Moose Mountain Scientific and Natural Area

Originally Noelle and I had planned on going on a road trip this weekend. We were leaning towards visiting Itasca State Park again to do some hiking in a less buggy environment than the one that existed on our previous visit. However, with a high chance of rain for the weekend we changed our plans and decided to stay home. We used a break in the rain to get outside and do some exploration of the nearby Moose Mountain Scientific and Natural Area. There is supposed to be a good display of spring wildflowers there, but I guess we were just a little bit too early. We did see some flowers in bloom,

including some violets

and dandelions. Other than a fruit tree of some sort (apple?) not much else was in bloom.

It did look like the trillium and wild ginger were on their way to blooming though, so perhaps we will head back there in the near future.

There are no maintained trails in the SNA, but a user path heads from the parking lot to a powerline cut. We walked the powerline cut

to the summit of Moose Mountain

and then returned back to the car the way we had come. I find it a bit ironic that the natural area is basically cut into two by the powerline cut, but it did open up the vies a bit and allow for easy access to an area that would otherwise be difficult to traverse.