Palisade Head

The rock of Palisade Head was born in one of the great geologic events in the continent's history. About 1.1 billion years ago, the heart of North America began to split apart along what geologists call the Midcontinent Rift. Before the rifting stopped, enormous volumes of lava welled up and spread across the region in flow after flow. The lava here cooled into rhyolite, a hard, fine-grained volcanic rock that resists erosion.

Long after the volcanism ended, the glaciers of the ice ages ground across this country, and Lake Superior itself was scooped out along the old rift. The ice and the lake's waves stripped away softer material and left the hard rhyolite standing as cliffs and headlands. Palisade Head is one such remnant, a sheer face of that ancient lava rising straight from the water, its stone recording a time when the middle of the continent was nearly torn in two.

From the top of Palisade Head the view is immense. Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area, spreads out below and runs to the horizon like an inland sea, so vast that the far shore vanishes into the distance. On a clear day the eye can reach across the water to distant shorelines and, some say, the faint outline of the Apostle Islands off Wisconsin, far to the southeast.

The overlook takes in the rugged North Shore coastline as well, the dark cliffs and forested points running away in both directions, and the waves working ceaselessly against the rock far below. The lake's moods are part of the show: calm and glassy one day, whipped into whitecaps and fog the next. It is the kind of view that makes the scale of Lake Superior finally sink in, and it rewards a visit in any weather.

The same sheer, solid rock that makes Palisade Head a great overlook makes it one of the premier rock-climbing sites in the Upper Midwest. Climbers rappel from the top and work their way up the vertical rhyolite face on long routes above the lake, and from the overlook visitors can often watch them as small figures on the great wall. It is a serious technical crag, not a place for casual scrambling, but a fascinating one to observe.

Palisade Head lies within Tettegouche State Park, part of the string of parks that protect the most spectacular stretches of the North Shore. Nearby are waterfalls, more cliffs, and the Superior Hiking Trail, which threads the ridgeline along the coast. The whole shore, from Duluth up to the Canadian border, is a landscape of rock, forest, and the ever-present lake, and Palisade Head is one of its signature stops.

The cliffs and North Shore forest are home to peregrine falcons, which nest on rock faces like this one and hunt along the shore, along with bald eagles, ravens, and warblers in the woods. Moose, black bear, and wolves range through the wider forest of the Arrowhead, and the lake below holds lake trout and other cold-water fish. This is the homeland of the Ojibwe, or Anishinaabe, whose Grand Portage and Fond du Lac bands live along this shore and whose history is deeply tied to Lake Superior, which they call Gichigami.

Summer brings warm days, the busiest season, and long light over the lake, though a cold wind can rise off the water any time. Fall lights the shore forest with color and is a favorite time to visit, crisp and clear. Winter is stark and beautiful, the cliffs rimmed with ice and the lake steaming in the cold, and access can be icy and dangerous at the edge. Spring brings returning falcons and the slow warming of the great cold lake below.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.