Ride report: Lake Michigan Circle Tour
Life in the Midwest isn’t always great if you love motorcycle touring: we lack the majestic mountains or the breathtaking coastal views of the West, the blend of beautiful roads, mountains and historical towns of New England and the Eastern Coast, or the appeal of the Appalachians. But we do have a riding resource that none of the aforementioned areas have: the Great Lakes. It was with this spirit in mind that I thought of organizing a motocamping ride around Lake Michigan for September 2004. It was great ride: a group of 9 CAMPers headed out for this six-day ride, covering 1750 miles around Lake Michigan and the Southern shore of Lake Superior.
The Lake Michigan Circle Tour is roughly 1,100 miles long and would take about 16 hours of riding time with no stops. Our itinerary was a bit different and longer, as we added a detour to touch the Southern shores of Lake Superior and visit a couple of its main attractions. The official Lake Michigan Circle Tour was part of a plan that began in 1985 and included circle tours around all the Great Lakes. It was the brainchild of Jack Morgan, who worked for the Michigan Department of Transportation. Setting up all the Great Lakes tours took some time, and it was only in 1998 that the familiar green signs (that can be seen also in Chicago) were posted throughout the route.
CAMP’s itinerary was designed to accommodate a gentle pace, allowing us to arrive to our daily destination around 4pm every day. This gave us time to set up our tents comfortably, and gave us the option to go to town and buy supplies or have dinner while there was still light. Some days in the saddle were longer than others, ranging from 150 to 400 miles. And we did have two days that were almost fully dedicated to hiking and exploring the natural attractions that the area had to offer.
Our meeting point for our day zero was the Potawatomi State Park in Door County, Wisconsin. From there, our first day consisted of around 300 miles of riding up North, following the Circle Tour until the town of Manistique, and then deviating further North to spend the night nearby Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Pictured Rocks was the first National Lakeshore established in the US, in 1966. It extends for over 40 miles on Lake Superior’s shores, deriving its name from the 13 miles of colorful sandstone cliffs northeast of Munising. The cliffs reach up to 200 feet above lake level. I was hoping that we would be able to take a boat tour to see the lakeshore from the water. Unfortunately, as every rider in the world knows, the best laid out plans often don’t go according to plan: when we got to Pictured Rocks the winds were so strong that all boat tours had been canceled. We still were able to enjoy the wonderful colors walking the hiking patch along the Lake.
Our next stop was the Tahquamenon Falls State Park, 150 miles away. The original route saw us following what appeared on the maps as nice, paved secondary roads, but that transformed pretty soon into deep, deep sand. Regardless of everyone’s ability, nobody was willing to deal with that, so a quick reroute took us to the Tahquamenon Falls State Park. Occupying the extreme Eastern point of Mchigan’s Upper Peninsula, this park is famous for its lush forests and the red colored waterfalls (caused by tannins leached from the many cedars present in the park). The park is home to a large population of black bears, otters, deers and the occasional moose, but we didn’t see anything, alas.
The next day, after exploring the park in the morning, we headed to Whitefish Point, home of the oldest working Lighthouse on Lake Superior, and of an interesting Shipwreck museum. This area of Lake Superior is one of the most treacherous: out of the 500 shipwrecks that took place in the Lake, over 200 happened right around Whitefish Point.
After spending some time visiting Whitefish, it was time to get back onto the shores of Lake Michigan, following a 175 mile ride. A couple of CAMPers took a detour to Mackinac Island for an afternoon. The next day, we crossed the Mackinac Bridge to leave the Upper Peninsula and its tasty pasties behind. We followed the Circle Tour through the beautiful and peaceful Tunnel of Trees, a twenty mile ride following M-119 from Harbor Spring to Cross Village. Our destination for the night was the Platte River Campground, right next to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and its pleasant Pierce Stocking Road.
This was our last night of the trip, and we celebrated the birthday of one of our riders, Olivier, with a local cherry pie!
The morning after was time to go back home: each of us would have 300-400 miles of riding to do, but we had an unpleasant surprise. One of our riders had a problem with his GS, so in the morning I rode him to Traverse City to pick up a U-Haul to go back home. It turned out that his bike needed a new throttle body.
Riding home from Traverse City was probably the worst part of the trip, especially as we approached Indiana and the temperatures rose to over 95F. I guess the only alternative would have been to take the boat from Muskegon to Milwaukee, but it surely isn’t any faster!
If you missed this year’s Lake Michigan’s tour, don’t worry: in 2025 CAMP will be riding the Superior Lake Circle Tour!
