Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.........mostly in pictures!

Our Airbnb from the boat!

In 1966 the US Congress designated forty two miles of shoreline between Munising and Grand Marais as Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  The National Lakeshore designation was created to allow oversight by the US National Park Service to preserve these environmental, cultural and recreational lakeshore areas.  Pictured Rocks was the first area of four areas that have earned this designation.  Two are on Lake Michigan and two are on Lake Superior.

Annually around 750,000 people visit the 42 miles of shoreline and 73,236 acres that make up Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  As the name implies, the featured attraction are the 15 miles of steep, colorful cliffs that get their color from the minerals (iron, copper, manganese and limonite) contained in the spring water that seeps through the sandstone.  Additionally there are over 100 miles of trails, numerous campgrounds, sandy beaches, towering sand dunes and waterfalls throughout the park making it extremely diverse.

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore 

We've hiked miles of trails enjoying many of the waterfalls along the way.  We've also visited several of the sandy beaches and dunes.  We enjoyed viewing some of the Pictured Rocks from the shoreline, but yesterday we got a closer look from a two hour boat cruise.  From May to October, Pictured Rock Cruises offers several different options of cruises (Classic, Spray Falls and Sunset) that take guests out on the lake to get the best view, not only of the pictured rocks but also of the East Channel Lighthouse on Grand Island.

Pictured Rocks Cruises

We took the two hour Spray Falls cruise which is similar to the classic cruise with an additional visit to Spray Falls.  The weather conditions yesterday were very favorable. It was a little warmer than it had been and the lake was "calm".  In spite of this, sitting on the upper deck of the boat it did get a little chilly and once we were out of the bay it was a little bumpy but well worth it.

Beth took this picture of someone she thought was me!  Masks were required on the boat and they were selling at 50% capacity to allow social distancing.

Here's Pictured Rocks the way it should be.........in pictures! 

The East Channel Lighthouse on Grand Island.  It was established in 1868 and deactivated in 1908.  The last lighthouse keeper and his wife had 12 children.  I guess he was keeping the flame burning in more ways than one!