• Thursday-What'sUP October 29 - 08:59 am

Jeremy TePaske sent in some photos from a recent visit to the Porcupine Mountains, where they hiked along the Presque Isle River and made a trek to Union Springs. Even though there was only color here and there to be seen, they still found many treasures to capture and share. Along the way he spotted a chipmunk, quietly camouflaged, amongst a pile of logs and branches, can you spot him?

Jeremy's second shot is the spring water at Union Springs, bubbling up to the surface. Jeremy said it was quite fascinating to watch the water bubble up, stop and then start again. A bit of trivia for you: Union Springs is the 2nd largest spring in Michigan. Can anyone name the largest spring in Michigan? I'll give you a hint, it's located here in the U.P.

The last three photos are along the Presque Isle River and show what Jeremy called, "potholes" in the river bed and a wavy rock formation, too. Isn't it amazing what power rushing water has, that over the years it can make formations such as these in the rocks along the riverbanks?

Nature in the U.P., it doesn't get any better than this.

Kitch-iti-kipi

Mary says: Sorry for the delay for getting on here to say you're correct, Doug. Here's a link so you can read more about Kitch-iti-kipi.

Excellent pics!

Very nice pictures!! Good thing you titled that first one, or I may just have missed that chippy!!

Have a nice day!!

...and yes, Big Spring.

Kitch-iti-kipi is what comes to mind. Such a facinating place. So beautiful and I need to go there again and take more time studying it. Just one of the U.P.'s treasures.

Chippies are such annoying little buggers. But sure are cute hey?

All beautiful pictures but, that last one really fascinates me.

My Scotties love chippies in a friendly manner.

Wonderful pictures, Jeremy! Felt like I was right there. Thanks for sharing!

When we started feeding the chipmunks, we had lots of problems with them. We stopped feeding them, it was O.K., they left us alone. Bill put the bag of seed in the bed of the truck and a chipmunk was under the bed of the truck, in the frame, trying to get at the seed.

That is certainly a fantastic area. And yes, those rock formations are awesome! Thanks, Jeremy.

I missed the chippy first time around. Great photos!

GREAT pics....and a cute chippy...

Heard the other day if you spray your feeder poles with WD-40, it'll keep the chippies and squirrels out of your feeders...I did that, and haven't seen one of the critters feeding there since. Although, I do have one feeder that's still empty every morning....I think I have a night time sneak attack by a deer.

Hi Mary:

I think that the largest spring in terms of gallons of flow might be the "Flowing Well" in the Hiawatha National Forest on the East side of Forest Road H-13. Seems to flow all the time even at 10 below.

JT

Mary says: I looked up information on the "Flowing Well" and it says that it flows at 100 gallons of water a minute, you can reference that here: Flowing Well.
Whereas, the information on this link: Kitch-iti-kipi, says:
"One of the Upper Peninsula's major attractions, Kitch-iti-kipi or "The Big Spring" is two hundred feet across and forty feet deep. Over 10,000 gallons a minute gush from many fissures in underlying limestone, the flow continuing throughout the year at a constant 45 degree temperature so the spring never freezes and can be enjoyed any season of the year."

Thanks for mentioning "Flowing Well" though, JT, as it's another one of those places in our beautiful U.P., that I had never heard of. :->

Jeremy is correct in that they are called potholes in geologic terms. The "wavy" rocks are interesting as well; looks like both are in Nonesuch Shale. I would explain how each form, but I'm kinda tied up at work this morning. I'll see if I can post more this afternoon from home.....

More Autumn scenes. Thank you.

"Wavy Rocks" looks like it would be more fun than a barrel of monkeys with about two more feet of water and a kayak. Anyone on Pasty Cam ever run this spot in the spring? Nate?

Ok, finally home. Now to something I actually enjoy doing!! J

Potholes, like the ones seen above, are circular depressions that get worn into solid rock in a stream bed near falls or strong rapids. The holes are usually deeper than they are wide. They are created by sand, gravel, or small stones being spun around in the hole by the force of the river current. Some are small, others are the size of a house.

What you are looking at in the last photo are each individual bedding plane (layer) in the Nonesuch Shale along the river. The wavy nature of the rock shows the more resistant layers within the Nonesuch. I'd be curious as to where these are at because I would like to get some photos of these myself......

Yahoooo...he found it.

Ah, one of my all time favorite places in the UP. OK, anywhere! Specacular in the Spring melt off too, but many of the features shown are underwater then.

Re: the mystery school from Sunday. Here's another site with a lot of interesting postcards from around the country: http://www.usgwarchives.org/special/ppcs/ppcs.html

Like a wise man once said...the patience...

Thank you all for the nice comments. The Porcupine Mountains are an awesome area to explore, never enough time though.
Mr. Chippie was rather fun to watch. He would disappear in the wood pile and then pop out somewhere else. He made it a challenge to get a photo.
The spring was fun to watch because it would suddenly start bubbling and stop just as fast. If you look close you can see a larger ring of debris which we thought at one time it was that large of a discharge, cool stuff.
There were A LOT of people photographing the potholes, which was cool to see but at times I thought that they are missing so much more beauty in the area.
For Capt. Paul, the "wavy rocks" are at the end of the boardwalk on the west side. My photo isn't even close to showing how cool the formation is, there is a waterfall (not sure what the name is) just to the left (downstream). There are actually a few small potholes in this area, some in the little pool of water in the lower left of the photo.

Jeremy