Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore Guide

Pictured Rocks, the first National Lakeshore in the country, is thirteen miles of sandstone cliffs rising up to 200 feet straight out of the impossibly clear, cold water of Lake Superior — and they’re painted. Mineral-rich groundwater seeping down the rock face has streaked the cliffs in bands of rust, copper green, black, and ochre, so the whole shoreline looks stained by a giant’s brush. You see it best from the water: a boat cruise or, better, a kayak gliding under the arches and past Chapel Rock, a lone pine growing on a sea stack with its roots reaching across a gap to the mainland. Add waterfalls tumbling straight into the lake and the Grand Sable Dunes, and it’s the scenic crown of the U.P.