The Porcupine Mountains, Michigan's biggest wild park

West of the village of Ontonagon, the land rises into a low, ancient range of forested hills above Lake Superior — the Porcupine Mountains, “the Porkies” to everyone who loves them. The wilderness state park that protects them is Michigan’s largest, roughly sixty thousand acres of it, and it holds something genuinely rare: one of the biggest stands of old-growth northern hardwood and hemlock forest left anywhere in the Midwest, towering virgin timber that the loggers never reached. When the state set the park aside in 1945, it was specifically to save those trees.

The signature view is Lake of the Clouds — a long, still lake cradled between two forested ridges, seen from an overlook you can practically drive to at the end of M-107. It is one of the most photographed scenes in Michigan, and in autumn, when the slopes turn to fire, it’s almost unreasonably beautiful. Beyond it, the park rolls on: ninety-some miles of hiking trails, the Summit Peak observation tower, waterfalls on the Presque Isle and Carp rivers, secluded backcountry lakes, miles of wild Lake Superior beach, and a downhill ski hill with a Lake Superior view for winter.

This is real wilderness — big, remote, and quiet — so come prepared: good boots, a map, bug spray in summer, and respect for how far you are from the nearest anything. A Recreation Passport gets you into the park; the visitor center near the east entrance has trail conditions and maps. Details at michigan.gov/dnr.