The mountain was calling, but fog was already on the line. So Sugarloaf would have to wait. Instead, I traded a steep climb for a smooth ride along a bicycle trail tracing the shoreline of the world’s largest freshwater lake.
This is Marquette on the south shore of Lake Superior, midway along Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It’s a city of 22,000 residents and two faces, one the bustling downtown and the Hwy. 41 beltline choked with big store and restaurant chains, the other face that of Lake Superior, beaches, endless forests, steep hills, hiking and biking trails, and rapid rivers racing to Gitche Gumee.
I pedaled for miles along the lakeshore path, a wide asphalt surface dedicated to walkers, runners and bicyclists. Later, I would take on the Noquemanon Trail Network’s North Trails tracing Dead River before curving off into a forest of tall pines and oaks, with ferns bordering the pine needle-softened path.
I would take on Sugarloaf Mountain the next day, dawning cool and clear in Tourist Park Campground. The campground along Dead River—also flowing to Lake Superior—is a convenient base for a choice of bike trails, hiking paths, beaches, and Presque Isle, a 300-acre forested park jutting into the lake just past active an iron ore dock crawling into the lake like a giant alligator to meet the shipping freighters.
(I would take the enjoyable 5-mile bicycle loop around Presque Isle several times, always stopping where one can see Sugarloaf Mountain across the lake.)
At 470 feet above Lake Superior, Sugarloaf is not a mountain of a mountain. But it is a climb, 30 minutes on a trail requiring an eye on paths with rocks and roots through the boreal forest of conifers. Easing the climb is a series of stairways with wooden steps and railings. On the way up, I counted nearly 300 stairsteps.
It’s worth the climb. Atop Sugarloaf, three viewing platforms give a 360-degree view of Lake Superior’s vastness, its rugged shoreline, of Marquette and the ore docks, of Presque Isle, Little Presque Isle, Hogback Mountain, and the Huron Mountains.
Also in prominent view is the Superior Dome on the Northern Michigan University campus. Covering five acres, it’s the world’s largest wooden dome and home to NMU Wildcats athletics, including football, and community events. From atop Sugarloaf, it looks like a big white bowl turned upside down.
I took a wrong turn on Sugarloaf’s ascent—there are two parking lots from which to start—and was slightly descending when I met a local, Craig, climbing an alternate route from the second parking lot. “I think I’m going down,” I said, somewhat embarrassed. ‘You are,” Craig said. He invited to follow him to the top, where he showed me points of interest in the distance below. He was my personal guide, and the perfect guide, telling me just enough, not overwhelming me with too much.
Before he started heading back down, I learned that Craig was a retired neurologist who had flown into my hometown of Rice Lake, 300 miles away, for work. He was most anxious to tell me about Forsyth Forward, a group in nearby Gwinn inviting outdoors folks to “Explore Our Wild” as an alternative to Marquette’s sometimes crowded outdoors scene, as good as it is.
Craig bid me goodbye in the early morning light, saying it was wise to come to the mountain early; the trails would soon be crawling with tourists. He was right.
I had Sugarloaf’s peak to my own for a time before older couples and young parents with children began filtering out of the trees to the summit. Some were out of breath. From platform to platform, I walked on granite rocks smoothed by glaciers and resembling topographical maps with their swells, protrusions and depressions held together by curving, intricate lines.
After climbing through the dense and dark, cool and damp forest, Sugarloaf’s summit was awash in warm sunshine, which glistened on sky-blue waters below. A red-eyed vireo filled the lofty air with song, and berries hung on numerous serviceberry bushes.
On the way down, I stopped often between the walls of rocks, with small trees poking out of crevices and tiny, green ferns—rock polypody—decorating the lower reaches of rock. I began meeting mountain hikers more regularly, but in one particular solo moment in the forest hush, I heard only the whistle and flute-like song of a hermit thrush. The hermit that lives on Sugarloaf.
Note: My book, “Soul of the Outdoors,” is available through me, at bookstores, and from online sellers. For a personally-signed book, email davegreschner@icloud.com or text or call me at 715-651-1638. The book is available at bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tail), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), and Bayfield (Honest Dog), in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s, and in Marquette, Mich., at Snowbound Books.