Pictured Rocks Cruises Spotlight: Munising, Michigan

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore stretches for 42 miles along the Lake Superior shoreline east of Munising, and from the land the views are spectacular. From the water, looking back at the 200-foot sandstone cliffs with their mineral streaks of red, orange, black, and white, the views become something else entirely. Pictured Rocks Cruises is the way most people experience them correctly.

Operating from Munising’s city docks, Pictured Rocks Cruises has been running boat tours along the Lake Superior shoreline for decades, carrying passengers past the arches, caves, and colored cliffs that give the national lakeshore its name. The boats travel routes that reveal formations inaccessible by trail, including Grand Portal Point, Miners Castle, and the Chapel Rock area, presenting the geology and the color from the angle that makes the most sense.

The tours run from late spring through mid-fall, with multiple departures daily during peak season to handle the volume of visitors that Pictured Rocks attracts from across the country and internationally. The Lake Superior water can be cold and choppy, and the boats are sized appropriately for conditions that remind passengers they are on the world’s largest freshwater lake.

Munising is a small Upper Peninsula city that serves as the western gateway to Pictured Rocks and has built its tourism infrastructure around the national lakeshore. Pictured Rocks Cruises is the single most popular way to experience what brings people here from so far away.

Visit at picturedrocks.com. Departures from Munising city docks.

Michigan Small Business Spotlight is proud to feature Pictured Rocks Cruises as one of the Upper Peninsula’s most essential and awe-inspiring small business experiences.