On our way up to Beaver Bay, we made one last use of our Wisconsin state park annual pass expiring year end by visiting Pattison State Park, which is located about half hour drive south of Duluth. We braved the single digit temperature and did a short hike to the 165-foot Big Manitou Falls — the highest waterfall in Wisconsin.

Our intention was to hike or snowshoe several hours in a different state park near Beaver Bay everyday. So, we visited George Crosby Manitou State Park, Tettegouche State Park and Temperance River State Park this time. The snow accumulation was lacking this year, but a winter storm dumped a few inches of fresh snow during our stay, which made the snowshoeing activity more enjoyable. It is said snowshoeing could burn up to 1000 calories per hour. While I don’t think we burned that many calories, it was definitely more tiring and we often replenished our energy in the wilderness by eating all sorts of Costco brand snacks. Among the 8 state parks along the North Shore, George Crosby Manitou State Park is the most remote one because it isn’t located by the highway. We were the only visitors in that park that day.

Every night, we spent some quiet time reading Kindle books, sipping wines, and indulging fruit and cheese before going to bed by 10 PM. Each of us managed to read an entire new book: “Moonwalking with Einstein” by Joshua Foer (recommended by Bill Gates) and “The Vanishing Half” by Brit Bennett (recommended by President Obama). The funniest thing was we were so detached from the real world that we totally forgot about the New Year’s Eve celebration, which was perfectly okay.

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The drive to the UP took about 7.5 hours and the cats-and-dogs rain throughout the drive also contributed to the long drive. Fittingly, we tuned in to Wisconsin’s Big Cheese 107.9 listening to many classic hits while making our ways to Michigan. Before arriving in Munising — the place we called home for 4 nights, we did a short hike in the rain in Laughing Whitefish Falls State Park.

We started our day at 5:30 AM everyday, and due to the time change, it was actually 4:30 AM. The main focus of this trip was to cover the attractions in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Given the wet week, we made sure we were able to do the 11+ miles hike around Chapel Basin without dealing with the rain too much. This hike was by far the highlight of the entire trip — peaked fall colors along the lakeshore, emerald and turquoise water on Lake Superior, the mineral-stained streaks on the 200-foot sandstone cliffs. Simply put, the experience was mind blowing. Granted, we struggled the last 2 miles of this 8-hour hike, but we picked up our pace despite our tired legs after hearing some loud rumbling thunders in the afternoon.

Another attraction we wanted to visit is Tahquamenon Upper Falls in Tahquamenon Falls State Park — one of the largest waterfalls east of the Mississippi. To get there, we cruised along the long and straight M-28 for an hour and half from Munising. We also visited the nearby Whitefish Point and Muskallonge Lake State Park. With our new Michigan’s annual state park pass, we also covered Fayette Historic State Park, Palms Book State Park and Indian Lake State Park. We made an impromptu visit to Marquette — the largest city in the UP — and this city reminded us of Duluth in Minnesota.

On the final day, we did a 3-hour hike in Devil’s Lake State Park in Wisconsin on our way home. Coincidentally, a homicide took place in that state park on the previous day. It didn’t discourage any visitors from visiting it because it was still packed with people enjoying the beautiful Friday afternoon. While hiking on the East Bluff Trail, we stumbled upon a family of 3 from Indiana who recognized us — probably due to my bright backpack and large camera. We crossed paths during our hikes in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore several days earlier where I recommended this state park to them. The last time we visited Devil’s Lake State Park was in 2008 during an ex co-worker’s wedding in Wisconsin Dells and since then, we vividly remembered the unique quartzite rock formation known as the Devil’s Doorway.

Traveling during this Covid-19 madness was tricky, but we took all necessary precautions by not dining outside throughout the trip and wore our masks in crowded places. This year, we owned 3 state park annual passes — Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin. With these passes, we covered a total of 7 state parks on this trip — 6 in Michigan and 1 in Wisconsin — and rain or shine, we hiked in most of them. We visited 2 of the 5 freshwater lakes that form the Great Lakes of North America — Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. Most importantly, we did some leaf-peeping in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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From Minnesota, we drove south along the Mississippi River to Iowa before crossing the river to Wisconsin. The purple milkweed flowers and the eastern tent caterpillar nests on the trees, which look like giant white cotton candies, dominated the landscape along the 2.5 hours drive. Upon our arrival at the campsite, a trash panda greeted us before scurrying into the nearby bushes. We prayed we didn’t have to encounter it again, especially in the middle of the night. The ruby throated hummingbirds were commonly seen buzzing around at our campsite especially at dusk in search of food. We also got to watch the crop dusting planes doing countless laps throughout the day and refilling at the distant municipal airport across the Wisconsin River.

