6/24/22

“You’ll be fine. You’ll have plenty of time! I mean, it’s light out until like 10:30 here. You can do this,” I whispered to myself at work this morning. After a long (but also rewarding) week at work, and just witnessing a whole lot of politics and hate being posted by people on social media following the release of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, I decided that I really just wanted to get away from everything and out to nature. But first, I had to convince myself that I had time to hike after work. To get there I had to convince myself that I no longer live in southern places. I live in the land of the midnight sun, and in the summer, you’ve gotta make use of it.

Finally, I won the debate with myself. It was time for a hike, and I just had to decide where to go. But I already knew in my heart where I had to go: back to Pictured Rocks. Back to the place that kickstarted my nationwide road trip following my exodus from California. Back to the place that first inspired me to move up here.

I learned about Pictured Rocks when I was at my darkest hour back in Red Bluff. The Catholic high school where I loved to teach was gone, the woman I loved left me, everything outside was smoky and/or on fire, the sun was blotted out, I was feeling unfulfilled at work, and I was very alone. I started binge-watching youtube videos on a channel called Adventure Archives – it was just four nerdy dudes kind of like me who would travel the world and go on hiking and backpacking trips together. It’s actually a great youtube channel – simple, relaxing, and I highly recommend it. I think I was hooked on it because I couldn’t hike at that time due to all of the fires. Seeing people in crystal clear places, hiking about and having fun was such an escape for me during that dark time in life.

Anyways, these people have literally backpacked the entire country, as well as much of Japan and Europe. And yet in their videos from Pictured Rocks here in Michigan, all of them just had huge grins on their faces and all were in agreement that this was Shangri La, this was Utopia, this was the destination of destinations. I was intrigued, and it did look beautiful in their videos! So, I added the place to the top of the travel list. The rest is history. Thank you Adventure Archives and thank you to the bizarre constellation of crappy things that had to come together to lead me to a place like this! Thank you God! I probably would not live here but for all of those things.

Adventure Archives backpacked Pictured Rocks the way that you are supposed to: starting in Grand Marais, casually covering the 42 miles of jaw dropping trails and beaches of this national park where you often find yourself completely alone, sleeping in tents whenever tired, and ending up in Munising. Someday I want to do exactly that. But so far my time at Pictured Rocks has only consisted of day trips. Last fall, I hiked around Miners Castle. And today, I went on a 9.8 mile hike that covered Au Sable Light House, Chapel Falls, Chapel Rock, and Chapel Beach. These are all amazing places! Au Sable is fairly unique as a lighthouse in that it is only accessible by hiking into it. The other sights are also just gorgeous and eye opening to the goodness of God and our Earth. As with my last post on this travel blog from Pictured Rocks, I will let the pictures do the talking. Enjoy.

Following the hike, I drove home. It was 8:30 at night and still plenty light outside (the below photo of the Lake and the Huron Mountains around Marquette was taken at 8:30 pm!). In fact, as I’m writing this it’s 10:50 pm and it only just got dark. Clearly, I had time for the hike, and I am so glad that I took time to get away from this human world and out to nature. In nature you find balance and can listen to God.

Cheers,

Rob