Palms Book State Park, Thompson County, MI: Kitch-iti-kipi

When we were in Holland hanging out with Eric's REU professor Tim, he had about five million suggestions for things for us to do on our trip. He started talking and I furiously scribbled notes, catching most of what he said. We didn't do it all (there was no time), but one of the main things he wanted us to check out was Kitch-iti-kipi, also known as the Big Spring.

This crazy natural attraction is tucked away in Palms Book State Park, which is near Manistique and why we decided to spend the night there versus getting closer to Lake Superior. There is an entrance fee to the park but I can't remember how much it was.

There is a trail that takes you to the Big Spring (it is very close to the parking lot). A self-powered raft on a line takes you across the spring.

On the raft, there are some signs describing what creates this phenomenon. The whole center of the raft is a viewing area so you can look down into the water!

It was so cool.

Hopefully you can see in these photos how the fissures below have water forced upward at 10,000 gallons per minute. It was awesome to watch.

There are also giant trout swimming around. The water is so clear. It stays at a constant temperature of 45 degrees.

We also lucked out and had a beautiful day to do this. Most of the weather we had on this trip was beautiful, just cold!

Here's how different it was looking over the side of the raft versus looking into the viewing area in the center:

And this is the wheel that someone can turn to make the raft move.

Have you ever been? Or been to some other crazy natural attraction? This was definitely worth the side trip to see. Thanks Tim!