3171. Go to Tahquamenon Falls in McMillan Township

 Besides Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum and a glass bottom boat ride, the other thing that was a must do while we were in the U.P. was see Tahquamenon Falls. They used to be a boat/train ride to Tahquamenon Falls but it has since closed so I had to settle for just seeing the falls.

Tahquamenon Falls is located between Newberry and Paradise in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is about 90 minutes from either St. Ignace or Munising. Tahquamenon Falls is located in Tahquamenon Falls State Park. There is a $12/day fee to enter Michigan State Parks for out of state residents. It is good for the entire day and all the parks you can fit into one day. It is open year round.

Tahquamenon Falls has two separate waterfalls known as Upper Tahquamenon Falls and Lower Tahquamenon Falls. You can drive or hike between the two. It's a short drive or a 6 mile (one way) hike between the two falls. There is enough parking at each of the falls. Each falls has it's own visitor center/gift shop, restrooms, and food available. 

We went to Lower Tahquamenon Falls first since that is the one that we came to first. There is a short walk from the parking lot to the first overlook of the falls. You can get a decent look of the falls. 

To get a better look of the falls, we followed the trail (about 1/3 mile one way) to the scenic overlook. Here we could feel the spray of the falls. 

If we (okay, the hubby) were more adventurous, we could have continued down the trail to the bridge to get a better view of the falls. We could also enter the river here to play swim and play in the falls. You can also rent rowboats to get to the falls as well. 

After checking out the lower falls, we drove to the Upper falls. There are two options to view the Upper Falls. We followed the crowd to the overlook. which is to the right. If we went left we would have seen the falls from the Gorge. 

There used to be stairs leading down to the overlook. Now there is a ramp to get to the overlook with benches and other overlooks. We get down to the main overlook and discovered the hubby didn't have his phone. So we didn't spend much time at the overlook as we raced to retrace our steps to find his phone which was safely in the car. 

The overlook was crowded which made it difficult to get a good view of the falls. It also deterred us from lingering to enjoy the falls.

I wonder if the gorge view would have had better views.  

 Both views were spectacular but we liked the lower falls better than the upper falls. It might have been the view of the lower falls was better. Maybe there were less people. Maybe we didn't have to worry about a missing phone.

Tahquamenon Falls definitely needs to be on everyone's Upper Peninsula bucket list. Even if you don't like or have mobility issue, you can still see both falls easily.