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Hunts' Guide to Michigan's UPPER PENINSULA

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ON THE WAY TO BIG BAY
POINTS
OF INTEREST

Points of interest along CR 550 are arranged from Marquette and the south to Big Bay and the north.
How to get to CR 550 from downtown Marquette: Go north on Front St. until it dead ends at Fair. Go left on Fair. In two blocks, turn right onto Presque Isle Ave. At the third blinking light turn left onto Wright St. Look for Sugar Loaf Ave./CR 550 on the right.

Phil's 550 Store. An old-timey convenience store run by a blacksmith, with a good wine selection, smoked fish, a free maps for bike trails and area waterfalls ... more

Sugarloaf Mountain. A 20-minute walk up to the summit of this cherished local landmark gains grand vistas of Lake Superior, Marquette, and surrounding forests. Especially spectacular near dawn or dusk ... more

Wetmore Pond. Walk through an old-growth forest to a platform for viewing a sphagnum bog with carnivorous pitcher plants. Hike up to red rocks, nice for picnics and contemplation, with another great view. Hogback Mountain offers a third. ... more

Little Presque Isle, Wetmore Landing & North Country Trail Segment. Along this beautiful shore are rocky and sandy beaches, coves, sandstone cliffs, and an island for kayaks to explore. Nearby pines, berries put favorite northwoods habitats in one hikeable area. Get map of trail network for skiing and hiking. ... more

Songbird Trail. A 1.1-mile loop has 10 stops with signs about songbirds you're likely to see and hear along the way ... more

Harlow Pathway/Cross-Country Ski Trail. Two ungroomed trails-5.6 miles in all-with easy to intermediate skiing are near remote, rustic state forest cabins one can rent for the night ... more

Granot Loma. Banker Louis Kaufman's remarkable log lodge, built for $2 million in the early 1920s, is off limits unless you rent it for $10,000 a day. The public can see the show barns of Loma Farms and the colorful postmodern gates made ... more

Little Garlic Falls. Formed by a productive trout stream, this secluded falls are a 2-mile hike from the road ... more

County Road 510 to Big Bay. Crisscrossing the Yellow Dog River and its tributaries, this road is the gateway to several beautiful waterfalls ... more

ON THE WAY TO BIG BAY

Sugarloaf Mountain

The summit of this cherished local landmark offers grand views looking north and east to Lake Superior, and south to the city of Marquette with its steeples and the green forests beyond. It's a 15- to 20-minute walk to the peak - a view best enjoyed when the morning sky is still dawn-rosy. The trail is well marked. This half-mile climb is mostly stairway. Rated "moderate" in difficulty, it is less strenuous than it might otherwise be, thanks to the steps built by the county, plus benches along the way and a deck at the peak.

Today Sugarloaf is county property, but long before it was ever reachable by a road, it was a favorite destination of Boy Scout hikes or paddles. The stone obelisk at the summit was erected by members of Boy Scout Troop 1 to commemorate their assistant scoutmaster, who died in World War I. They wanted a monument that his mother could see from her bedroom window on Arch Street. They carried stones up from the beach and caught rainwater with a tarp for the mortar. Troop 1 is among the claimants for first U.S. Boy Scout troop. When scouting was introduced from England, an already organized boys' club of the local Methodist church joined up immediately.

Sugarloaf was (and is) a special place to outdoors writer Jerry Dennis. He described it in his wonderfully evocative and well written collection of autobiographical sketches, A Place on the Water: An Angler's Reflections on Home: "Like many downstaters who attend Northern Michigan University, I was there for the country. . . . Even those places that were most popular gave access to a wildness that is rarely encountered in the Lower Peninsula. A few miles from campus, at the summit of a little mountain known as Sugar Loaf, you could stand on rock outcroppings and look north over the almost frightening vastness of Lake Superior, then turn south and see unbroken hills of forest tumbling inland toward the horizon like bunched rugs. It was country - and this is what I had come north to find - big enough to get lost in."

Sugarloaf Mountain is 6-7 miles north of downtown Marquette on CR 550. Get there by taking Front to Washington, turn west and go to Fourth Ave. Turn north onto Fourth, which becomes Presque Isle Ave. At Hawley turn west. It turns into CR 550. Look for sign by parking lot. Free. Handicap accessible: no.

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