We had this trip planned for quite some time, looking forward to it more and more as the days grew closer. I haven’t been to the Keweenaw, in Summer, in many years and what a better time than Autumn. We left Thursday September 27th headed for Copper Harbor to stay at Lake Fanny Hooe Resort for 5 days and arrive back home on October 1st. I have 367 photo picks out of the 1,369 shots taken, so needless to say, not all photos will be in this post, in fact, only a few.
Map…
The colour through the UP was amazing, some locations not much, but most areas were just about at peak. The town of Copper Harbor didn’t have much colour, but all around there was.
Day one:
We headed north. 🙂 Stopping in Munising at a small beach I always stop at Furnace Bay looking out to Lake Superior.
After resting there a bit, we drove on stopping in Alberta to take photos of the great Autumn colours in a pond. Short Wiki read about Alberta and Henry Ford.
From here, on to Copper Harbor.
Here is a view of the town.
We, I, had to continue up Brockway Mountain. Here is one of the many shots from up there.
This is the Copper Harbor Lighthouse
Day Two:
First full day in the Keweenaw we headed out to High Rock Bay. On the way stopping at Horseshoe Harbor. Horseshoe Harbor has some great stuff, some of the oldest exposed bedrock on the planet at more than a billion years old. This bedrock is part of the oldest and largest lava flow known on Earth. This volcanic activity produced the only place on Earth where large scale economically recoverable 97 percent pure native copper is found.
Also found in Horseshoe Harbor are petroglyphs. These petroglyphs are verified to date back to 1640 BC. We found this one that is a Bear, but there are others we didn’t find or look hard enough for. It is said that Lake Superior was hundreds of feet higher then, so the location was then at the shore line.
I’ve found many links to these petroglyphs, but here is one, very interesting read…
http://megalithicresearch.blogspot.com/2009/12/petroglyph-of-sailing-boat-copper.html
On the road again, on to High Rock Bay.
Met some nice people out there that were staying at a bear camp, it’s bear season. I should say, all the people we met up in the Keweenaw were nice, all of em, and I lost count how many had lived or born in Alaska. The UP of Michigan isn’t called Alaska junior for no reason.
Gull Rock Lighthouse.
This is 2 1/2 miles out from the farthest point on the Keweenaw. The land seen behind the lighthouse is Manitou Island, the lighthouse it self sits on just a small bit of rock.
This shot shows just how far out the lighthouse is.
Freighter passing High Rock Bay
From High Rock we headed down the shore to the Keweenaw Rocket Range.
Great read and some great old photos here – Info about the range
After relaxing along the beach for a bit, the excitement began.
We decided to get heading out, but as we stood up the gather our things, there it was…
a Wolf!
There were two wolves, but one ran off into the woods while the other walked slowly and even stopped to have a look at us. We were only about 160 feet away. I got a bunch of photos, but I was shaking so much from the excitement, they didn’t turn out that great.
Here is one of the shots I got, more later.
We then went back and got the Jeep and headed back to Copper Harbor.
One hell of a day!
To be continued…
’til next time
Laters
Ed