Apart from the early morning rain on the first day, it was very hot throughout our stay with the heat index consistently reaching 100F. We still managed to hike several trails in the forest to get away from the heat, albeit very muggy and humid. To escape the sweltering heat in the afternoons, we constantly repositioned our folding chairs in search of shade under the 2 tall oak trees at our campsite. When the sun moved, we moved in unison. The only downside of camping under oak trees was the constant dropping of oak nuts like mini bombs. It was considerably cooler at night where the temperature dropped at least 25 degrees.

One of the attractions in this state park is the canoe trails on Glenn Lake, which is part of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge. There are 2 canoe trails — the north trail cuts through the idyllic Woodyard Slough and the south trail is more exposed to air and water currents. Both trails were well marked and we saw a few egrets hunting for fish along the north trail. Although we rented a canoe for 4 hours, we managed to cover both trails in 3 hours with a total of 6.7 miles. We were not allowed to canoe on the Mississippi River due to liability reasons. We were told the waves from the passing barges would constantly push the canoe to the river banks.

On our departure day, it was very breezy in the morning with the storm forecasted to roll in that afternoon with damaging wind and hail. We departed at 8:30 AM and headed to Pikes Peak State Park — located across the Mississippi River in Iowa — to do a few short hikes before heading home. This state park bears the same name as one of the Colorado’s 58 fourteeners — a mountain peak with an elevation of at least 14,000 feet — because both locations were discovered by the same American explorer, Zebulon Pike.

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We visited Bayfield 6 years ago during a brutal winter to explore the Apostle Islands Ice Caves and this lovely small city has left us a nice memory since. On this trip, we took as many safety precautions as possible, such as, wiping down commonly touched items upon accommodation check-in, refraining ourselves from eating outside and making sure we always have masks and hand sanitizers with us. This is going to be new norms for future travelling in the coming years. On our way to Bayfield, we revisited the beautiful Copper Falls State Park, which we didn’t have much recollection of the trails because they were heavily covered in snow during our last visit. From there, we continued north to Washburn and did a short hike in the Houghton Falls State Natural Area, which is only a 15-minute drive from Bayfield.

Bayfield serves as the gateway to the Apostle Island and this year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. So, we wanted to spend some time there. We planned to do an evening cruise to the Apostle Islands, but decided against it at the very last minute because we were uncomfortable sitting with many passengers in a confined space in this interesting time. Our initial plan was to hike the 4.5-mile Lakeshore Trail, which is located on top of the sea caves, but it was closed due to storm damage that occurred 2 days before our trip.

Nevertheless, we did a 3-hour guided sea kayaking trip where we kayaked a total of 4 miles on Lake Superior from Bayfield to Red Cliffs and back. It rained heavily that morning and we experienced 2-foot waves at times, but our $2300+ 18-foot long Looksha T tandem kayak handled the choppy water with ease. We had a faint view of the 282-foot long Fedora shipwreck, but the water visibility was low due to the heavy rain and rough waves. It was surprising to know the rain actually made the water on Lake Superior much warmer — warm enough to comfortably dip our hands in the water from the kayak. Honestly speaking, the kayaking trip was a little below my expectation due to the bad weather and that we had to head back half an hour earlier because some of the first-time kayakers in our group experienced sea sickness. That said, we learned a few interesting tidbits about the Apostle Islands. The black bears can be found on any of the 21 Apostle Islands even though these islands are miles apart and the lake depth is at least 150 feet because they can easily swim from one island to another island. Although Madeline Island is the largest island in the Apostle Islands archipelago, it is not part of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore because it was too expensive for the US government to buy out all the private residences on that island.

Known as the Berry Capital of Wisconsin, our trip coincided with the several berry picking seasons in Bayfield. We visited a few berry farms along the Bayfield Fruit Loop and picked a total of 15 lbs of cherries, blueberries and raspberries. The upside of bad weather is there weren’t too many customers picking the berries while we were there. We spent a half day hiking in Big Bay State Park by taking a 20-minute ferry ride to Madeline Island. The last time we visited this state park, we drove on the frozen Lake Superior to get to this island in the winter. On our way home, we admired the beautiful waterfalls in Amnicon Falls State Park, which is located 20-mile south east of Duluth.

Although the weather could be slightly better throughout the trip, we still managed to explore 3 very scenic state parks in Wisconsin. We enjoyed our quiet times reading on our iPads, listening to the soothing crashing waves, enjoying the cool breeze and the smell of the rain from our accommodation by Lake Superior.

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