There's just something about Michigan's Upper Peninsula which calls to me. Wild...rugged...with vast tracts of empty, seemingly unending forest sprinkled with pristine lakes and muskeg...the U.P. epitomizes everything I love in the outdoors. It even has a few decently rocky hills to satiate the mountain-lover in me. It was my good fortune to call myself a Yooper for about six years, and it's six years I will forever remember fondly. I had some great adventures here, as I hope these albums will share...
Adventure Log: 180.5 miles
Most of the galleries below have two numbers in parenthesis alongside their name. The first is the TOTAL MILEAGE of the route, the second is what I’m calling the “Petzoldt Rating” of DIFFICULTY. Developed by Paul Petzoldt, founder of NOLS, this rating system is the best I’ve found for standardizing the difficulty of hikes. It works as follows: One ‘energy unit’ is given for very mile travelled on flat terrain. You then add one more ‘energy unit’ for every 500-feet of elevation gain. For example, a one mile hike with 1,000-feet of gain would give you a rating of 3.00. Consequently a two mile hike with only 500-feet of gain would also give you a rating of 3.00. Please note, however, these ratings do not take into account weather, rough terrain, fitness level, etc. I’ve divided levels of difficulty into five levels, based on the following Petzoldt difficulty ranges:
