Kayaking Michigan's Pictured Rocks Lakeshore

Rockhopper here. Won't you join me as I go for a kayak trip along the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in the beautiful Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Covering nearly 32,000 square miles, Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area and contains 10% of the world's freshwater and has a little over 2,700 miles of shoreline. The coldest of the Great Lakes, it has an average depth of 483 feet and its deepest point is 1,332 feet. Its volume of water is more than all the other Great Lakes combined, so much in fact that if its water were spread over all of North and South America, they would be covered one foot deep. There have been 350 shipwrecks in her waters and it's estimated that 10,000 people have perished. The lake is notorious for never giving up her dead. The Ojibwe called it Gichigami, which translates to Great Sea. In the summer, the Pictured Rocks are a popular destination for kayakers. What a glorious day for a kayak trip. Weather is beautiful. It's warm, not a cloud in the sky. As long as the wind doesn't kick in, we're gonna be good. We're gonna be real, really good. That's Miner's Beach behind me and over in front of me are the Pictured Rocks. And look how clear that water is. It's amazing. Beautifully clear. Look at the color in that water too. That's really gorgeous. It's like a big ocean out here. These are the Pictured Rocks right here and I think as the day goes on and the sun comes around the bend, I think these will light up with some really good colors. And if you look up there, you'll see like a little waterfall coming down and it's trickling right into the lake. This is Lake Superior and it really does look like an ocean. It's huge. And when you get a stormy day, believe me, it really does look like the ocean with the waves crashing against the shore and everything. These colored rocks kind of remind me of Lake Powell in Utah. I did a kayak journey there and you can check my video out on that as well. I've been waiting for a day like this. Gorgeous, sunny, beautiful, warm. And it's taken a while. I mean, the weather can be rather changeable here. It was raining for a few days. Rain and wind and clouds and all that. But now we've got the perfect day, or so it appears, to be out kayaking. So I'm just loving it right now. And you can see the Pictured Rocks, the line of Pictured Rocks behind me. And they go out quite a ways. So we'll keep on going and check it all out. I just met some other kayakers out here on the water. Hey, what do you guys think of this place? It's one of our happy places. A happy place. It is a happy place. So this will show you kind of the relative scale of the place. Those cliffs are pretty big. What would you say? About 100 feet high maybe? 175 feet you think? Yeah, that's pretty big. It's pretty big. All right, well have a fun journey you guys. Thanks. There's some people right up in there. I don't know if you can see them, but that'll give you an idea of the size of the cliffs. Let me see if I can zoom in on them. There they are. All right, so there they are. Let's zoom on out a bit. Look at the colors and patterns in those rocks. That's pretty cool. Let's get a little closer shot of that. That looks like some sort of abstract painting with all those colors and the patterns. Wow, that's pretty amazing. It really does look like a painting, don't you think? That's just so cool. Mother Nature really can be a wonderful artist. Can you see the water trickling down the face of the rock? Just right in front there. I'm in an abstract painting. Weeping rocks. The cliffs I kayaked against at Lake Powell are probably two to three times taller than the cliffs here. Let's pull in here at Mosquito Beach or Mosquito Point or whatever it is and have a little snack break, shall we? Turns out it's Mosquito Beach and good place to have a little snack and a break. More of Mother Nature's artistry. Look at how these rocks have been sculpted out by the water. Over here, if we were on the ocean, those would be sea caves. But since we're in fresh water, I guess you could call them lake caves. In all likelihood, though, it's just as much the forces of the water percolating through the landscape that has created the rocks opening up like this. You can see how they got the name Pictured Rocks, can't you? We're going to be going through that arch like this guy just did. Looks pretty cool. Let's head over there. That dude over in the lower right, he's found the spot. We're literally going right through the arch, right through the center of it. That's it, right overhead. You can get an idea of the size of that arch, judging by those kayakers going through. Let's go inside this little cave here. Check it out. We're inside this little cave. That's so cool. All right, onward. We'll head on to the next place, whatever's down the way. Heading toward this big lake cave here. And yeah, it's pretty sizable. Let's go on in and check it out. Look how clear that water is, and look at that beautiful green color. That's pretty gorgeous. It's just gorgeous all around today. I've been waiting for this perfect day to go kayaking, and finally it arrived, so I'm pretty happy about that. The wind is not real bad. The waves aren't really doing a whole lot out here, and it's pretty mellow all in all. I don't know if there's going to be a headwind coming back, but hopefully not. Just hope for the best. That's all