Beaver Island Michigan

Great site you have here!

My wife and I will be staying on BI this coming August. We are really looking forward to our trip and have never been there. We have a few questions:

1. How are the black flies that time of year? We visited the UP 2 years back and found it was hit or miss with them. (hopefully we will miss them)
2. We plan on bringing of bikes to tour the island. Are there any serious hills or inclines to navigate on the island?

Thanx.

Vik

If you intend on staying on the roads (both paved and gravel) there are 2 hills I remember, neither bad at all and both on Kings highway heading south. Oh, and a small one on the North South Road near Barney's lake (I think) If you are looking for hills you might find some on trails on the West side of the Island but the Residents of B.I. would have to tell you.

Most everywhere I biked was very flat. I'm looking forward to a lot of biking in July.

Jim

Vik Beltitus wrote:Great site you have here!

My wife and I will be staying on BI this coming August. We are really looking forward to our trip and have never been there. We have a few questions:

1. How are the black flies that time of year? We visited the UP 2 years back and found it was hit or miss with them. (hopefully we will miss them)
2. We plan on bringing of bikes to tour the island. Are there any serious hills or inclines to navigate on the island?

Thanx.

A great source of visitor information is www.beaverisland.org

Beaver Island Chamber of Commerce
M-F 9-1 231 448-2505

I have that site saved as one of my favorites. Good site.

Unfortunately, no information on black flies, there.

I've been enjoying the Island for 15 years. I have never seen an Upper Peninsula black fly on Beaver Island. However, there is a biting fly (much smaller than UP black flies) called a sand fly. As the name implies, they hang out on the beach.

There are certain conditions that favor them: hot weather and most importantly, very light or no wind.

If you encounter them, go to another beach! Where the wind is blowing. Great thing about an Island- you can almost always find a beach with enough wind to keep the flies from biting.

These flies are more dependent on the weather conditions than the month. Although I have noticed more sand flies in August than in July. Perhaps because it is warmer in August.

Do not put on bug spray to discourage them. Nothing works and I firmly believe that it makes you more attractive to the flies.

The sand flies stay on the beach. So if it is a bad day at a certain beach, either go to a different one or head just a bit inland and you will avoid them.

Or set up a screen tent on the beach and enjoy the beauty from a safe place.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

Enjoy the Island!

Being a beach person, that is what I was afraid of.

I'm not going to let it bother us.

Remember:
"A bad day at the beach, beat's a good day at the office, ANYDAY!"