#pictured rocks national lakeshore

[passengerpigeons]

Miner's Beach, Pictured Rock National Lakeshore, Michigan

[dopescissorscashwagon]

The small but beautiful Elliot Falls cascades down layers of sandstone and into Lake Superior - Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. By Neil Weaver Photography 📸

[kvetch19]

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[red-wing-photography]

Miners Castle (August 27, 2023)

[chip-and-ironicus]

Have You Ever Seen Anything So Blue?

[Reposted from Grant's Cohost page]

This August, as I walked a gravel trail toward Au Sable point, I thought about the change in the people of northern Michigan. We drove to the trailhead along a county road that dips in and out of the jagged border of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The inhabited parts outside show the pivot of an economy based on mining and fishing to one based on selling lunches and renting kayaks to people curious about historic mining and fishing. And for a second, I fell into the romantic thought that no matter how life changes, it's the same rocks and the same trees.

This is false. As I discovered on last year's trip, the vital thing to remember is how everything is constantly changing. The composition of the now-protected forest is permanently changed by the logging industry. And without that logging industry, the dune at Log Slide Overlook continues to grow taller and forever cover the spot where logs were slid to the lake. The people, the rocks, and the trees are all changing, all the time. The hope is that they change together, and can support one another. The National Park service is something I believe in.

But the lake, god willing, is forever. I remember last year, sitting in the cabin my aunt rented, watching the sky dim out the window, as the lake grew darker and darker. The waves seemed to spread in every direction. The biggest thing I've ever seen and it was growing, pushing beyond the boundary of the shore. I was a few dozen feet away, up a small hill, behind a window, and there are moments I thought I might fall in from my seat on the couch. I've lived on the Great Lakes and the waterways that connect them most of my life, but Superior is somehow different.

There is no center and no end. None you can perceive. There is only breadth and depth and expanse and blue. It's commerce and wilderness and ecosystem and postcards. Storms and harbors. Constant sound in variable volume. To see, every day, an accident of glacial geology that bore a wonder of creation, to know it supported centuries of history, and eat its fish fried in the back of a truck. Have you ever seen anything so blue?

[wandering-jana]

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Explore this unique lakeshore:

[openurmindb4urmouth22]

[definitely-dreaming]

[thenexthill]

Blue Coves

[bestseasonsoflife]

[superiornorth]

[dopescissorscashwagon]

A peaceful moment at Miners Beach, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

📸 by John McCormick @michigannutphotography

[chrislarsenadventures]

Chapel Rock, Upper Peninsula Michigan | Instagram | Twitter

[dutchieyelul]

[footloose-travel]

Two old man faces Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

[travelella]

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Munising, Michigan.