Glendalough and Lake Carlos State Parks + Inspiration Peak!

Last night a thunderstorm went through. While there was a good amount of lightning and thunder, we didn't get much rain. The sky was dark and gray though when I got out of the tent so I quickly ate breakfast and packed everything up to try and beat the rain. As I hit the road it looked lie rain was imminent. I started to wonder if it was a good idea to try and do some more hiking. Eventually I convinced myself that a hike in the rain, should it happen, would be a pleasant and welcome experience, and so I headed south again to Glendalough State Park.

The Hiking Club Trail at Glendalough makes a 3.3 mile loop around Annie Battle Lake.

It was a pleasant hike, but to be honest I felt a bit bored by it. It just felt like the hikes this weekend were all too similar; a hike through deciduous woods and grassy areas, with a few lakes sprinkled in here and there. The gray sky and a stiff breeze blowing across the lake probably didn't lift my spirits that much either. The hike around Annie Battle lake did offer some pleasant woods to walk through and even a few wildflowers to look at.

From Glandalough State Park I headed east to Inspiration Peak State Wayside. Inspiration Peak is a 400 foot tall glacial feature and the tallest natural point around for miles.

Author Sinclair Lewis praised "the enchanting peace and seclusion of this place for contemplation"

and there is a nice view from the top.

I saw some interesting fungi growing on a tree trunk

and saw a few wildflowers like this bladderwort.

Then it was the long drive back to Duluth.

Buffalo River and Maplewood State Parks

Yesterday after work, I paced up a few things, ate some dinner and than hit the road headed for west-central Minnesota to log some Hiking Club miles. Noelle had left earlier in the day to go to her parents' house for the weekend, so I would be making the trip solo. The start of my trip, I must admit, didn't go quite as planned. Outside of Walker, Minnesota a deer ran into the side of my car.While the deer didn't do any damage, it scared the heck out of me. Then when I arrived at Buffalo River State Park, where I had planned on camping for the night, I learned that the campground was full. To make matters worse, when I consulted my trusty DeLorme Minnesota Atlas and Gazetteer I discovered that the campground at Buffalo River is the only one, public or commercial, around for miles. Sadly, I headed into Moorehead to find a hotel for the night.

After a descent night of sleep in Moorehead, I headed back to Buffalo River State park to do some hiking. The hike started out with a pleasant walk along the park's namesake river.

 Eventually I found myself at the MSU Regional Science Center where there is an interesting sculpture of the local prairie grasses.

From the sculpture, I headed into the woods, made a loop and then headed into the prairie. It was nice to back in the prairie for the first time in a long while.

I enjoyed walking through the grasses. Unfortunately, there weren't many flowers in bloom, but with a warm sun and blue sky replacing the clouds I didn't mind the lack of blossoms too much.

From Buffalo River State Park I headed south to Maplewood State Park. The first thing that I did was get a campsite for the night. Then I hit the trail.

Maplewood State Park is interesting in that it contains many different ecosystems. There is the prairie, the deciduous forest, and the lakes. I started off by heading into the woods, passing a tree decorated with red balls

and then paralleled the shoreline of Cataract Lake.

I then headed back into the woods before passing another lake, this time Grass Lake.

Like at Buffalo River, there were not many wildflowers in bloom, I guess it's just not the right time of the year. I did see some spiderwort

 and some other yellow composites that I could not identify.

After passing Beers Lake (nice name by the way) things got a bit interesting. The trail got wet, and not just a small puddle, really wet. I tried to find a way around the wet spot, but was unsuccessful and so I took off my shoes and waded into the water.

 It was deeper than I had expected coming up past my knees. It made for the most hard core of my Hiking Club walks yet! It also happens to be the hike to take me over the 100 mile mark for the Hiking Club.

Another poor weather weekend

It was yet another weekend of bad weather in "the Northland" this weekend. Cold, rain and fog meant for less-than-optimal outdoor adventure conditions. We decided to stay close to home instead of hitting the road. Yesterday there was enough of a break in the rain that we were able to do some "urban hiking" around Duluth. We walked down to Superior Street to watch Grandma's Marathon,

watched a ship head under the Lift Bridge

 and ate lunch at Sammy's Pizza before heading home.

Wisconsin's Interstate State Park

After a night of some sleep and some listening to the various animals at Wapiti Park Campground make strange noises throughout the night I packed up my stuff and headed out. I decided that on my way north I would make a detour over to Taylors Falls and walk across the highway 8 bridge into Wisconsin to do some hiking at Wisconsin's Interstate State Park. Last year Noelle, Parker and I did some hiking on the Minnesota side and I really enjoyed the experience. I was excited to see what Wisconsin had to offer.
I parked in the lot near town and hiked a portion of the potholes trail before crossing over the St. Croix River and into Wisconsin.

There is a great view of the Dalles of the St. Croix from the bridge that's a preview of what was to come.

