side of the river, following it until we decide to turn around.

This looks like a nice walk

Looking along the west side - boardwalk along river, we will cross to east side

Oh good, more steps and a suspension bridge to east side

View from bridge, looking up stream

Turned around and saw where river meets Lake Superior

Since it was a weekend, lots of people, and we are pokes, so they passed us up on the trail while we stared and gawked at the scenery.  Only those folks who passed us never came back so we made the assumption that somehow you can cross the river to the other side.  At one point I did see a family who passed us walking on the other side and thought - okay, we will do the same.

Pretty 

Just follow the blue marks on the trees (North Country Trail)

Trail right on edge

And the falls right below us

Manabezho Falls from east side

And people playing in the water near the falls

I kept thinking - don't misstep, that's a long way down and it would hurt

Pretty walk, strolling along the North Country Trail.  Did not see any 'thru' hikers, just families which is really a neat thing.  At one point you could turn and go to Lake Superior but we opted to walk along and see the falls (3) if we could.

Manido Falls

A little stream to break up the monotony 

Rivet

Nawadaha Falls, from east side

Almost stepped on a frog, and then later a small garter snake.  Funny thing was - no bugs.  We were not bothered at all.  But, we could do a hike in this area without steps.  Again.  And today - our knees are killing us.  But, no matter where we looked and took a picture, beautiful pics.

We were standing on outcropping, river right below us

Nawadaha Falls from west side

As it turned out, we did cross the river at the Boundary Road and then continued up the west side of the river, stopping at the observation decks to look at the different falls.  Some crazy folks swimming in the tannic waters, but when you look closely at the water, it was clear.  The rock is what causing the water to look brown.  And joy, we had to climb back up the steps to get to the parking lot.  Going up - not bad at all, it's going down that hurts the knees.

Picture makes it look big, was only about a foot long

Manabezho Falls from west side

And back along boardwalk near beginning of hike

Super!  Stairs, I love stairs.

Tomorrow we leave the Yooper (Upper Peninsula of Michigan) and head to Cheboygan which is a city just below the Mackinac Bridge.  Will only be there a couple of days before moving to southern Michigan, getting closer to Ohio.