Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Tahquamenon Falls Ramble

At the Upper Falls
Skye passing the Upper Falls sign
Skye and I were spending time in Mackinaw City and we knew we wanted to see the Tahquamenon Falls and I came across this bike route so we decided to take it. We drove an hour and a half from Mackinaw City to Paradise. We crossed the Mackinac Bridge and left all of the trolls behind. We parked at the Sawmill Creek Township Park in Paradise. The route basically follows M-123 all the way. The start was hard. We were biking straight into the wind and it was cold and muggy out. Skye was hating life. We took a sandwich break at the 5 mile mark. We biked for another 5 miles to the Lower Falls. The Lower Falls were really cool and Skye loved "THE BUBBLES." There was a neat island in the middle of the falls that I wanted to row boat to, but Skye wouldn't have any of it. We ate another sandwich and some gorp here. Skye needed some energy and recovery time. From the Lower Falls, we got back on M-123 and biked 3.5 miles to the Upper Falls. The Upper Falls were awesome. They stretch over 200 feet between riverbanks and cascade over a 50 foot drop. The water falls at over 50,000 gallons per second at peak flow. The amber color of the falls is caused by tannin leached from the trees in the upstream swamps drained by the river. We spent time right at the falls and walked to a couple viewing platforms down the river from the falls. Again, the falls were awesome. We got back on M-123 in the opposite direction to head back to Paradise. It ended up taking us an hour less to get back. We had the wind at our back and it had warmed up so it was a much nicer ride. All in all, the bike ride was approximately a 30 mile out-and-back.



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