Pictured Rocks backcountry campers have nearly doubled over last decade

Laurel Manke thinks it must have been after a long day of hiking, dirty with sore feet, climbing the crest of a dune down to the beach and swimming in the ice bath that is Lake Superior.

That’s when she thought to herself, “This is more beautiful than any luxury hotel I could ever stay at,” she said, recalling the adventure six years later. “It really felt luxurious to be there.”

Manke, 34 of Traverse City, is one of the thousands of backcountry campers who visit Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula each year, as the park sees an increase in campers willing to rough it in the name of being truly immersed in nature.

Back in 1979, 13 years after the park was established as the first national lakeshore, Pictured Rocks logged just under 9,000 backcountry campers who trekked into the woods with all their gear as opposed to camping out of a car or RV, according to National Park Service data.

Backcountry campers nearly triple

That number has nearly tripled since then and nearly doubled between 2013 and 2023, from 15,710 to 30,104.

National park visits have been increasing across the board , said Hannah Bradburn, public information officer for the National Park Service out of Pictured Rocks. The general number of visitors each year to the park has also grown, with 575,450 visitors in 2013 and 910,939 in 2023.

Among the reasons for the backcountry uptick, Bradburn credited social media users shining a light on the park and the move to allow reservations to be made online.

And the 42-mile-long Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, with 15 miles of cliffs and multi-colored sandstone walls over Lake Superior, has a special draw.

“Pictured Rocks is a starter park for a lot of people who want to get into backcountry camping,” she said. “It’s not nearly as intimidating, in a way, to start off backpacking.”

That’s compared to places like Yellowstone National Park. At Pictured Rocks, while campers can be remote, they’re not too incredibly far from civilization, said Bradburn.

Yellowstone is about 63 air miles north to south and 54 air miles east to west, while Pictured Rocks is 5.75 miles at its widest point, according to the parks’ respective websites.

Not that far from civilization

It also felt particularly accessible on Manke’s trip. There’s a shuttle that campers can use – the park recommends campers use it to reach their starting point, then hike back to their car – and the terrain varies and can pose dangers at times but isn’t mountainous. Plus, Manke noted there isn’t much in the way of dangerous wildlife.

The park does have black bears and requires visitors to follow bear safety protocol, but sightings are infrequent and Grizzly bears are generally considered the more aggressive bear , according to information posted by the park service.

That said of the accessibility, the National Park Service warns any potential backcountry campers to make sure they are physically and mentally up for the task and prepared at every level. Outdoor retailer REI Co-op also has recommended beginners start with well-traveled locations close to home that involve only a few miles roundtrip.

Manke’s trip was her second backcountry adventure ever, having done such an escapade in college in Hawaii, she said. It just so happened a friend well-versed in backpacking was scouting Pictured Rocks for an outdoor outfitter, and Manke had some flexibility with work and a divorce underway.

Her group of three trekked 55 miles over a five-day, four-night trip that she documented on her MI Northern Soul blog.

Manke came out with some tips for less-experienced backcountry campers, such as bringing moleskin for blisters. She learned rope is good for hanging food in a bear-safe way and also for fixing a friend’s broken pack strap.

“The other hard lesson learned is: Whatever you think is a minimum amount to pack, subtract from that,” she said. “You want your pack to be as light as possible because it gets heavy over time.”

Pictured Rocks was also the first place Dennis Sawan, 38, of Atlanta, backpacked into about 10 years ago, shortly after college, he said. Sawan, who previously lived in Ohio, has been back multiple times and has backpacked dozens of times at various parks.

Varied landscapes

What makes Pictured Rocks so unique – aside from its stunning views - is how varied the topography is with long stretches of beach and clear water but also higher elevations and cliffs, he said.

“Any given trip there, you could set up your camp … hundreds of feet up on a cliff or right at the beach,” he said. “It just depends, so it provides you with probably what you would otherwise have to go to multiple parks to get.”

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He, like Manke, emphasized preparation for those trying backcountry camping. Sawan said he was “very ill-prepared” for his first trip.

“I had a tent and that was about it,” he said, with a laugh.

Now, he recommends potential backpackers plan out various possible scenarios, consider the time of year they are visiting, plan out their food with dehydrated meals, have a good tent liner for when it rains and pack light.

He said there are some negatives with the increased number of visitors. Especially around the Fourth of July, it can be overwhelming.

The park also saw damage from the increased number of visitors that emerged around the outbreak of COVID-19, when residents had limited options for gathering indoors and went outside.

Before COVID-19, the lakeshore had already done away with a source of widespread resource damage: dispersed camping, or allowing people to camp anywhere in the park, said Bradburn. Backcountry camping at designated sites still has an impact, but it keeps the damage maintained.

The thing was, during COVID-19, the uptick in visitors led to an uptick in damage, with human waste and trash “plentiful” in the backcountry, Bradburn said.

Now, there’s a recreation fee in place that helped mitigate damage from that timeframe, she said. Most recently, it’s gone toward maintenance like adding new vault toilets, installing boardwalks in sensitive trail spots and revegetating spots that got excess foot traffic during the height of COVID-19, like Miners Beach.

"Leave no trace"

Going forward, all prospective visitors need to follow “leave no trace” rules and it might involve more than some people realize.

Bradburn said even just walking off-trail and creating unofficial “social” trails can cause damage to vegetation, possible erosion and confusion for other hikers. Creating fires on the beach can leave embers burning for days when someone might accidentally sit on them, and building a fire in an undesignated location could disturb trees with the collection of branches or if the fire spreads.

Sawan, who said he considers Pictured Rocks the most beautiful place, said “leave no trace” is more important than ever. He hasn’t been back since moving to Atlanta, but he’d visit again in heartbeat and “leave no trace” is vital to maintaining that place’s beauty.

As for Manke, now married with an infant and two stepchildren, visits to the Upper Peninsula look a little different, she said with a laugh. Still, she said others won’t regret a trip to the lakeshore’s backcountry and noted that there are much shorter segments folks can travel there.

Backcountry camping is far more meditative than car camping, she said. And as for doing it at Pictured Rocks, she doesn’t believe five-day backpacking trips at other parks would have nearly as much beauty.

“It really was, every day there was something that was a showstopper,” she said.

Sawan felt similarly.

“It's a treasure that I think everybody ought to see.”

For a full set of directions and preparation tips, check out the Pictured Rocks Backcountry Camping Planner online.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Pictured Rocks backcountry campers have nearly doubled over last decade