Spring - Wildflowers, Waterfalls and 5-Star Wilderness

Flowers on Mackinac Island Photo Credit: Travel Michigan

Spring begins as a trickle in the Upper Peninsula. The warming winds push down our snowpack as the thawing earth nibbles from below, sending rivulets of melt water down hillsides in a maddening rush. Gentle rains mark the end of the snow season and swell our many rivers to capacity.

Over 150 named waterfalls await your viewing. Some beg from deep in the backwoods, thundering away anonymously until your arrival. Others are roadside attractions asking only that you slow a bit to acknowledge their gravity-inspired dance downward.

Along the shores of the Great Lakes mighty waves churn up a new selection of driftwood and agates ripe for picking by beachcombers. Great rafts of stubborn drift ice linger on Lake Superior, migrating with the winds. Stop by a hidden cove on a sunny spring day to eavesdrop on their hushed, melting conversation about change.

Walk along a carpet of wildflowers that change seemingly daily among our forested hills and roadside wildlife areas. Spring beauties, arbutus, trilliums and lady slipper orchids await. Maple sap drips into tin pails in the sugarbush, where sweet smelling steam rolls above a syrup maker’s purring woodfire. Blossoms of every variety fill the air with nature’s perfume. Lilacs, apple trees and wild cherry blooms confetti the air on a southern breeze.