Photo Gallery Friday: 2016 Fall Color, Upper Peninsula of Michigan

Photo Gallery Friday is a regular feature on Travel the Mitten that will help showcase photos from places where a few pictures just aren’t enough to show off everything.

During the second week of October this year we had the chance to head north to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to check out the fall color. The weather trended on the cold and rainy side, which cut our time short in some places and kept us away from others entirely. While the western part of the U.P. had amazing color, other areas only had some color or hardly any at all. We enjoy visiting the Upper Peninsula any time, but fall has become a favorite as the colors make the mostly unspoiled landscape even more vivid and beautiful. Enjoy this collection of some of our favorite photos of 2016 Fall Color from this trip, below you will find brief descriptions of a few of the places we visited.

Lake of the Clouds – this stunning overlook in the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park had plenty of color from the overlook 600 feet above the lake.

Bonanza Falls – one of our favorite waterfalls just outside the Porcupine Mountains WSP boundary, there was quite a bit of fall color here on the Big Iron River.

Sugarloaf Mountain – a moderate-difficulty hiking trail led to great views from the top of this 470 foot tall peak located six miles north of Marquette on CR-550. The panoramic view from the top showed us that there was great fall color to the north near Big Bay while it was a bit slower to fill in to the south and west near Marquette.

Thomas Rock Overlook – from this vantage point reached by taking CR-550 to CR-510 about 20 miles north of Marquette, we could see great fall color, Lake Superior, Lake Independence and even the Keweenaw Peninsula off in the distance.

Alberta Sawmill – This historic village and museum was originally a Henry Ford sawmill next to Plumbago Creek. The color here and across the road at Lake Plumbago was pretty good; it is located on US-41 south of L’Anse.

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore – there wasn’t much color along the Lake Superior shoreline, but we found traces of autumn glory at the Sand Point Marsh Boardwalk, along H-58, and around Grand Sable Lake near the park’s east end.