Urbina

In Michigan, being outdoors can indicate relaxing on a beach or getting lost in the wilderness. One of many hidden places described below allow you to do both. Listed below are three places that you've not observed in guide books and magazine articles.

Michigan Outdoors - Rivers

The Manistee River can be floated by you from Baxter Bridge (the next crossing down from Hwy 131) north of Cadillac, all day without seeing a house or perhaps a street. Many the path is in the Manistee National Forest, where you can camp without permits. The Manistee isn't a river saturated in exciting rapids (at the very least not with this stretch). It's a river for relaxing.

A couple of years back, we used to park where Road 17 crosses the river, and hike upstream with a little day pack filled with rope, water, a saw, hatchet, and treats. By evening we would build a number of dead trees cut to length. We used the following hours floating back to the car. We called it Tom Sawyer Day, and on six of these trips I've never passed another canoe or boat on the river.

Michigan Outside - Beaches

Probably you have heard of or visited the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore (and the dunes), and one other exotic spots over the east side of Lake Michigan. They are beautiful, and I highly recommend them, but what if you want a beach to yourself? Head north, to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

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From Highway 2, a couple of miles east of Rapid River, turn south on County road 513. Follow it until it breaks, and simply take the trail to Wilsey Bay. Where in actuality the path first involves the water, it is a public access point. Leave your car here and walk a mile to the finish of the street, and then across the rocky beach past the last home (keep below the high-water mark and it is appropriate to walk past private property).

Just after dark home you enter the Hiawatha National Forest for another seven miles of beach. The final time I camped available, I never saw an individual in two days. I used new black bear tracks over the sandy beach, and later discovered the ruins of a vintage cabin one day. There are number roads in to this area, and ATV's are not permitted. Just walk away from the beach, if forested wilderness is wanted by you - and observe for wild blueberries in the forest clearings when it is August or September.

Michigan Outdoors - Really Hidden

You'll want a topographical map because of this one. In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, north of Ishpeming, there is some wild and rough country. Operating out of Ishpeming, you'll wind through rocky waters and woods. One hour north, on a sandy road, you'll come to a lake with two-hundred foot high cliffs on another side. I promised friends never to get more specific than this, so you should have to work somewhat to get it.

Carry on somewhat more, until the road gets too rough or the puddles too strong. Park the car and find a log to cross the small river on, then head uphill (you might need both hands to increase the wooded hillside). Beyond and on the top of these cliffs and hills there are two lakes, just a thirty minute disappear, surrounded by way of a rocky wilderness, and without any trail going to them. My brother had a bass on the line in ten seconds the first time he was taken by me there. Best of luck!