Highway 45 continues north from our overnight stop in Three Lakes. It goes through the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan all the way to Lake Superior. I’ve lived in Wisconsin for forty-eight of my seventy-three years but have only been to the UP once. With the advent of autumn and all the talk about beautiful fall colors, it seemed like the perfect time to go there. So, we did.
We passed through Eagle River and Conover and made our last Wisconsin stop at the border in scenic Land O’ Lakes (pop. 897). We passed a Halloween display that almost made me laugh until I realized that LOL stood for Land O’ Lakes. With a brief stop to get some maps and learn that people could check two states off their bucket list, we were welcomed to “Pure Michigan.”
About 18 miles north of the Wisconsin-Michigan border we reached the unincorporated community of Paulding. We saw a sign for Bond Falls Scenic Site and decided to make our first scenic tourist stop in the UP. We turned east on Bond Falls Road and drove about 3 miles to the quite-full parking lot. A short walk down the trail soon revealed the cascading water of the lower falls. This was definitely worth the side trip.
Photographers will probably understand that even though I carried my tripod, the bright sun on the water and the lack of a neutral-density filter meant I was not going to get any smooth-flowing water images. With water crashing over a huge jumble of rocks and passing between river banks decked out with trees at near-peak fall colors, I didn’t think about filters for long.
The trail continued along the Middle Branch of the Ontonagon River. There were a number of places to get nice views, including some in shaded areas where I could finally use my tripod. We walked up an old set of concrete steps to reach the top of the lower falls. Water splashing from the river flowed down the steps like a miniature man-made falls. The upper falls could be seen from this location. I, of course, took many more pictures than were necessary. Why would I think that a photo now would differ much from one taken a minute earlier in the same location? Would taking a step back to include one additional branch of autumn leaves make a difference? At least I also tried moving to different locations.
(Click on any photo to enlarge, then use arrows to scroll through the images.)
We continued north on Highway 45. Some of the more heavily wooded areas started to open up a bit to reveal some fields. After about 16 miles, as we were nearing the town of Bruce Crossing (pop. 909), I had to pull over because I couldn’t keep my eyes on the road. To the east, a west-facing hillside caught the afternoon sunlight and was proudly displaying its share of reds, oranges and yellows. There was no sign, there was no turnout, there was no state park fee; there was just this colorful autumn scene.
About two miles up the road, in Bruce Crossing, there’s a sign for Agate Falls Scenic Site. We headed east on Michigan 23 to look for it. After about six miles we came to the small parking lot with a trail that started by passing under Highway 23. From some of the information that we had, we thought this was going to be as beautiful as Bond Falls. We could hear it and see it a bit through the trees along the trail, but couldn’t really see the complete falls from the viewpoint at the end of the trail. The most interesting part of the trail was where it went under an old railroad trestle.
[Note: I later learned that there is another somewhat rough dirt trail that fishermen use to access the river. That’s where the best view might be found. Also, the railroad trestle is no longer used by trains, it’s now part of a snowmobile trail. Maybe if you went out on the trestle you could get a good look at the falls.]
With the afternoon winding down we returned to Highway 45 and continued north. Just 28 miles up the road we reached Ontonagon, our stop for the night. We took a short walk to the beach on Lake Superior and later watched the sunset from there. Then we got some carryout food, took it back to our room in Griswold’s Lodge to dine, and logged out for the day.
