Day 9 The Porcupine Mountains

Today we drove to the Porcupine Mountains, just down the road from where we are staying (Mountain View Lodge).  We decided to hike the Government Peak Trail past Trap Falls to North Mirror Lake Trail to the Visitor Center where we parked our car.  We opted to park here, however from here you needed to hike the Escarpment trail to connect to the Government Peak trail which would have added an additional 4.3 miles to our already 11 mile hike (5 hours, 55 minutes).  So we asked this nice couple from Ludington who was leaving the Visitor Center to drive us to the trail head.  They said no problem, in fact they said that 30 years ago someone gave them a ride and they thought it was awesome that they could finally pay it back.

The hike was beautiful especially by the Trap Falls, however we found ourselves engulfed by the woods limiting our views to the shoreline and lakes.  Even at the top of the Government Peak '1850 we couldn't see much.  We found that the best place to view Lake in Clouds was at the Visitor Center from the Look Out.  No hiking required to get to here, just a short walk from a paved path.  Wherever we hiked we found ourselves applying insect repellent often since the mosquitoes were particularly bad today.  This is the first time this whole trip that we encountered our state bird.

Tomorrow, weather permitting,  it poured rain last night, we will be visiting the many Waterfalls in the park especially near the Presque Isle River area.