you can do out here. We're going into the cave, and it's pretty cool. Look at that. Just look at the color of that water. Wow, that really is amazing. Looks like something from a distant ocean, really. You can do guided kayak tours like these people ahead of me are doing, but Leighton, who's in my other video, told me that they're about $168 per person. Now you can get a tandem, so that's 168 times two, so keep in mind your price point. You can buy a kayak for about $400, some of them. You can see where that cliff calved off, all that rubble at the base of the cliff. We're gonna do the squeeze right through these rocks, and we're gonna go over to that little cavern right there, and zip through there. Coming through. Gonna squeeze right on through these rocks. Yeah, a little bit of a squeeze. Not too bad. I just hope the wake from this tour boat doesn't come and smack me. I gotta get out of here because it's behind me. Here's one of the tourist boats that kicks up the big wakes. There's our next little bit right up there. Threading through the next little bit here. Going into the cave and around the bend. Coming through. Yeah, this is pretty cool. That's a tight, tight little squeeze. Yeah, I like it. It's fun. A little bird hangout right in there. A little cave for them. Hey, look at that. We've got another arch, although you can see the rock fall at the bottom, so I don't know if we can thread through that or not, but let's have a look at it. See what we can do. Nope, too much rock fall. There's no way to get through that at all. Not this way, anyway. That's the other side of the second arch. Look at the way those caves are just sculpted into that rock, into that rock wall. You got like an arch coming up right there. That's pretty cool. And just beyond, we can slip on through that opening right there. Let's slip on through here. Nice and gentle-like. Easy. Now that there's no wakes from the tour boats or any other boats, we can get on through, no problem, and through the other side. This is an interesting little cove, and then over there, there's a beach. We'll go over there and take a break, have a quick snack again. Somewhere out there is a waterfall that pours straight into the lake. This is Chapel Beach right here, having a little break and a snack, so a good place for a stop. Spray Falls is still up ahead there. I just rescued this caterpillar from the lakeside. I don't know how he got in the water, but he's still alive, so I'll put him back up in the bushes somewhere up in there. All right, well, let's get back in the water and see if we can find Spray Falls. I think that's what they call Chapel Rock. This is Spray Falls, and that is pure awesomeness right there, pouring right into Lake Superior. Fantastico! You know, this is a fantastic world. Get off your devices, step outside, and see the beauty that's all around you. Things like this, it's amazing. Now I've got to head back to Miner's Beach. All told, I will have done about 12 miles round trip today. Look at this little owl cove. Looks like there's even a tiny little beach right in there. Let's go have a quick look. Wow, look at that water, how clear it is. Must be like 20-30 feet visibility, maybe even 40. I'm not sure, but you can see all the way to the bottom. Look at those little mergansers there. We've made it ashore to this little beach right here, and it is a small one, but it's a nice one. Yeah, this is pretty neat. Have a look around, I'll show you. You can get enough drops collected in your bottle to get a fresh drink of water from the weeping wall. Cool and tasty. The only bad thing today are these dang little biting flies. If you get too close to shore, they fly out to the boat, they land on your ankles, and they bite you, and they hurt, and then they start to itch a couple minutes later. The afternoon light was kissing the rock faces and illuminating their colors now. There were the warm earthen hues of ochres, siennas, and umbers, with touches of crimson, black, and greens. I wanted to be able to show you how the sun brightened the cliffs and stirred their colors to life. If you want to see the rocks in the sunlight, come in the afternoon kayaking. I was off on the mileage. It's not 12 miles round trip, it's actually 18. These guys back here, they just told me that. I had a headwind which was slowing progress on the way back, but now it's starting to calm down again after a couple hours of a headwind, so it's looking like pretty good sailing here. Those rocks are looking a little bit psychedelic. All those colors and those rocks in the bottom of the lake are looking really clear and very visible. That late afternoon light really makes the colors in those rocks stand out. Look at those guys out there, look like cormorants roosting on the rocks. Dead calm and glassy now. Miner's Beach is right next to me. Bye bye pictured rocks. What a fantastic day. I really couldn't ask for much better. It's been so beautiful, warm, nice today, and ending it here in the late afternoon is just awesome. I started out about 10 30 in the morning and I'm back to Miner's Beach about an hour and a half before sunset. Summertime in the UP of Michigan on Lake Superior. You gotta love that, right? There's the exit point right up those stairs and back to the parking lot, and that concludes the journey. I hope you enjoyed coming along on the kayak trip with me. Don't forget to give me a like in the video, share, and subscribe. Until next time, this is