Anyone in Michigan UP?

I thought there were at least a few members here from the area. What is your impression of the color up there right now? I'm trying to decide when to head up.

I see reports from AAA that say stuff like Calumet=70%, Newberry=75%, Ontonagon & St Ignace & Sault St Marie=50-70%.

To me, 50% would seem like decent color, and 70-75% would be glowing. But I look at what photos and webcams are available and I'm seeing predominantly green with a little color mixed in.

We have had a summer of drought up here. It didn't start to rain until September 6. By then, the leaves were drying green and many have already fallen that way. Some areas have color that is quite drab, very little saturation. This has been one of the strangest fall color seasons I have seen up here. With that said, there are still a few pockets that have some good color, (good, not great) It has been a trend over the last 4-5 years for the peak colors to appear the first 8-10 days of October. Previous to that, it was more like the last 5 days of September and first 5 days of October.
I have not been keeping a log of the status of different nearby areas as I have done in the past. But if you have a request of a specific location around Munising, I may be able to research that for you.
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While I'm not in the U.P., normally at this time colors are getting close to peak, but I am hearing conflicting reports with some saying the colors are slow, while others report 50-75%.
A couple of links you can check:

http://www.michigan.org/
http://www.usaring.com/travel/color.htm

Good luck!

Scott,
Thanks for the reply. Maybe I'll wait until mid next week to decide. Considering that I'm seeing several reports saying such strong color, yet the stuff I see is mostly pretty dull, I'm wondering if it's even worth the effort this year.

No need to go scout out anything specific for me, but if you happen to have a personal gallery with any very recent shots of your area, please give me a link.


Toni,
Yes, I've seen the same conflictinig info. Besides the source you linked to, I've also been looking at:

Reports:
http://www.autoclubgroup.com/michigan/about_us/press_releases.asp?articleID=2289&view=current
http://www.weather.com/outlook/driving/fallfoliage/?ff_fileToView=mi2
http://www.foliagenetwork.com/reports/midwest_us/
http://www.westernup.com/reports/color.html

Photos:
http://www.newsupnorth.com/cgi-bin/westernupph.pl?acategory=Fall
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=fall+michigan&d=taken-20070923-&ct=0

Also a couple of tree-ward looking webcams here:
http://www.woodtv.com/global/Story.asp?s=690618

Ronald, those are all fairly reliable sites to check.

I live in Southwest MI, so if you need a color report from here, let me know. I'm in Kentucky for another week, and hope the colors will wait until after I return!

I'm heading up on Monday for about 1.5 weeks regardless. Probably start at Bond Falls and wait for the right light, then on to Porcupine Mtn's depending on color forcast. If peak is a little off then I'll make a run up to Split Rock and Tettagouche. Who knows with how the colors look...might start at Split Rock then swing back...

Also want to check out Sturgeon River Gorge.

Plan on getting to Pictured Rocks area and spending several days in the Hiawatha National Forest.

If the colors are poor I'll still have my backpack and some good hiking shoes!

I'll be in the UP from Oct. 4th-8th. Hopefully (although its been sounding unlikely) the colors will be better than when I was up there last year (Oct. 9th-11th). Lets all hope for the best.

Paul Wrobel
Romulus, Michigan

Colors were near peak last weekend in the Ironwood area. Closer to the lake, such as north of Bessemer it was a little farther behind. The Porkies had pretty much color as of Monday. Not quite peak at that time. That entire area was having very strong winds the whole time I was up there, so there were a fair amount of leaves falling. No areas were looking bare yet at that time. Also there had been some significant rains so most of the river levels had gone up, but were very brown. On Monday the 24th I was at Lake of the Clouds for sunrise and it was about 74 degrees. That beats bundling up due to cold, but was so windy it was hard to stand still.
I was planning on leaving for the Munising area tomorrow. Hope it's worth it. Just have to make the best of what's presented to us.

Happy shooting!
Patrick K.