Miners Castle
Near Munising, Michigan
Just ahead is the single most famous piece of stone in all of Pictured Rocks, and one you can drive right up to. Miners Castle rises like a turret of pale sandstone straight out of Lake Superior, and from the paved overlooks you can see it framed against Grand Island across the bay. The name goes back to seventeen seventy one, when men working for the English fur trader Alexander Henry prospected this shore hoping to find copper.
They never struck it rich, but the name Miners stuck to the rock and to the river beside it. For generations the castle wore two great turrets. Then, on the morning of April thirteenth, two thousand six, one of the turrets simply gave way and crashed into the lake below.
No one was hurt, but the landmark that had greeted travelers for centuries changed shape overnight, a reminder that these cliffs are still being carved in real time. Today a single turret remains, and short accessible trails lead to railed overlooks where the water glows an unreal turquoise over the shallow sandstone shelf. Look closely and you may spot kayakers far below, dwarfed to specks against the stone.
