Midwest Summer is HERE!!!

Here are 10 adventures you should check out + some updates!

We reached 90 degrees up on Lake Superior this week and it’s safe to say Midwest summer is HERE! Here are ten Midwest summer adventure ideas to add to your summer bucket list:

1) Visit the Pictured Rocks, Michigan:

The Pictured Rocks are probably best known as a sea kayaking destination, but personally I think it’s one of the best places to hike on Lake Superior! Here, you can find waterfalls that pour directly into Superior, perfect coves to swim in, and some of the coolest shoreline hiking views to be found on the Lake!

READ: A full guide to Michigan’s Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

2) Rent a Camper:

Last summer I worked on a project with Escape in A-Frame creating photos and videos for their camper rental, and it was actually such a fun weekend! It happened to be probably the hottest week of the year, and I would’ve been camping in a tent if not for this gig and having the air conditioning was super nice.

Normally I wouldn’t think I’d be a camper kind of person, but this totally had cabin-on-wheels vibes, both a clean and cozy cabin in the woods feel but also a lot of the same more fun and casual energy of traditional tent camping. I would never want to own a camper because they’re a lot of work and hard to keep clean, but staying in one for just a few days was super fun!

Check out Escape in A-Frame based in Southeastern Wisconsin

3) Explore Tettegouche State Park:

Personally I think Tettegouche (“Tette-a-gooch” not “tett-a-gucci”) State Park in Minnesota is probably the best state park maybe anywhere. There are several waterfalls, some popular some hidden, dramatic cliffline hikes over Lake Superior, overlooks of inland lakes, and hikes of just about every difficulty level.

For a hard day hike, I recommend Mount Trudee, which at shortest is over a six-mile hike, but the best routes are closer to ten. Hiking to High Falls is a four mile hike to the base of the falls with a big payoff, and Shovel Point is a shorter, 1-2 mile hike along the shoreline of Lake Superior, and that’s just scratching the surface.

READ: a full guide to Tettegouche State Park

4) Canoe the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness:

The Boundary Waters are on just about every Minnesotan’s bucket-list, and there are so many great canoe routes of varying difficulty level. If you’re looking to suffer, theres a BWCAW route for that. Looking to base camp on a secluded lake and do day hikes near by? There’s a route for that too.

Honestly I haven’t spend nearly enough time in the BWCAW, but I have so many route ideas bookmarked!

READ: A full guide to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness

5) Kayak the Apostle Islands Sea Caves

I haven’t done much in the BWCAW, because this place tends to eat up my entire summer — not that that’s a bad thing! Sea kayaking the Apostle Islands either as a day trip or as an overnight trip through the islands and out to remote sea caves is 100% one of the coolest experiences you can have in the Midwest in the summer.

This will actually be my first summer in a long time not working as a commercial guide and I’ve got super mixed feelings about it — it’s a really wonderful job in so many ways but you definitely get burnt out on how tourists sometimes treat people in the service industry.

Instead of full-time guiding this summer, I offering just a few trips — three overnight women’s paddling trips and three evening sunset/picnic dinner trips — that you can sign up for and learn more about here.

READ: How to Kayak the Apostle Islands Sea Caves

6) Learn How to Rock Climb:

This was my big “try something new” of last summer and while I’m for sure never going to be truly into climbing it was super fun to meet up with a bunch of people and try something new together!

Last year I hosted two women’s rock climbing trips with Climb Forged, a local to Minnesota guide-owned and operated small business, and I’ll be hosting another this June in Interstate State Park, just two spots left!

Book guided rock climbing in Interstate State Park with my friends at Climb Forged!

7) Visit the Garden of the Gods (Illinois):

I feel like most people don’t realize that southern Illinois is actually super beautiful. I visited the Shawnee National Forest in early May of last year and was so pleasantly surprised by the whole region, but Garden of the Gods definietly was one of my favorite places I’ve ever been.

I got here right after it finished raining and had it completely to myself, damp and foggy and all sorts of raptors and amphibians were out. It had a really cool “Land Before Time” kind of feel to it.

READ: Weekend Guide to the Shawnee National Forest

8) Tackle a Short Backpacking Trip:

I might be biased but I think that one of the best ways to get outside and have an adventure in the summer is to tackle a small one-night backpacking trip. And yes, the Midwest has good backpacking.

It doesn’t have to be high milage, it doesn’t necessarily have to be far from home, planning a short backpacking trip that just takes up half a Saturday and half a Sunday is kind of the perfect way to make your life feel a little extra special without spending a ton of money and without carving out time for a big huge trip.

READ: Beginner’s Guide To Backpacking

9) Visit Somewhere New & Near…

I’m always so pleasantly surprised by just how much there is to explore throughout the Midwest! Whether you live in Northern Wisconsin like me, or in Chicago, there is a lot more to do and explore than a lot of people realize — if of course, you’re willing to put in a little extra effort and miles on your car.

Last year my “somewhere new” was Wisconsin’s Driftless Region. I had read a lot about it online but honestly I didn’t really know what to expect. I do a lot of research before visiting an area to try and figure out what I want to write about, and what photos I want to shoot but I didn’t feel like I was able to find what I was looking for about the Driftless. I had this just gut feeling that it was going to be prettier than what I was seeing online.

Overall I think I was right! I think there’s a lot more to the Driftless than meets the eye on initial google search.

READ: Best Hiking in Wisconsin’s Driftless Region

10) Head way out somewhere new :)

I wrapped up a trip out to the southwest, one of my favorite spring destinations, last month and made a little video about the trip, from backpacking the Needles District of Canyonlands to exploring Moab and glamping! Here it is:

And other updates from my real life:

This spring has been a lot (dare I say too much) — a trip out to Utah, a project in Traverse City, two kayak skills/instructor development weekends that have not made the “content” rotation, and a small smattering of other commitments on top of my full time job.

How do you do all that? I’ve been asked more than once this winter, all the content and a full time job. It’s been too much to be totally honest, and I’ll be going part-time at my job starting in June. For background, until this fall I freelanced and guided, this fall I took a full-time job with Paddling Magazine, and I’ll be going to a part-time role that I think will strike a better balance for me.

Here it really feels like we went from winter to summer in like a week and a half. It snowed not the long ago. This past week it was in the 90s briefly. All the sudden there are leaves on the trees.

Beyond work, I went paddling earlier this week. I went for a walk on the beach, barefoot through a shallow spot on Lake Superior. I’ve been spending more time cooking, and gardening taking care of my plants. In general I’ve just had more energy for things, which I think is a sunlight thing. I’ve started running again, sort of. More on that next week.