The run across the top of Lake Michigan continues with this east/north east stage from Thompson to Gulliver. As the route attempts to bridge the land gap to the Canadian border, which is only six stages away, Highway 2 starts to head inland away from the lake, and that can only mean one thing: the road climbs more than it descends.
The good news however is that the rollout into Thompson runs off the hill of the peninsular that has Fairport at its southern tip, and it’s downhill: but only for half a mile. The road then runs flat along the shore, passing Stoney Point Golf Course at three miles and Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital a mile later. It then crosses two islands of the multi-channelled Manistique River on the way into the town of the same name, before swinging right as it comes off the bridge and doing a big loop as it sweeps around the southern shore of the town.
Out the other side of Manistique, the highway passes the inland Jamestown Slough at the head of the Manistique River at eight miles and that’s where it all kicks off. The road climbs steeply as it heads inland, passing Schoolcraft County Airport at ten miles and that turns out to be the highest elevation of the stage because the road descends again over Snyder Creek at eleven miles, Marblehead Creek at twelve miles and Nelson Creek at fifteen miles. Snyder Creek flows from the hills above into Lake Michigan: Marblehead Creek flows from Marblehead Lake into the lake while Nelson Creek flows into Cookson Lake before merging with Marblehead Creek south of the highway.
It’s then on to the much larger Gulliver Lake that sits south west of Gulliver at eighteen miles. The road bends left (north east) at Gulliver and as it heads away from the neighbouring McDonald Lake that’s on the eastern side of Gulliver Lake, it sets up as straight but undulating down/up run to the finish a mile of north west of Parkington and west of Blaney Junction.
Distance: 22 miles / 35 kilometres
Ascent: 463 feet / 141 metres
RGT Magic Road: kUgGgAb08CGJ
Max elevation: 724 ft
Min elevation: 611 ft
Total climbing: 464 ft
Total descent: -447 ft
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