Dino Chronicles: Another New Waterfalls – Blog Post #10 Camping in Michigan

Friday, September 24, 2021

Another New Waterfalls – Blog Post #10 Camping in Michigan

Wednesday, July 14, the forecast was for hot and humid conditions with a good chance of rain by the afternoon. Hubby and I set out for our day’s adventures by 8:30, hoping to get in some waterfalls before the weather got too bad.

My “Waterfalling in Wisconsin” told me about a promising waterfall near Florence, Wisconsin, thirty miles south of where we were camping. The thing was that Google maps showed me a more interesting route than the book did, and heaven forbid, I follow directions anyway. Where is the fun in that?

We drove to the WE Energies Powerhouse, and I followed the canoe portage signs down some stairs to the bottom of the dam. The sign I read said the trail came out at the top of the falls, which it clearly did not.

I went back up to the powerhouse and followed the canoe portage signs in the other direction, up a service road that ran along the river. I couldn’t see the river, only heard it. Signs along the way kept pointing to Breakwater Falls, so I had to be heading in the right direction.

Oh, and by the way, Hubby had gone to the outhouse when we got there and wasn’t out yet when Dino and I came back up the stairs. I hesitated, worried he would wonder what happened to us, but then thought, oh, well, he’ll figure it out, he knows me well enough.

After ten minutes walking along this service road, the dog and I came to a parking area with a Breakwater Falls sign pointing into the woods. Even though the book had said this should be Pine River Falls.

We headed into what was a damp rabbit trail, until we came to a tree over the path which was too big for Dino to jump or crawl over, and when I tried to pick him up, his body language clearly said, nope. So, I rather irresponsibly tied him to a branch in the downed tree, scaled it, and kept going. I mean, the river was right there, the falls couldn’t be that far away.

It wasn’t, except that when I got to that falls, which was maybe six feet in height, there was clearly a second falls twenty feet or so further downstream.

I came to my senses, realizing that I couldn’t leave Dino alone any longer and Hubby might be frantically searching for us. And if he found the dog tied up alone, he would really be concerned.

I backtracked, released the dog, and headed back up the service road. As we got almost to the powerhouse, here was Hubby ambling along, confident he was on the right path and not at all worried about me.

But of course, I wasn’t going to give up on this – whether it was Breakwater Falls or Pine River Falls, or both.

When we got back to the truck, I consulted all of my sources, none of which was the internet, thank you, trees. Hubby was pretty skeptical of my directions, but he went where I pointed. When WiFi returned for a few fleeting moments, I realized that my maps and the gazetteer were correct and we would end up near that service road where the Breakwater Falls sign was.

Or not.

We came to a different parking lot which had a boat landing and area for two or three campsites, and even a men’s and a women’s outhouse. But I left all that luxury behind for the boys to enjoy, while I plunged into the trail heading towards the dam.

It was quite the hike along another rabbit trail to the dam. Even when I was about halfway back to that service road parking lot, where the canoe out-take/in-put was. Where a sign read “½ mile portage”. I wouldn’t want to carry my canoe along that trail.

I made it to the top of the dam and ambled down to the “Breakwater Falls” sign and once again plunged into the woods.

The waterfall was beautiful, and as anticipated, another falls was just beyond, this one maybe a little bit taller. And totally unexpectedly, downstream from the second falls, I could see the top of a third fall. I was like – what?

So I kept going, tromping through the trees and mud (thankful for my new hikers) and even gingerly across wet, mossy rocks

The third falls was probably the height of the first one, but still just as pretty. I studied the water flowing downstream, burbling over rocks, no more falls called to me and I thought I had to be close to the powerhouse.

By the time I finally came out of the woods, to where the boys were waiting in the air-conditioned truck, I had already stripped off my t-shirt; I was a sweaty mess and my legs were trembling from the hike. I felt like I’d been gone for hours, but it was only maybe 40 minutes!