Saturday, May 7, 2011

The Superior Hiking Trail: Sucker River Trailhead to Fox Farm Trailhead

Noelle and I had a chance to do some local hiking today. We drove north towards Two Harbors, turned up Homestead Road and eventually made our way to Fox Farm Road and the Fox Farm West Trailhead. It was at this point almost a year ago that I finished my thru-hike of the Superior Hiking Trail. A new section of the trail has been constructed since then, and although it is not yet officially open,
new section
we decided to hike this 5 mile long section of trail and return to the car via a road walk on Fox Farm Road.
The hike started out with some pleasant, if unspectacular, scenery. We passed several small vernal ponds
vernal pond
and crossed a few small streams.
Noelle bridge
This section of trail has not been blazed yet, but it was easy to follow due to the pink flagging that was tied to trees and shrubs along the route. Spring is coming to northern Minnesota a bit late this year, and as a result we did not see many wildflowers in bloom. We did see a little bit of wildlife though in the form of some birds and herps.

The first of the herps that we saw, a toad hunkered down in the leaves and mud,
toad
Noelle found when traversing one of the many blowdowns that blocked the trail.
blowdown
Later on our hike we found one of the largest garter snakes that I've ever seen.
snake

Noelle's good eyes didn't just find a hidden toad though. She found the largest, most ornately banded agate we've collected right on the trail.
agates

Eventually we made it to a spur trail that led to a new campsite and Fox Farm Pond. We took the spur and were pleasantly surprised by what we found. There was a nice campsite there with plenty of firewood, and a wonderful beaver pond.
Eric snacking
Noelle FF Pond
 There was plenty of evidence of the resident beavers all around the campsite.
Beaver chewings
In addition, there was a nice picnic table there where we ate a snack. Beavers are not the only animals we saw evidence of on our hike. We saw lots of moose tracks
moose track
and droppings and quite a bit of wolf scat as well. Unfortunately, we found some ticks as well.
tick
Soon after leaving the Fox Farm campsite we descended to the Sucker River
Sucker River
which we crossed on a beautiful new footbridge.
crossing Sucker
Soon after we made it to Fox Farm Road which we followed back to the car. A great hike on a beautiful spring day!

No comments: