South Manitou Island - Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park

Camping during the summer months in Michigan can be hot, buggy and crowded in many of the state parks.  Not so, if you are willing to put all your stuff in a backpack and venture out into Lake Michigan via a ferry.  South Manitou Island provides some of the most breath-taking sights in Michigan, south of Pictured Rocks.  The island is part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and administered by the National Park Service.  The three designated camping areas are "walk-in only" and provide rustic camp sites, so you won't have your tent next to an RV with the TV on full volume all night.  For many of the sites you will not even see your neighbors, and we rarely heard anyone.  The camping areas are only a few miles from the ferry landing, yet provide a very secluded setting.  Some of the sites offer a fantastic view of Lake Michigan and the others are only a few steps away from the beach.  The island is small enough to day hike, so your heavy pack can be left at camp and you can enjoy the rest of the walks with simply water and most certainly a camera. To me, it is really an ideal situation.

Although we usually prefer to camp in the spring and fall, we decided to give it a shot in July due to our busy fall schedules.  Trying to avoid the weekend island visitors, we elected to head over on Sunday and then returned mid-week on Wednesday.  The plan seemed to work, since we really had our pick of premium camp sites.

The only way to reach the island, except for private boats, is via the Manitou Island Transit ferry.  The staff that operate the ferry service are very friendly and make it extremely easy to stow your gear and have a great ride to/from the island.  During check-in an NPS Ranger at the ferry office helps visitors secure camping and park permits before leaving for the island.  The trip is about 1.5 hours and provides great views of North Manitou and the navigation light before watching South come into view.

Once you arrive at South Manitou, the Ranger at the landing will help you select a camping area and then provides a short overview of the regulations and guidelines before you head to the "wilderness".

We elected to stay at the Weather Station campground, which was reported to have some nice bluff sites above the lakeshore.  Pleased to find several of the premium sites open, it was a good choice for us.  The hike was very easy, yet we were outside of the village and still had a ready source of drinking water.  All of the camping areas on the island are really nice and offer some advantages, depending on your preferences.

We found a great site with a view of the water and a path that led to the beach, while still having a well shaded spot to get out of the sun. It was really ideal and provided a great base camp for the rest of our stay.

 

If you have done any reading about the island, you may have read something about the vicious chipmunks.  These accounts are true!!!  They are not really vicious, but they are certainly bold and will do just about anything we find some food.  Per the instructions from the rangers, be prepared to secure your food from a tree to try a protect your valuable meals.  We had our food in some small dry bags and which were hung from a line between two trees, left by some previous campers.  Although this approach sort of worked during the day, by the end of the week we had one bag with three holes in it from stealthy night attacks.  This targeted food stash happened to contain the snacks, which included highly prized pistachios.

From our camp we ventured on both some inland trails and some extensive beach walks.  Although there is plenty of poison ivy along the wooded trails, most of the paths are pretty wide (some being old wagon roads) and with care, you can avoid the menace if you watch your step.

One potential hike takes you straight up through the center of the island past the cemetery and the old school house.  It is an easy hike following one of the old roads, but sure seems like 3x the posted distances.  It is from this trail that you can also take a side tour to the old farm ruins.

I must say that our favorite hikes were to see shipwreck of the Francisco Morazon. Coming from the inland approach, you can view the remains of the wreck from a high bluff that is really spectacular.

From the Weather Station campground, you can also reach the shipwreck via a beach hike. We really enjoyed the view, so we did both. There is a steep path from the bluff to the beach, so it would be possible to take different routes to and from the wreck. I'd recommend starting at the top, the sandy path up the bluff looks like it would not be an easy climb.

Past the trail to the shipwreck is the path to the "Giant Cedars".  This is a nice trail that is partially a boardwalk, through some of the large cedars that somehow avoided the loggers.  

Although the map shows this route as a down and back, it actually loops up to the dunes trail. It is really a nice wooded trail that was a beautiful walk in the early evening and offered some cool relief from the sun.

Now, from this trail you can venture further out to the dunes. It was late in the day for us so we did not make it out to the dunes, but we heard from others that the views were well worth the extra distance. I guess we needed to leave something for the next trip.

Heading back to the village, the lighthouse is also a must see. Like the shipwreck, it seems like we just could not stop taking pictures of this landmark. At the time we were on the island, they were renovating some of the building but the NPS still offered tours of the lighthouse each day. The views from the top are well worth the long climb up the spiral staircase.

Depending on the ferry schedule, there is plenty of time on the last day to enjoy the sites around the village, including the lighthouse. The ranger asks all of the campers to be at the ferry landing by 11:00am to check the schedule, because the boat sometimes makes an early departure depending on weather and lack of day-trippers.

There are plenty more pictures to share, but I hope these provide incentive without taking away from your own discovery. This trip is highly recommended to anyone that wants to get away from the crowds and experience the "wilderness" without being a seasoned long distance backpacker.