MLive says: “With a sandy beach on Lake Superior and a perfect view of the Keweenaw Waterway Upper Entrance Lighthouse, McLain State Park is pretty much paradise. Located in the Keweenaw Peninsula, this park is popular with Yoopers during all four seasons. The beach is obviously a draw during the summer months, but spectators and winter sports enthusiasts also flock here during cold weather months to see ice formations on the shore and cross country ski on the trails. Grab a campsite this summer to enjoy an extended stay and delight in the rise and fall of the sun on the lake shore.”
September 5, 2019
We arrived at McLain late at night on September 4, after kayaking Lac La Belle. It was dark; we’d tried to chase the sunset in, due to some gorgeous colors we could catch from the car, but didn’t quite make it. Despite not making the sunset, we got a beautiful starry night on Lake Superior.
We enjoyed a fire for a while before snuggling into the tent for the night. Rain was forecasted the next day, and we planned to wake up early in order to get a few hours of exploring in before the precipitation started.
Luckily, when my alarm went off the next morning, there was no rain in sight; so I turned off the alarm and we snoozed.
When we woke up for real, I spent a long time walking around trying to find a bathroom - no such luck, so I peed behind a trash can. Turns out, there is one bathroom/bath house for the entire campground, and it’s at the entrance to the campground; I was walking for 15 minutes in the direction of the bathroom and didn’t make it, meaning it was probably 1 mile away at least. Not the best set up!
Luckily, like I said, it wasn’t raining; my long walk was enjoyable despite peeing behind a trash can. We had a quick little breakfast and packed up our tent, and got to exploring.
Our first attempt at enjoying McLain State Park was trying out a short hiking trail. The trail would have been easy and lovely, but it was swarming with mosquitos! We hiked in and out of those woods quickly. Also: the name of the trail was misleading - there were no bears on the trail or in the lake.
After getting sufficiently itchy, we made our way over to the beach and lighthouse. The beach was rocky and full of cool driftwood; we spent time walking, rock hunting, and admiring the abundance of birch trees along the beach.
We enjoyed the beach quite a bit, but had some plans to enjoy more of Houghton County. We hopped in the car and drove back toward Houghton and Hancock to visit Quincy Mine and the historical sites around the mine. It’s extremely cool, and apparently you can go on a tour down into the mines - we had no desire to do that. Being at an old mine just made mining more terrifying and terrible to me. It made it seem even more unsafe than ever before. We instead learned about the history of the mine by exploring the above ground infrastructure and preserved historical sites.
I didn’t carry my camera with me the whole time, so these are just a few photos of what we saw. It was a very interesting spot, and there was a lot of pretty well preserved history there. We enjoyed it, while agreeing that we have no desire to be miners or go inside of mines.
With rain approaching, we decided to get in the car after lunch time and hit the road for Wisconsin.