Some friends and I usually head up to the UP to do some motorcycle camping over the 4th of July weekend. This year, we decided to do a Lake Superior circle tour before we ended up at our final campsite for the weekend.


This is the overall route that I ended up taking. I rode to Duluth, MN on Monday, and met up with the 3 others coming along in Thunder Bay, ON on Tuesday. It took us until Thursday night to reach McLain State Park in Hancock, MI. We then spent the rest of the weekend cruising around the area, and left for home on Sunday morning.


The bike all loaded up. I've since learned that I can pack much lighter, as I didn't even use a bunch of the stuff that I brought along.


Yes, that is Kawasaki Ninja 250 buried under all that luggage.


A lookout point on the way to Thunder Bay.


With the bike.


I made it to Canada!


Our KOA campsite in Thunder Bay. It started raining about 30 minutes after this picture, just as the other guys showed up.


A place in Ontario called Silver Islet



The Sleeping Giant.


A lookout point somewhere between Thunder Bay and Lake Superior Provincial Park.



A lookout point one of the locals in the area told us about.

It turned out to be worth the stop.





The motorcycles.


Across the bridge, and back in the US. The shore of Lake Superior.




Lower Tahquamenon Falls.



The bikes at McLain State Park in Hancock, MI.


It was nice to set the tent up, and be able to leave it up for more than one night.


The Houghton/Hancock lift bridge at night.


Lake Superior.


Lake of the Clouds in the Porcupine Mountains State Park.



Presque Isle falls in the Porcupine Mountains.




Lighthouse lookout in the Copper Harbor, MI area.

This was an awesome trip. Unfortunately, it was cold, rainy and windy from the time I left my house, until we got to McLain on Thursday night. It didn't rain hard, or constantly, but it rained just enough to get you wet, which didn't help with keeping warm. Canada is incredible. The scenery never seems to end, and the people there are really nice. At least the ones we met were. It was weird seeing gas priced at $1 or less. However, that feeling wore off quick when gas is priced per liter (roughly one quart).

It also seems that not very many people ever see a group of people camping on motorcycles. It seemed like were were the talk of the campsites at each place. Random people would just walk over to us, start asking us about our bikes and our trip, and just be amazed that we were doing the circle tour on motorcycles. Maybe it was the fact that we didn't have BMW adventure bikes, or Goldwings, that made people question our sanity.

We spent a week on the road, and the only problem we had was the spokes loosened up on one guys rear wheel, and punctured the tube. Luckily, it was a very small puncture, and he rode it back to camp. I ended up putting 2100 miles on my 250 in that week, and only ended up with a sore butt. I'm sure there are lots of other scenic places to go tour, but a Lake Superior circle tour is definitely worth doing, especially on a bike.

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Awesome trip and pictures! Did you guys avoid expressways some? I hate expressways and sorta make it my rule to avoid them at all costs on trips.

You should post your trip on www.advrider.com in "ride reports pics pics pics"

Great job doing it on the bike you did! That is a challenge all in itself. My kind of trip.

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The ride up to Duluth from my house was all expressway, and incredibly boring. The ride back to my house from McLain was all expressway, and was the same route I took back and forth to school (I went to MTU), so that ride was also pretty dull. The large amount of traffic, and the fact that traffic was flowing at 80-85 mph made it somewhat more bearable on the way home. Otherwise the vast majority of the roads were 2-lane highways/country roads, with light traffic.

I've done some trips on the 250 before, but none this long, or with that much luggage. The saddlebags dropped the gas mileage to 55 mpg at 70-75 mph with gusty crosswinds (down from 65-70 without the bags or the annoying crosswinds). Otherwise, it never really felt like I was asking the bike to do something it didn't want to, and I didn't have a problem keeping up with the group. Couldn't ask for much more. Well, a wider seat and highway pegs would have been nice.

I'm now quite addicted to touring on the bike. I only wish my job and paycheck would support my addiction to the level I want it to be.

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So do we all, brother.. So do we all..

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What an awesome trip. I didn't see any fishing rods on those cycles.

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Looks like a nice trip. Might have to do it myself sometime. Good pictures

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Always wanted to do the lake tour myself. My brother in law and his church group did it once and said it was a blast.


A better trip than the one I did in the early 80's.
Was just divorced and laid off from my job. Drinking WAY too much so I woke up one morning in the middle of Nov. and decided to blow town. Loaded up as much as I could on my 1978 GS 400 Suzuki and headed south to Dallas Texas then west to Sacramento Ca. to visit my sister.
Took 8 days to get there.
Bummed around Ca. for a few months then joined the navy. Best decision I ever made.
When I bought the bike it had 1200 miles on it. When I sold it in Ca. it had 97000 miles on it and still ran strong. 3 weeks later the idiot that I sold it to wrapped it around a light pole.

Loaded up and ready to go.

No fancy riding gear here.

First time I ever saw the west coast.

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Nice pics, I haven't been able to get to many of those areas in a while. I haven't even been able to get to the Taqo falls at all yet. Did you guys stop at gooseberry, splitrock or grand marais? Just this past week I found a nice rest stop a few miles west of Munising where Indians had carved a face in on of the rock ledges along the lake.

Matt, I think you would like riding your bike across the midwest. Most of the roads he was on could be referred to as "express ways" by locals, but only because its a full 2 lane road with shoulders and sees more than 5 cars per hour. 61 from Duluth to Two Harbors (20 miles) is 4 lane but has half decent scenery. From TH up to Thunder Bay is a total different story, windy old 2 lane 'highway' for 130ish miles. There might have been some heavy traffic roads in Canada, and I know 94 and 43 across WI is pretty busy but there are no express ways in the UP.

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Greasemonkey - Nice old school!!
Someday I will do a trip out that way but I need alot of time. I hate expressway and like to explore and take country roads (curvy ones are the best of course haha).

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9700 or 97,000? Major props if you put almost 100k miles on that bike.

Unfortunately, we didn't do nearly as much exploring as we would have liked to on the southern shores of the lake. We got stuck on the bridge in Sault St. Marie, and by the time we visited Tahquamenon Falls, and explored Whitefish Bay a bit, we realized that we had about 300 miles to go, and had burned up a significant portion of the day. Add in the fact that it was 55 degrees, and windy, we decided to skip the rest of the scenery, hit the main road (Hwy 28), and just blast through to McLain. We intended to go back to Pictured Rocks, but instead explored the Porkies.

The UP definitely has some good roads. There's almost too much to see and explore, so you have to pick what you want to see. The main highways are a little dull, but better than expressways. There are many twisty, very lightly traveled roads throughout the entire UP. You just have to watch out for graveley corners and tourists going 5 mph. Talk about sucking the fun out of a twisty road.

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9700 or 97,000? Major props if you put almost 100k miles on that bike.


97,000 miles on it. Still ran good.

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