Au Train sits on M-28 in Alger County roughly twelve miles west of Munising, close enough to Pictured Rocks that most travelers pass through without registering it and near enough to Lake Superior — within a mile — to have a genuine shoreline of its own. It was the original county seat of Alger County, a distinction long since surrendered, and what remains is a small community wrapped around a bay, a river, and a pair of waterfalls that see a fraction of the visitation their scale would justify anywhere less competitive. For travelers who find Munising's summer crowds wearing, Au Train functions as the pressure valve.
Au Train Falls
The Au Train River produces two distinct drops within a short distance of each other, and together they constitute the area's principal attraction. The Upper Au Train Falls descends roughly forty feet, a genuinely substantial cascade by Lower Michigan standards and a respectable one even in the waterfall-saturated Upper Peninsula; the Lower Falls drops around ten feet in a broader, gentler configuration. The two read as quite different experiences despite sharing a river, and visitors who see only one have not really seen the site.
Access is by County Highway 533 in Au Train Township, roughly twenty minutes southwest of Munising near the junction of M-94 and Au Train Forest Lake Road. The falls are associated with a hydroelectric operation on the river, which means water levels can vary in ways that are not purely a function of recent rainfall — a consideration worth understanding before driving out expecting maximum flow. Spring runoff generally delivers the most dramatic conditions, and autumn pairs lower water with the hardwood color that makes the surrounding forest worth the trip on its own.
The River, the Bay, and the Island
The Au Train River below the falls offers one of the more relaxed paddling runs in the central Upper Peninsula — slow-moving, sandy-bottomed, and winding through forest before opening into Au Train Bay on Lake Superior. It is a genuine beginner's river, suitable for families and for paddlers who want scenery without technical demand, and the contrast between the sheltered river corridor and the open Superior shoreline at its mouth is the most striking thing about the trip. Outfitters in the area run shuttles, which converts what would otherwise be an out-and-back into a straightforward downstream float.
Au Train Bay itself provides a sandy Lake Superior beach with the shallow, comparatively warm water that a protected bay makes possible — a meaningful qualification on a lake that otherwise punishes swimmers. Au Train Island lies offshore, a small landform that anchors the view from the beach and gives the bay a defined character rather than an open horizon. The combination of a warm-ish beach, a gentle river, and two waterfalls within a short radius makes this an unusually family-workable corner of a region that often demands more of its visitors.
Basing Here Instead of Munising
The practical argument for Au Train is arithmetic. Munising is the gateway to Pictured Rocks and prices, books, and fills accordingly through the summer; Au Train is twelve miles west on M-28 and does none of those things to nearly the same degree. Travelers willing to drive twenty minutes to the boat cruise docks can trade a considerable amount of congestion for that inconvenience, and the drive itself runs along a pleasant stretch of highway rather than through anything tedious.
Lodging here runs to cabins, small resorts, and campgrounds, and the community is small enough that a visitor should arrive provisioned rather than expecting a grocery run to be simple. What Au Train offers in exchange is quiet — an actual Lake Superior beach without a parking problem, a river that does not require a permit or a reservation, and falls that a visitor can reasonably expect to have largely to themselves outside peak weekends. In a region increasingly shaped by Pictured Rocks' popularity, that combination is becoming genuinely scarce.