Little Presque Isle
Although I have not yet visited Little Presque Isle Park during the daytime, it was the location of one of my favorite memories I can remember in the Upper Peninsula. On our first trip to Marquette, I decided to check the Kp index to see whether or not we might be able to see the northern lights. I had never seen them, but I had chased them before, so I was somewhat familiar with the index.
We lucked out, and the index was forecasted as Kp5 for our entire trip, so we preemptively decided that one evening we would have to head out to try and see them. Our first day in Marquette was a tiring one, seeing a lot of things in a little bit of time. The Kp index was at 5 as predicted, but we were just too tired to go out. The next morning when we woke up, I had 5 notifications on my phone from the Space Weather Live app that the index had shot up to Kp7, which is classified as a strong storm, and checking Facebook showed me that friends had caught the storm as far south as Sleeping Bear Dunes.
I was bummed out that we had missed it, but we had a fun day of climbing mountains and chasing waterfalls ahead of us, so we went on with our day. That evening the index was once again at Kp5, so we trekked out to Little Presque Isle to try our luck. Most of the places we had been in Marquette so far had been pretty empty, even with the unseasonably warm weather, so we were shocked to see some 50 cars in the parking area when we arrived. There were people everywhere in the park, sitting on blankets with friends, starting small fires on the beach, all looking north, hoping for a show.
We had been there about half an hour when I noticed a twinge of green on the horizon in the photographs I took of the stars, and within 10 minutes, the aurora showed itself. I remember as it danced across the sky, hearing a bunch of people cheering from a way down the beach and thinking that even though I didn’t know who they were, we might get along. The color and definition seen in the photos weren’t as pronounced to the naked eye, but it was still very cool to see for the first time.
I have seen Little Presque Isle during the day from afar while atop Sugarloaf and Hogback Mountains, but I still would like to go back to Little Presque Isle during the day on our next visit. For more on astrophotography and photographing the northern lights, check out the Astrophotography in Michigan page.
