It all started as a simple birthday trip. Katie and I wanted to explore a few of the waterfalls for my 23rd birthday and take our puppy Logan for a day trip up in the Keweenaw. We had a fun day and afterwards, slightly surprised by the poor online directions to Lower Montreal Falls, I decided that hunting down the other drops in Keweenaw County would make a fun summer project. The one county goal expanded to slowly encompass Ontonagon, Houghton, Baraga, and Marquette counties and is still growing.
There are hundreds of named waterfalls in the Upper Peninsula (I’ve seen the number 305 tossed around a few times), so this website encompasses maybe half of them. Some of them are mere inches in height and others that are over fifty feet tall. Most have trails, beaten footpaths or paved walkways, and some are so deep and forgotten that it takes a keen sense of direction to find them. Dams and private property hide a few of them, though most waterfalls listed here are located on publicly accessible land.
My trips varied wildly. Some days were a collection of quick roadside stops allowing me to rack up a dozen waterfalls in a single outing. Others were intense deep-woods hikes where I was lucky to see two drops in a long day. Those were often the more rewarding days, the McCormick Wilderness and Huron Mountain hikes, when I could spend most of the day wandering the woods with a good friend and my dog. This project may have started as a simple list of items to check off but it ended up becoming so much more in the end.
For future explorers - this website is not a definitive guide nor is any of the information guaranteed to be accurate. Many of these locations were visited years ago by a foolish young man who would purposefully meander off roads and wade through rivers to avoid no trespassing signs (and bugs). I do, however, hope you can experience these areas and lose yourself (both literally and figuratively) out there in the woods and maybe see a waterfall or a hundred on the way.