WISCONSIN TRAVEL

Northeastern Wisconsin is packed with waterfalls to explore

Chelsey Lewis
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Deep in the Marinette County Forest, I bounced along a series of unpaved forest roads praying I wouldn’t get a flat tire — or worse. A series of small, brown and white signs were the only assurance I was heading in the right direction: Horseshoe Falls or bust.  

Horseshoe Falls is situated on a picturesque bend in the Pike River deep in the Marinette County Forest near Dunbar.

The waterfalls of northeast Wisconsin make you work to enjoy them. 

Not so much in hiking — although some of the trails are steep and rugged. No, it's the winding, rugged forest roads that really get your heart racing. 

When I finally reached the tiny parking area for Horseshoe Falls and followed a short trail to the small series of cascades in a sharp bend in the Pike River, all thoughts of flat tires and no cellphone service were far from my mind. 

I sat in the bend and soaked in the scene. Photos cannot do these waterfalls justice — you need to see, hear and feel the mist from the roaring water in person to really experience them.

It's an experience that captivates no matter how many waterfalls you've seen. The hissing sound hits you first — quiet at first, then building to a crescendo as the waterfall comes into view. Even the smallest of rapids projects the telltale sound. 

And then you see it: water turned white by its collision with rocks and earth, scrambling in a mess of foam and spray to continue its journey downriver. The motion and noise creates an almost hypnotic experience.

And because it’s such a journey to get to them, it’s most likely an experience you’ll have all to yourself.  

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Marinette County bills itself as the waterfall capital of Wisconsin, with more than a dozen named falls spread across the county in the state's northeastern corner. The area sometime gets overlooked in favor of bigger falls in the northwestern part of the state. But like any underdog, Marinette strives to impress and definitely delivers on its promise as a destination for chasing waterfalls.  

It was a good place to start my summer On the Road, with winter snowmelt and spring rains juicing up the falls for late spring and early summer viewing.  

And boy were they raging.  

But before I threw myself into the forest, I diverted through civilization for a stop at the Peshtigo Fire Museum. The museum (unfortunately not yet open for the season when I passed through), commemorates the devastating Peshtigo Fire, which killed hundreds and is still one of the deadliest forest fires in American history. It’s often called the “forgotten fire” as it occurred on the same night as and was forever overshadowed by the Great Chicago Fire.  

It’s still remembered in Peshtigo, with the museum and a historical marker in a cemetery where some of the victims are buried. 

With the museum closed, I made a stop at the nearby Forgotten Fire Winery. Corey Jorgensen poured samples of reds, whites and ciders in the small tasting room. In the summer, he said, live music draws people to the outdoor patio.  

One final stop before heading deep into the forest: Mickey-Lu Bar-B-Q in Marinette. The small diner has been serving up burgers cooked on an open-flame charcoal grill since 1942. No actual barbecue or fries, though — the joint doesn’t have a fryer — but you can get a creamy shake to chase your cheeseburger, and bring change to plug the jukebox for the full diner experience. 

Fully fueled for two days in the forest, I set off for the small campground at Goodman County Park.  

Sites there back up to the Peshtigo River, where a series of rapids provided that familiar hiss as I drifted off to sleep. 

Waterfall whirlwind 

The park is home to Strong Falls, where I began my whirlwind waterfall tour the next day.  

A large picnic area and a series of bridges over the river provide plenty of viewing spots for the 20-foot falls, which had attracted a couple of fishermen when I visited.  

From Goodman, it’s about 20 miles to the next series of cascades.  

Marinette County provides a waterfall tour map with good directions to each waterfall, and roadside signs also help with navigation.  

I skipped the next stops on the tour — Carney Rapids and Four Foot Falls — in favor of visiting three cascades along the Pike River off 12 Foot Falls Road. 

First up: Eighteen Foot Falls, a compact cascade viewable a short walk down a winding trail. 

From there I headed just down the road to Twelve Foot Falls at the county park of the same name. A large picnic area at the parking lot is a prime spot for seeing the falls from afar. This is one of the most accessible of the rustic waterfalls in the county. Most others are not viewable from parking areas and require at least a short hike.  

For more adventurous hikers, a trail circles around to the top of the small but powerful waterfall. When I visited kids hung out on the rocks, snapping selfies next to the cascade. Guard rails are not a thing in Marinette County — which means you can get as close as you dare, but it also means you’ll need to keep an eye on little ones and watch your own step on potentially slippery rocks and trails. 

A trail lets visitors get close to Twelve Foot Falls at the county park of the same name near Dunbar in Marinette County.

Just downstream from Twelve Foot Falls is its little sister, Eight Foot Falls. Follow the trail from the parking area, or cut through the campground for a less-wet-hike.  

From there it was on to Horseshoe, which tops my list of favorites here. It’s not a particularly flashy waterfall, but its remoteness and location on a picturesque bend in the river give it the feel of a secret you’ve stumbled on.  

