The Hacking Site
While the Upper Peninsula is by no means the Rocky Mountains when it comes to its highest elevations, there are numerous places where you can enjoy spectacular views. The Remote Workforce Keweenaw logo symbolizes one of my favorites from Bare Bluff. Iconic views can also be found from Brockway Mountain, Mt. Baldy, Mt. Bohemia, Mt. Houghton, the Cliff Mine, the Porcupine Mountains Escarpment Trail, and Mont Ripley to quickly name a few. A place that is equally awesome, but seemingly unknown even to most locals is the Hacking Site. Located along the beautiful Trap Hills, this escarpment appears to be one of the tallest sheer cliff outcroppings in Michigan.
Last Sunday a group of us hiked to the escarpment via the Hacking Site Trail which leads to the edge of this sheer cliff at an elevation of over 1,700 feet.
The hike is a steady climb of about a mile from a dead end spur running east from Old 64. Even though the leaves were past peak color, the woods glowed a beautiful gold!
While I don’t know precisely when the Hacking Site received its name, its history as one of the places where peregrine falcons were hacked as part of the effort to reintroduce them to the Midwest in the 1980s is well documented at sites including: https://midwestperegrine.umn.edu/?vw=about
The cliff affords spectacular views such as this one out toward Lake Gogebic. How tall is the cliff? Looking at a topographical map, the sheer cliff stands at some 450 feet with the drop to Cascade Creek being at about 500 feet! The drop to the nearby West Branch of the Ontonagon River is almost 600 feet!
Looking eastward from the Hacking Site toward the Norwich Bluff.
Zoomed in on the West Branch of the Ontonagon River down below the Hacking Site.
The hike to the Hacking Site Trail can be easily combined with a hike on the Peter Wolfe Chapter’s segments 4 and 3 of the North Country Trail. These segments provide beautiful overlooks along with some serious up and down hiking through mature hardwood forests. The western end of segment three comes out on the same road where the Hacking Site Trail starts so it can be turned into a loop hike or made a little shorter by leaving a vehicle on each end to do a shuttle. Check out my GoPro video above to get better feel for the experience of hiking to this amazing place!
If you have have the ability to work remotely and would appreciate living in a place presenting opportunities for adventures to amazing places like the Hacking Site, consider locating in the Keweenaw! Learn more by visiting the Remote Workforce Keweenaw website at https://remoteworkforcekeweenaw.com!