Trip Reports: South Manitou Island Spring 2024
As winter turned to spring and temperatures began to warm up, I started pondering locations that would be suitable for a early-season backpacking trip. Having hiked a significant amount of the trails in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, I was looking for a new location that was relatively close to home. While looking at my options, I quickly remembered of a trip to South Manitou Island that was canceled in July 2022 due to bad weather (a common theme in these Trip Reports). I looked at a few images of South Manitou and was instantly hooked, with the main selling point being the old-growth White Cedars found on the island’s western end. I made my ferry reservations, packed my backpacking and camera gear, and made my way up Leland via M22 to catch the morning ferry. This is a day by day account of my (very short) Spring 2024 trip to South Manitou Island.
Day One: Saturday May 25th, 2024
I left Grand Rapids around 5:30am to catch my 9:30am ferry from Leland to South Manitou. When I arrived in Leland, I had plenty of time to kill. After paying my backcountry camping fees for Saturday-Monday morning, and my National Parks fee (since South Manitou is part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore), I grabbed a coffee and explored the famous “Fishtown”. As departure time neared, I got on the ferry which was already filled with day hikers and backpackers on their way to the Island. Now previously, I read that the Manitou Crossing between Leland and South Manitou can be quite the bumpy ride under certain conditions, but this morning’s ride was thankfully a smooth crossing! Once arriving on South Manitou, we had a brief orientation and check in with the Park Ranger, and then I made my way to my site at Weather Station Campground.
South Manitou Island initially drew my attention because of the old-growth White Cedars tucked away on the island’s western end. Some of these old-growth Cedars are over 500 years old! Think about it, these trees are older than European explorations to Michigan, and it’s insane to think that some of these trees have been growing before Europeans came to the America’s in the 1500’s! These old-growth White Cedars are still standing today due to their ideal location on South Manitou. Due to being on the island’s western end, these trees are always caught in a head-on collision with the incoming weather across Lake Michigan. As South Manitou was changing over time, large sand dunes along the western shoreline began to form. This sand was eventually blown into the bark of the growing cedars, which later made it almost impossible to cut these trees down during the logging-boom of the 1880’s as the sand dulled the axes of the woodcutters. I made it a point that first evening to go visit this ancient grove of trees to see what photographic opportunities existed. After setting up camp, I made my way to the “Valley of the Giants”. When I arrived, I was in absolute awe of the old-growth cedars. I made my way through the grove, admiring the gnarly, burl-filled trees. I found a few compositions worth revisiting the following morning, made my way back to camp for dinner, and called it an early night for a 5:30am wakeup the next morning.
Route on day one from Weather Station Campground back into the “Valley of the Giants” (via Gaia GPS).
Day Two: Sunday May 26th, 2024
My second day on South Manitou began with a 5:30am wakeup call. I slowly crawled out of my sleeping bag, got my trail clothes on, grabbed my camera gear, and began to head towards the “Valley of the Giants”. It was pretty brisk this morning, and I could see my breath illuminated by my headlamp. I arrived at the old-growth White Cedars around 6am, just as the sun was beginning to come through the tree canopy.
After spending some time looking for compositions along the lower section of the valley, I headed uphill to see what scenes could be present. The woodland in the upper section of the valley wasn’t too impressive, but I did find an abstract scene that I really enjoyed. “Symbiote” is an abstract of bark system that stretches into the earth from an old-growth cedar. What I really like about this image is how it looks like the strand of bark envelop other layers of the cedar. Even through this tree could be 500-plus years old, it’s still growing and changing!
After making this image, I received a very ominous text message from the Manitou Ranger Station. It read that due to “high winds” on Monday the 27th, there would be no ferry running to South Manitou. I thought to myself that this wouldn’t be an issue as there is a ferry that arrives at 11:30am and 3:00pm. I could easily hike back to camp, pack up, and hike to the ferry dock with time to spare. However, the follow-up email read that all overnight campers planning to stay until Monday had to leave on the morning ferry at 11:30am. Being about 3 miles away from camp, this was going to be a manic rush to get everything packed and then down to make the ferry on time. After some serious speed-hiking and anxious time checks, I made it back to camp and packed up. I realized that there were other campers who had way more stuff to pack than I did, which greatly relieved my anxiety. By the time I made it to the ferry dock there was already a line of people waiting to board the ferry. I made it with time to spare! We departed South Manitou around 12:30, as we had to wait for all the campers staying until Monday were checked onto the ferry.
Route on day two from Camp, to the “Valley of the Giants”, back to Camp, then down to the ferry Dock (via Gaia GPS).
While this trip was cut short, it was still a memorable 24 hours on South Manitou Island. I was impressed by the old-growth White Cedars and happy with the portfolio-worthy image I made. I’m looking forward to more outings as spring turns into summer. At the start of June I’ll be heading up to the Western UP followed by a August backpacking trip to some new areas in Ottawa National Forest. Here’s to hoping for no more weather issues!
Thanks for reading and supporting my work,
Josh