Tahquamenon Falls State Park encompasses close to 50,000 acres and stretches over 13 miles. Most of this is undeveloped woodland without roads, buildings or power lines. The centerpiece of the park, is the Tahquamenon River with it's waterfalls. The river was made famous in the longfellow poem Hiawatha.
Earlier this week we went to the Upper Falls, and today we headed 4 miles downstream to the Lower Falls. This is a series of five smaller falls cascading around an island. The water rushes it's 50,000 gallons of water per second around the island. then it breaks into two distinct waterfalls. You can rent a row boat and go across to the island and do the hiking trail there as well.
They are different than the Upper Falls and Ken and I thought they were prettier. We hiked the .5 mile trail around the falls. We followed the trail for a while and came to a fork with a brook running under it. We stepped off the boardwalk to check out another trail, but decided not to take it. When we stepped back on the boardwalk there was a red fox a few feet away. We backed up slowly and he watched us and then just wandered off up the trail we didn't take. (We tried to get a picture and if you look at the last photo and double click on it you can see the fox between the #12 and the tree on the right.) What an experience to see them in the wild. At the end of the trail we found a rock to sit on by the river and just enjoyed the sound of the water.
Back at camp we did some trip planning and had a fire. The park is fairly empty now and it is very quiet. Tomorrow we will leave for Munising.
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