Once in Wisconsin I followed a user trail to Wisconsin's Potholes Trail. While there doesn't seem to be as many potholes on the Wisconsin side of the river, those that I saw were impressive.

One was particularly deep.

From the potholes I headed up the Ravine Trail and then followed the Skyline Trail. I walked through some really pretty woods and eventually ended up in the park's group campground.

From the campground I followed a grassy road called the Silverbrook Trail into some woods where it turned to a two rut gravel road. Soon I found and old foundation and what looked to be some old mine shafts. I later learned that these were the remnants of a failed attempt at mining copper. From the mine area it was a short walk to the pretty little Silverbrook Falls.

 There was a bench there where I stopped to eat a snack and was visited by a caterpillar.

I then retraced my steps to the campground and walked a road for a short while. Along my road walk I saw a father and his young daughter looking at something in the road and so I approached to see what they were looking at. It turned out to be a large but dead Western Fox snake.

I speculate that yesterday evening it was resting on the warm road when it was run over. In the same area where the snake was found was a heron rookery. The birds made a lot of noise up in their pine tree perches and there were areas of road that were covered with bird droppings. Besides great blue herons I also saw a bald eagle and a few sandhill cranes.

After following the road for a bit I found myself back on the trail. I followed the shoreline of Lake of the Dalles for a bit and then headed up the Echo Canyon Trail past the Indian Head Rock

and then down to the bank of the river where I watched some rock climbers on the Minnesota side

and ate a snack in a spot where cool air rushed out of a hole in the ground.   I then headed back to the car via the Summit Rock Trail and the road. It was a long drive back to Duluth.

Lake Maria State Park

After my hike at Charles Lindbergh State Park I headed south on US10, headed for Lake Maria. When I arrived I checked in at the park office only to discover that all the backpacking campsites were taken for the night. At this point I wasn't sure what I would do, but decided that since I had driven this far I may as well go for a hike.

I decided my hike would be a combination of the 2 mile Hiking Club hike and the 4.5 mile hike in our 50 Hikes in Minnesota guide book. Luckily the trails were not as swampy as those at Lindbergh State Park and so there were less mosquitoes. I finished the Hiking Club loop pretty quickly. Many of the same flowers I had seen at Lindbergh Park were blooming here. I stopped for a short break at Bjorkland Lake and then continued on.

 Shortly after starting the guide book portion of my hike I headed up to Anderson Hill, the highest point in the park with a bench and some nice views.

Then I moved on through a small section of old growth forest,

 eventually finding myself at the park's namesake Lake Maria.

It was a short hike along a section of road and some trail back to where I had started.
Once back at the car I had to decide what to do for the night. I had accomplished everything I had planned for the weekend in just one day, but it seemed like a lot of driving to head home. I looked at the Minnesota atlas and decided to head to a county park I saw labeled on the map to see if they had any campsites available. As I drove to the county park I saw a sign for a commercial campground and decided to stay for the night despite the fact that it was one of the most run down looking places I'd ever set eyes on. Needless to say I don't plan on returning to Wapiti Park Campground anytime soon. There is an interesting story in the news about the campground though.

Lindbergh State Park and Historic Site

This weekend was supposed to be a camping with Noelle and Parker weekend, but unfortunately Noelle got sick with sinusitis and so my adventure for the weekend would be a solo one. I decided to stick with our original plan of visiting Lindbergh State Park and then heading down to Lake Maria and grabbing one of the backpacking sites for the night. And so early this morning I packed up the car and headed southwest through McGregor and Brainerd to Little Falls, Minnesota and Lindbergh State Park.

Since I was alone and without a dog, I decided to tour Charles Lindbergh's boyhood home.

It was actually mostly a summer home for the Lindberghs and the tour was interesting. Charles Lindbergh, aside from being the first pilot to fly across the Atlantic Ocean was an interesting character and in the latter years of his life even turned into quite the conservationist. The house and its surrounding farmland were donated by Charles Lindbergh in honor of his father, a US Senator. The donation was made partly to protect the home from souvenir hunters who, after the flight from New York to Paris, started to tear the house apart to grab a piece of the home where the famous aviator spent some formidable years of his life.

Among the interesting things we were shown on the tour was a door which Lindbergh had shot a hole into, the kitchen floor where he split firewood into kindling (and in the process marked the floor up a bit), and the "Moo Pond" he built and signed his name in the wet concrete.

After my tour I decided to check out the surrounding state park and of course hike the Hiking Club Trail. It was a short hike of 2.5 miles, but passed some interesting sites along the way including an interesting water tower built by the CCC,

and the site where Charles landed his first plane "Jenny".

Among the natural features were many wildflowers in bloom

 and many dragonflies flitting about.

A few sections of the trail ran paralleled the pretty Pike Creek over which a young Charles built an interesting, rickety-looking suspension bridge as a boy. Luckily that bridge has been replaced with a more substantial one.

By the end of the end of the hike I was glad it was over though. Not because I was tired or the scenery was boring, but because of the thick mosquitoes.