I have a goal of visiting every lighthouse in Michigan, and I have seen most of the lighthouses that are easy to access, but now I need to start working on those, not so easy to see, lights on the Great Lakes. Crisp Point lighthouse is the “other light” on Whitefish Point. The Whitefish Point lighthouse north of Paradise is pretty easy to get to, but the Crisp Point lighthouse is about 20 miles of dirt road thru the Upper Peninsula forest. West of Tahquamenon State Park on M123 you head north on County Road 500 which ain’t to bad of road, but then you get to County Road 412 which is a seasonal road and that road is a winding twisty road thru the woods. When I was there ( in October of 2016) the road had standing water about every couple hundred yards, and you need to drive about 7 miles to the lighthouse down this road. Thankfully I drive a jeep, and it was not much of a problem for me, but I could see it being a problem for the average passenger car.
So I am heading down the road, fording the water holes, getting deeper and deeper into the wilderness and there ain’t no cell service, voice, text or internet on my phone out there in middle of whitefish point. Then I get to a point in the road where there is a sign on the side of the road marking the location where two sisters were stranded for 13 days in there SUV in April of 2015. I am hoping I don’t have any breakdowns or anything. There are signs about every mile saying there is an emergency telephone at the lighthouse, which must have been added after the sisters got stranded.
After about 20 minutes of driving the seasonal road, I rounded a curve and there was Lake Superior and the top of the lighthouse peeking out over the trees. I get to the lighthouse and a couple people come out to greet me saying “ we were wondering if we were gonna get any visitors today” it was a husband and wife from Minnesota that were volunteer light keepers for a few days, and they were camping at the lighthouse welcoming visitors.
After taking some photos and visiting with the Lighthouse Keepers, which you can follow their blog HERE, I made the trek back to civilization. I took me an hour to get from the lighthouse to Tahquamenon Falls, but it was well worth the trip. If you have the time to do it, I would highly recommend it, just make sure you have a reliable car, or better yet, a truck or SUV, and you have plenty of gas, I burned about a ¼ tank getting there and back, and I would say to make sure you have some water and food just in case.
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