Eight state parks, one road, and the world’s largest lake on your right the whole way

It’s an All-American Road for good reason

You pick up Highway 61 in Duluth and point northeast.

For the next 150 miles, Lake Superior sits to your right, massive and cold and impossible to ignore. The route earned a national designation as an All-American Road, and you’ll understand why before the first hour is up.

Eight state parks line the drive. Rocky cliffs drop to the water.

Waterfalls cut through dark forests. Small towns show up every 30 miles or so, and each one gives you a reason to stop.

The best stuff, though, hides between them.

Duluth’s 1905 lift bridge still clears the way for freighters

Duluth sits at Lake Superior’s southwestern tip, and everything starts at the Aerial Lift Bridge. The city finished it in 1905, then converted it to a vertical-lift design in 1929.

It’s on the National Register of Historic Places, and you can watch it rise to let massive freight ships pass through the Duluth Ship Canal.

Canal Park wraps around the bridge with a lakeside walkway, the Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center, the Great Lakes Aquarium, shops and restaurants.

From there, the Lakewalk follows the shoreline for more than seven miles.

Five waterfalls tumble through Gooseberry in under a mile

About 40 miles northeast of Duluth, Gooseberry Falls State Park pulls in more visitors than any other park on the North Shore.

The Gooseberry River drops through five waterfalls, the Upper, Middle and Lower Falls all a short walk from the lot.

The Civilian Conservation Corps built the park’s stone structures between 1934 and 1941, using red, blue, brown and black basalt in a style the National Park Service supervised.

Twenty miles of hiking trails fan out from there, and the Lake Superior shoreline is where you go to hunt for agates.

Split Rock Lighthouse sits 130 feet above the water

Split Rock Lighthouse stands on a sheer cliff southwest of Silver Bay, and every bit of material used to build it arrived by boat. No roads reached the site when construction wrapped in 1910.

Congress had set aside $75,000 for the lighthouse and fog signal after the Mataafa Storm of 1905 damaged 29 ships on the lake. The light went dark in 1969, and the site became a National Historic Landmark in 2011.

Today the Minnesota Historical Society runs it, restored to its 1920s look. You can tour the lighthouse, the keeper’s home and the fog signal building.

Tettegouche’s Palisade Head is 1.1 billion years old

Tettegouche State Park covers more than 9,000 acres just outside Silver Bay.

Palisade Head rises more than 200 feet straight up from the lake, formed from a rhyolitic lava flow about 1.1 billion years ago.

A short trail with boardwalks and steps takes you out to Shovel Point, a headland that juts into Superior with wide views of the shoreline and sea caves below.

The Baptism River’s High Falls drops 63 feet, the tallest waterfall located entirely within Minnesota. You can also rent historic log cabins inside the park, and birders have recorded over 140 species here.

The Superior Hiking Trail runs 310 miles along the ridgeline

Construction started in the mid-1980s with the Appalachian Trail as a model.

By 2016, the Superior Hiking Trail became a continuous 310-mile footpath from the Minnesota-Wisconsin border to near Canada.

The trail follows the rocky ridge above Lake Superior through birch, aspen, pine, fir and cedar. You’ll find 94 free backcountry campsites spaced every five to eight miles.

Over 50 trailheads make day hikes easy, and the trail passes through seven state parks along the North Shore stretch. You don’t have to commit to all 310 miles to get the best of it.

Two Harbors has Minnesota’s oldest working lighthouse

Two Harbors is the biggest town between Duluth and Grand Portage, home to about 3,600 people and an 1892 lighthouse that still operates, the oldest in the state.

Smoked fish shops along the route sell freshly smoked Lake Superior fish, a North Shore tradition you should try at least once. Nearby, Beaver Bay holds the title of oldest community on the shore.

The Gitchi-Gami State Trail, a paved bike path, parallels the shoreline with about 29 miles completed and more in the works.

Cascade River drops 900 feet in its final three miles

Cascade River State Park sends a series of waterfalls tumbling through a narrow gorge before the river reaches Lake Superior.

The river loses 900 feet of elevation over those last three miles, and you can follow it from above on trails that hug the rim.

Down the road, Temperance River State Park has deep potholes and cauldrons that centuries of rushing water carved into the rock.

Both parks connect to the Superior Hiking Trail and have shorter loop hikes with gorge and lake views. Fewer people stop here than at Gooseberry or Split Rock, so the trails stay quieter.

Grand Marais has a 1947 art colony and a 50-foot schooner

Grand Marais sits on a natural harbor about 110 miles northeast of Duluth. Around 1,350 people live here year-round, and the town punches well above its size.

The Grand Marais Art Colony, founded in 1947, is the oldest in Minnesota and runs workshops for all levels. North House Folk School teaches woodworking, boat building and basket weaving.

You can sail Lake Superior on the Hjordis, a 50-foot traditionally rigged schooner the folk school operates.

Walk out to Artist’s Point, a rocky outcropping at the harbor’s end, and you’ll see why it’s one of the most photographed spots on the shore.

At Devil’s Kettle, half the river vanishes into rock

Above Grand Marais, the drive turns wilder. The Gunflint Trail heads 57 miles inland toward the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Judge C.R. Magney State Park holds Devil’s Kettle, a waterfall where part of the Brule River disappears into a pothole in the rock.

Grand Portage National Monument preserves a major fur trading post and honors the Ojibwe heritage of the region.

Grand Portage State Park has the tallest waterfall in Minnesota, the High Falls of the Pigeon River, dropping 120 feet. Services thin out up here, so plan ahead.

The Ojibwe called this lake Gichigami, meaning “great sea”

Lake Superior’s water stays cold all year. Even in summer, surface temperatures rarely climb above the low 50s.

The volcanic basalt rock along the coast is about 1.1 billion years old, shaped by ancient lava flows and Ice Age glaciers. The Ojibwe, whose presence and heritage run deep through the region, named the lake Gichigami.

Wildlife along the shore includes black bears, moose, timber wolves, bald eagles and migratory birds. Fall color here ranks among the best in the lower 48, typically peaking in late September and early October.

Fill your tank above Grand Marais because stations thin out fast

You’ll need a Minnesota State Park vehicle permit for parking at any of the state parks, available as a daily or annual pass. Cell service works fine in towns and at major trailheads but drops off in the backcountry.

You can drive the whole route in a day, but three to five days lets you actually explore. Spring brings big waterfall flows from snowmelt.

Summer is the warmest but busiest season. Fall delivers peak color.

Winter freezes the waterfalls and opens cross-country ski trails. Gas stations spread out the farther north you go, so top off when you can.

Drive the North Shore from Duluth, Minnesota

You start in Duluth, about two and a half hours north of Minneapolis-St. Paul, and pick up Highway 61 heading northeast. The state parks, overlooks and small towns line the route the whole way.

Grand Marais makes a solid base if you want to explore the upper shore or use it as a jumping-off point for the Boundary Waters. Give yourself enough days to stop often.

The pull-offs and trailheads between the big parks are where you’ll find the best surprises.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• This Minnesota road has eight state parks, dozens of waterfalls, and almost no traffic
• Minnesota’s most scenic road runs 150 miles and hides a waterfall that swallows a river whole
• This tiny Minnesota harbor town sits at the edge of a million acres of canoe country