Lately I’ve been covering my trip to the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I’ve covered a bunch of waterfalls (Presque Isle Waterfalls, Union Mine Trail Waterfalls, Overlooked and Greenstone Waterfalls). I’ve also covered a gorgeous lake and a ridge hike. Despite covering all of that, I haven’t covered anything resembling a mountain. The area is called the Porcupine Mountains, after all.

At this point you might be saying, “but the Midwest doesn’t have any mountains.” While it’s true that the Midwest is not home to any of the more impressive peaks, smaller mountains are everywhere, depending on your definition. I’m prefacing this by saying that I am not a geologist, but it turns out there is no universally accepted definition of a common term like a “mountain” or “hill.” Until the 1970’s, the US used the definition that a mountain was land differentiated by 1,000 feet of local relief. I’ve also seen organizations that define a mountain as anything above 2,000 feet of local relief or more, and others that consider the angles and definitions of the slope and peak. So basically, whatever you define a mountain as is both right and wrong!