Porch Notes
Manganese Falls
Outdoors
At the end of the road — almost literally — Manganese Falls sits just south of Copper Harbor, near the very tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, about as far north as you can drive in Michigan.
It’s an unusual one. Manganese Creek, draining from little Lake Manganese down toward Lake Fanny Hooe, drops steeply into a gorge so narrow and so deep that the waterfall mostly hides itself — you peer down from a small overlook into a slot in the rock and catch the cascade falling somewhere below, framed by sheer walls and fallen boulders. The main drop is on the order of thirty to forty-some feet, part of a roughly hundred-foot descent. It’s less a grand vista than a secret glimpse, which is its own kind of charm at the end of the peninsula.
It makes a fitting stop on a Copper Country waterfall tour — and there are easy roadside cousins nearby, like Eagle River Falls (viewed from a handsome 1915 steel bridge) and little Jacob’s Falls along the shore.
Where to see it
Manganese Falls is just south of Copper Harbor off Manganese Road; a short path reaches the overlook. The gorge is deep and the railings are there for a reason — don't climb past them.