Hurricane River was where we ended up making camp when we took the sea kayaks up to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We should have taken that as an evil omen.

The idea behind our trek to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was to basecamp and do day trips along the Lakeshore, exploring the sculpted cliffs of the Pictured Rocks themselves, touring the Grand Sable Banks, hunting for shipwrecks. But the Lake had other ideas.

She was blowing a regular gale our first day out. She relented only slightly the second day, dropping the gale warnings for the open waters of the Lake but maintaining the small craft advisory. Winds were from the north up to 30 knots with near-shore waves forecast at 5-8 feet. Even the tour boats stayed in harbor. It wasn’t until the third day that the Lake calmed and permitted us to put our little boats on the water.

Fortunately, the Lakeshore offers plenty of windy day diversions besides walking the beach and admiring the sweep of the surf. Short hikes lead to tumbling waterfalls or ramble out over the Grand Sable Dunes. Longer hikes wend their way along the Lakeshore Trail which threads the park—clifftop, woodland, and beach—from one end to the other. For those desperate to paddle, there are even a couple of quiet, inland lakes big enough for a little kayak lily dipping. As for us, since it was clear that the Lake had no intention of letting us paddle from Hurricane River to the Au Sable lighthouse, we laced up our hiking boots and walked there along the beach instead.

At first it was a much-regretted change of plans. This was the stretch of lakeshore that was supposed to hold the remains of several shipwrecks. We had anticipated gliding silently over Superior’s emerald waters, peering into the depths for a glimpse of the shadowy hull of some long-sunken ship. Now the Lake seemed to want to hold on to her secrets.

But she proved to be more forthcoming than that. All three ships were visible from the beach, their iron-studded timbers alternately awash in or exposed by Lake Superior’s capricious, cerulean waves. It was a compelling tableau, given the manner in which these vessels met their demise. The first boat was the Mary Jarecki, wrecked in 1883. Her massive keel timbers were all that showed above the waves the first time we saw her. But in quieter waters, a good piece of her hull could still be seen steadfastly holding together after more than a hundred years in shallow water just off the beach. Closer to Au Sable Point, the broken and twisted remains of the Sitka (wrecked 1904) and the Gale Staples (1918) lay washed up right on the beach. All three of these wooden steamers had fallen victim to Au Sable Shoal, now marked by foaming white breakers lined up one behind another for a quarter mile or more offshore.

Standing guard above this treacherous piece of water is the Au Sable lighthouse, a classically beautiful white tower attached to a red brick keeper’s house. The functioning light is now a small, automated beacon. But the lantern of this old lighthouse still boasts its original fourth-order Fresnel lens. Though chipped from long storage and rough handling, its tiered prisms of hand-ground lead glass still seem a work of art. And the view from the catwalk of the light was well worth the climb of 98 steps to see. To the east, the Grand Sable Banks rise abruptly white out of the blue water and to the north, the sandstone ledges of the Au Sable Shoal stretch out into the distance under shallow green waves and white foam.

As invigorating as our windswept walk to the lighthouse may have been, we were delighted to wake to a calm hush the next morning. There were no waves crashing on shore, just a sweet breeze sighing delicately in the treetops. This would be a day to paddle.

The difficulty with paddling Pictured Rocks is that you do need cooperative weather. The Lakeshore stretches fairly straight from southwest to northeast, exposed to prevailing winds across the full sweep of the Lake. Outside of Grand Island in Munising Bay, there are no sheltering islands, no safe harbors, no protected coves. Waves reflecting off the cliffs can cause confused seas and difficult paddling. Even the tour boat wakes get you coming and going if they catch you in too close to the cliffs, as they always seem intent on doing. So unless you happen to like getting trashed in surf (in which case I suppose 12-Mile Beach and a stiff north wind might be your ticket to ride), patiently waiting for auspicious winds is a prudent choice.

Our patience was finally rewarded with calm seas under a feeble south wind and a sky like wet cotton. We put in at Miner’s Beach and paddled northeast along the cliffs that rise straight and sheer up to 200 feet above the Lake. Floating there between the vast expanse of Lake Superior and those towering walls of sandstone, the kayaks seemed small and fragile craft, indeed.

The cliffs did tend to draw one onward however, a linear progression as seductive as any mysteriously curving headlands. For they were always subtlely changing. In some places smooth, straight, and austerely white, capped with a green blur of trees dwarfed by the distance; in other places they were gently fluted, worn into small windows or tall, dripping alcoves and stained by mineral and organic seeps in dramatic stripes of red, brown, and black and patches of pale green or blue. The moist, muted light of our damp day’s journey seemed only to help draw the colors from the stone.

Then, as we approached the big sea arch beyond the Mosquito River, a glimmer of sun escaped the clouds and warmed the sandstone to glowing, golden life. Suddenly, paddling beneath the arch seemed a joyous, triumphant entry.

Beyond the arch, the cliffs seemed to grow more rugged and broken. We passed Sail Rock, a huge yet very thin slab of stone long ago split off from the cliff and improbably balanced on one end, looking for all the world like a sail in search of a boat. And at Grand Portal Point, the idle mind could be endlessly entertained imagining faces in the roughly fractured rock.

We landed at Chapel Beach to stretch our legs before turning back to our Miner’s Beach access. In the six miles of lakeshore we had traversed, there had been only one other landing, our lunch stop at the mouth of the Mosquito River. There we’d had to gingerly pick our way over shallow, sandstone ledges to reach the sand. But at Chapel Beach, we could throw caution to the non-existent wind, as the approach was deep and unobstructed.

Had we continued on down the Lake another mile or so, we would have come to Spray Falls, where the Spray River reportedly tumbles from the top of the cliff to fall directly into the Lake. But we were on a limited energy budget this trip. And that morning’s long, circuitous drive from Hurricane River had left us with a limited supply of daylight as well. So we had to forego that pleasure ‘til another time.

That next time proved to be a dim proposition for the more distant future. Overnight the wind freshened and turned northeast. By morning, it was again animatedly slapping waves against the beach. High winds kept us off the water for the next two days. And wouldn’t it figure that the day we had to pack up and drive home would be blest with a slack, southerly breeze and clear, sunny skies? As we departed, the Lake was as serene as a sedate, elderly lady at afternoon tea. It was a taunting and tantalizing farewell.