The waterfalls of Munising

If you like waterfalls, you’ve picked a good place. Munising sits in what might be the most waterfall-rich corner of Michigan — Alger County has something like seventeen named falls — and the town leans into it, with a good claim to being the state’s waterfall capital.

The closest and most popular is Munising Falls, a tall ribbon of water dropping into a mossy sandstone bowl, reached by a short paved path right at the edge of town. A couple of miles south, Wagner Falls spills down a rocky staircase in its own little state park, an easy boardwalk stroll from the road. Others are scattered all around: Horseshoe Falls, privately kept, with a horseshoe-shaped crest and spring-fed flow; Alger Falls, right beside the highway; and a string of falls tucked back in the woods and along the Pictured Rocks cliffs, like Miners Falls and Chapel Falls. In winter many of them freeze into blue columns of ice that draw climbers.

A quick word of caution: some of the smaller falls slow to a trickle by late summer, and a couple sit on private land or close from time to time, so it’s worth checking ahead. The Munising visitors bureau keeps an up-to-date list at munising.org.