Tahquamenon Falls State Park
Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 7:42 pmEarlier this summer, my friend Brenda, her friend Christina and myself took a day long trip to Tahquamenon Falls State Park in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
This 52,000 acre park is the second largest State Park in Michigan. Most of the park is undeveloped land, mostly woodlands, swamps and a few small lakes, no roads, houses or powerlines. But it does have 22 miles of hiking trails. The attraction of this park is Tahquamenon Falls (pronounced Tah-qua-men-on) from which the park takes it's name and the reason for the parks existance. There are two sets of falls in the park. The Upper Falls is the biggest. 200 feet across and a drop of almost 50 feet. It has been recorded to have an excess of 50,000 gallons of water per second going over, making it the second largest waterfall east of the Mississippi in terms of volume. The dark colors in it's water are from tannins leaching from cedar swamps that drain into the river. The locals call it "Root Beer Falls". It's really is beautiful on a sunny day when the sun is shining. That falls take on a golden color almost. And down at the viewing platform, people throw pennies in the water. The copper color just gleams when the sun hits them. And there are a lot of pennies in there too.
These are the upper falls.
My friend Brenda and her friend Christina. Brenda was our Campground Host at Otsego Lake State Park this past summer.
These are the lower falls. Though not as spectacular as the Upper, the fun thing about these falls is that you can rent a rowboat and go out to the island in the middle of the river and get closer to them. They are actually split in two by the island. People do go wading in thee river at these falls as the current isn't that strong when the falls are low.
The park also has 5 campgrounds with 350 sites between them, both rustic and modern. There is so much information about this park, that I can't even begin to put it all on here, so I copied this link for anybody who is interested.
http://www.exploringthenorth.com/tahqua/tahqua.html
If you are ever in this area, make sure you stop and see the fallls. You will be glad you did.
This 52,000 acre park is the second largest State Park in Michigan. Most of the park is undeveloped land, mostly woodlands, swamps and a few small lakes, no roads, houses or powerlines. But it does have 22 miles of hiking trails. The attraction of this park is Tahquamenon Falls (pronounced Tah-qua-men-on) from which the park takes it's name and the reason for the parks existance. There are two sets of falls in the park. The Upper Falls is the biggest. 200 feet across and a drop of almost 50 feet. It has been recorded to have an excess of 50,000 gallons of water per second going over, making it the second largest waterfall east of the Mississippi in terms of volume. The dark colors in it's water are from tannins leaching from cedar swamps that drain into the river. The locals call it "Root Beer Falls". It's really is beautiful on a sunny day when the sun is shining. That falls take on a golden color almost. And down at the viewing platform, people throw pennies in the water. The copper color just gleams when the sun hits them. And there are a lot of pennies in there too.
These are the upper falls.
My friend Brenda and her friend Christina. Brenda was our Campground Host at Otsego Lake State Park this past summer.
These are the lower falls. Though not as spectacular as the Upper, the fun thing about these falls is that you can rent a rowboat and go out to the island in the middle of the river and get closer to them. They are actually split in two by the island. People do go wading in thee river at these falls as the current isn't that strong when the falls are low.
The park also has 5 campgrounds with 350 sites between them, both rustic and modern. There is so much information about this park, that I can't even begin to put it all on here, so I copied this link for anybody who is interested.
http://www.exploringthenorth.com/tahqua/tahqua.html
If you are ever in this area, make sure you stop and see the fallls. You will be glad you did.