Au Train Falls

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Au Train Falls

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Whitefish Falls

John Grubbs in the Midst of Au Train Falls

Au Train Falls is a small falls near the Au Train Hydro Electric Project power station. You can actually walk out and scramble around on these. The falls are located five miles directly south of Au Train and very near the intersection of M-94 and County Road H03.

Listen for sirens. The river level can rise quickly when the power company changes water flow.

Au Train Falls consists of several small drops at a wide spot near the beginning of the Au Train River. The Au Train River begins about five miles directly south of Au Train, where it flows out of a resevoir known as the Cleveland Cliffs Basin. The resevoir is formed by a small dam, and much of the water flowing from the dam goes through a large pipe to a nearby generating plant. The generating plant is perhaps a mile—maybe less—north of the dam. The falls are between the dam and the generating plant.

Getting There

Dam near the falls

From Munising: Take M-94 west towards Chatham. Just as you get on M-94 from M-28, you'll see a sign for Wagner Falls off to your left. A few miles further on, you'll see signs for the Valley Spur Inn and the Valley Spur cross country ski trail. The Valley Spur area is about a third of the way to Au Train Falls. Keep on driving. There aren't many landmarks of note in the stretch between Valley Spur and H03. Just a mile or two prior to reaching H03, you'll pass a sign on the left telling you that you are leaving Hiawatha National Forest. Begin watching on your left, because you'll quickly come up on the dam that forms the north end of Cleveland Cliffs Basin. Slow down! Just past the dam you need to turn north (to your right if you are coming from Munising) on H03.Drive a couple hundred feet north on H03, and turn right on Power Dam Road. In the summer, you can follow Power Dam Road down (it goes downhill) to a parking area where you'll find a sign with a good map that also tells a bit about the history of the dam and the generating station.

From Au Train: Take H03 south until you hit M-94. Then turn around, drive back a couple hundred feet, and turn on Power Dam Road. Drive down Power Dam Road to the parking area.

As you go down Power Dam Road, you may notice early on a lightly traveled trail to your right. Don't take that. It seems to be a dead-end. In winter, it won't be plowed. Further on, there's a fork that's equally well-traveled left and right. Go either way. The two paths join up again.

John Grubbs at the ledges

In winter: Both of the times that I've visited Au Train Falls it's been winter. Power Dam Road has been well plowed each time, probably because the power company workers need access to the generating plant. I'm still a bit nervious about driving down that road in the snow, because it is all down hill. I'd hate to be stuck down there. On my most recent visit, the roads were slippery, and I chose to park on H03 and walk all the way in to the falls.

After You Park: The sign by the parking area shows an upper falls and a lower falls. The lower falls are my favorite, and you get to those by walking on down to the generating plant. You'll have to walk past a gate in the road, but that's ok. Foot travel is allowed. I've only seen what I believe to be the upper falls once, and I recall them being more of a rapids than a falls. They are somewhat upstream from the parking area, and you can view them from a couple of overlooks on the side of the road.

After you walk past the gate, you'll see some rock ledges on your left. Quite a bit of water flows out of these ledges, and in winter you should see some fine ice formations. From the ledges, you walk across a low, wooden plank bridge to get to the generator plant, which turns out to be amazingly small. The bridge provides an excellant view of the lower falls.

The sirens are ceramic

The water level is low enough that you can easily walk out into the river and climb around on the ledges. If you do go out in the river, listen for sirens. If you hear a siren, get out of the river immediately. The sirens are the power company's way of warning you that water is being released into the river bed instead of being fed into the penstock that goes to the generating station. Water levels can rise quickly when this happens, and you don't want to be in the river and drowning as a result.

The Hydro Project

The hydroelectric project that you see around the Au Train falls was constructed in 1910 by the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company. The purpose was to provide power to the Munising paper mill, which still operates to today. The resevoir is interesting, because it isn't formed by daming one single river. There are actually two dams, one at either end of the resevoir, as shown in the following figure:

The water comes from three sources: Slapneck Creek, Johnson Creek, and Joe Creek. It isn't clear to me yet whether the basin itself is a natural geographical feature or if it was dug out by the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company. I'm also not certain of the original, natural courses of these three streams. Possibly they came together to form the Au Train River, and flowed north into Lake Superior. I'd like to see an old may to confirm that.

Generator Station

The dam constructed in 1910 is not the one you see today. Instead, it was downstream a bit from the present location, and blocked the river just upstream from where the pipe now crosses it. You can still see a vestige of this original dam from the parking areas. It looks like an old bridge abutment. The current dam was built in the 1930s. Today, the dam provides enough power for 600 homes, or so the sign claims. This makes me wonder if when the dam was expanded in the '30s, it was to bring power to the City of Munising.

The penstock headed away from the dam

One unusual thing about this dam is that the generators aren't built into the dam itself. Instead there is a large pipe called a penstock that carries the water from the dam about a mile north (and downhill) to the generating station. Given the downhill slope, this must provide a significant amount of extra water pressure to run the generators. The penstock looks to be about four feet in diameter, though I've never measured it to be sure. For most of it's run, it lays on the surface of the ground, and you can walk right up to it, touch it, and even climb on it. There are a couple places where the penstock runs in the air to cross the river. Barbed-wire gates are strategically placed to prevent you from trying to walk out onto the penstock when it's high off the ground like that.

The surge tank

Near the generating station, you'll see a large surge tank. It rised vertically out of the hill that you see as you cross the bridge towards the station. My guess is that this prevents damage to the pipe when valves are closed within the generating station. It's kind of like the little surge pipes you have in your house to prevent water hammering.