I lingered the longest there, soaking up the serenity of the gradually tumbling cascade as it swirled around the forested shoreline before heading east to Amberg and Dave's Falls County Park. There, a short trail and series of steps leads to the Pike River, where two waterfalls drop 15 and 30 feet over the blocky black and gray rocks. 

East of Dave's Falls along the Pike River is little Bull Falls. This is one of the few falls that isn't labeled by roadside signs — you'll have to follow Highway K east about half a mile from Highway 141 to find a small turnaround parking lot under power lines. Follow a narrow trail along the lines to the falls along the river. Watch for ticks here — they like to hide in the grasses you'll be hiking through. 

Back on the road north, I followed Highway 141 to Morgan Park Road to find Smalley Falls along the Pemebonwon River. The trail to the falls there is fairly, but be careful — another trail leads along the river about 1.5 miles to Long Slide Falls, and a number of social trails intersect it throughout making it easy to get turned around. As with all of these waterfalls, the trails are not marked. 

Long Slide Falls drops 50 feet along the Pemebonwon River north of Pembine in Marinette County.

You could hike to Long Slide, or head back to your car to drive the short distance to that falls' parking lot. From there, it's a short hike to the top of the beautiful 50-foot falls, another one of my favorites in the area. The trail continues to the cascade's base for a terrific photo opp of the falls, which drop quickly over a series of large black boulders through a narrow gorge.  

The last stop in Marinette County awaited about 8 miles north. Just east of Niagara, I dipped into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to access Piers Gorge.  

The stretch of the Menominee River, which serves as the border between Wisconsin and Michigan, features a series of Class II-IV rapids that are popular with white-water rafters. I had rumbled through those rapids with a couple of friends a few years ago, so this trip was for a view a from above.  

RELATED:Menominee River provides white-water rafting thrills close to home

A relatively easy trail through the natural area on the Michigan side of the river leads to four piers — rock ledges the river tumbles over in a series of rapids along the wide river.  

With sunset growing closer, I headed back into Wisconsin for one more waterfall to the west in Florence County.  

A rough forest road led me to a parking lot for LaSalle Falls on the wild Pine River. The hike to LaSalle is longer than other waterfalls in the area, about a mile, before you can catch glimpses of the 20-foot falls as it slides through a scenic, 1-mile-long gorge. 

It was an exhausting, but exhilarating, day of chasing waterfalls — 11 in all — so I was happy to find plenty of open campsites along the shoreline at Laura Lake Campground in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. I settled into site No. 2 and fell asleep to the Northwoods lullaby: the eerily comforting coo of loons on the lake. 

Trains, towers and more

Day three on the road dawned as beautiful as the past two as I headed south through Laona, where the Lumberjack Steam Train would soon take visitors to a historical lumber camp. I also stumbled on the World's Largest Soup Kettle, which marks a more than 85-year tradition of serving free soup to the community, this year on Aug. 5.  

After a day of water, it was time for some trees. In the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest south of Townsend, Cathedral Pines State Natural Area features one of the best stands of old-growth pine and hemlock trees. The giants survived the logging that gutted the rest of the Northwoods' forests, and a short trail winds through the serene grove that reminded me of hiking among redwoods in California.

About 15 miles to the southeast is another giant: the Mountain Fire Lookout Tower. Erected on the site north of Mountain in 1935, the last fire was called in from the tower in April of 1970. Today visitors can hike the 130 steps to the top of the National Historic tower for a view of the surrounding forest from 1,380 feet above sea level.  

In northeastern Wisconsin, you can't avoid waterfalls for too long, so I zipped through Bagley Rapids campground to see its namesake rapids and the prime campsites along them (if you're not camping, you'll have to truck down a rough logging road to park and then hike back to the campground).  

Then I made my way west to Menominee County for a glimpse at Ducknest and Sullivan Falls, on the Wolf River in the Menominee Reservation. The road to get there may have been the roughest I traveled, but the reward was a roaring curtain-like cascade and series of rapids. 

For an even closer look at the Class III-IV rapids, Shotgun Eddy offers half- and full-day rafting trips from its outpost in White Lake. 

No time for rafting today, though, as I headed back north through Langlade, where a historical marker commemorated the town and county's namesake, Charles Michel de Langlade, "the Father of Wisconsin."  

I had just enough time for a quick hike around Fanny Lake in the Jones Springs Management Area southwest of Townsend (I'll be back for the backpacking campsites along the lake there), before finishing my trip at one of the area's finest supper clubs. 

Maiden Lake Supper Club serves up steaks, fish and more at a picturesque perch on Maiden Lake near Mountain in Oconto County.

The Maiden Lake Supper Club is run by second-generation owners MJ and Trina Dinkelman. The perch was some of the best I've had at a supper club in Wisconsin, and the views were even better: a full wall of windows overlooking Maiden Lake means there's no bad seat in the small dining room. Outside, a large deck and yard provide spots for waiting diners to sip a brandy old-fashioned and soak up a classic northern Wisconsin experience.

Wisconsin Trails On the Road

Follow Chelsey Lewis as she travels on 16 trips to all of Wisconsin's 72 counties this summer. Find more stories, photos and videos online at jsonline.com/ontheroad.