Superior National Forest: Bass Lake Trail, Dry Lake Loop

With Sierra starting kindergarten next week and me changing schedules, this was the family's last opportunity for an adventure together for the summer of 2018. Despite a forecast that called for a pretty good chance of rain, we decided to head over to Ely for some hiking. After lunch at a park in the heart of town, we drove up to Echo Trail and the Bass Lake Trail System. We donned our hiking shoes

and hit the trail!

Noelle and I had snowshoed this trail back in January of 2011, but this would be our first visit without snow. Flowers in bloom included goldenrod,

aster and spotted jewelweed.

We opted to hike the 3 mile Dry Lake Loop. The trail traversed some beautiful red pine forest

 and had more topography than we are used to hiking with lots of steep rock ridges to navigate. This meant some really nice overlooks, high above Bass Lake.

Eventually we made our way to Dry Falls,

where we relaxed for a bit and enjoyed the view.

Then it was back on the trail

with intermittent views of Dry

and Little Dry Lakes.

Altogether, we probably spent about 3 hours hiking and exploring.

After our hike we headed back into town and checked out the Dorothy Molter Museum.

Dorothy, known as the "Root Beer Lady" because she sold homemade root beer to passing canoeists,
lived a good deal of her life in what is now the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. We checked out her home, buildings that had been moved from Isle of Pines,

and even enjoyed a root beer.

Then we headed downtown to explore and bit and ended up having dinner at Rockwood before heading back to International Falls.