Sunday, March 25, 2012

Freaky early spring in the North Woods

Alder catkins at Bear Head Lake State Park. March 24, 2012. Note open water.
It's March, and the frogs are calling outside Ely. The ice is off all but the biggest lakes. Nearly every sign of spring is coming a full month early. It's as if winter never happened, which is sort of true.

Leftover lake ice stack on the shore after break-up, Bear Head Lake.
Finally by the end of February the weather got as cold and snowy as a typical late November...and then on March 1 we jumped right past winter to weather more like May.


Of course the lakes opened up early; they hardly even froze. Of course the snow is all gone; we hardly even had snow on the ground.


The woods are already drying up. Streams are already running low. It's freaky and I just don't like it.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Why I live in Minnesota, not in Germany

Seventeen long years ago, Sally and I lived in Heidelberg, Germany for about seven months.  Germans love to hike, and we had a network trails heading up into the hills above the town. One weekend, we sought a little more adventure, so we headed out of town for the Wolfsschlucht

Germany has so many people and a culture passed down for centuries. Part of that culture includes naming nearly every natural feature that can be distinguished from the surroundings. For example, most hiking trail maps will mark where you can find important trees, and nearly every cliff has a name passed down through the generations.

Wolfsschlucht translates as "wolf's gorge." No doubt a few centuries ago some villager encountered a wolf here, and the legend lives down to today. It sounded like a wild place, maybe steep enough and remote enough that it still could feel wild, wild enough to have been the last refuge of a besieged European wolf.

To reach the Wolfsschlucht, we took the train about ten miles up the Neckar River, then got off at Zwingenberg. We followed a stone path that traversed up through old walls and then cut away from the Neckar into a steep side valley...the gorge.

I couldn't find any photos from that hike in our scrap book, but here's one I found online that captures the spirit of the hike...in more ways than one:

Note the sturdy stone bridge...and the large crowd of people. The only thing better than hiking for a German is to hike with a large group of people.

A sign at the trailhead (also found this one online) warned just how dangerous the Wolffschlucht was, only for practiced hikers, with danger of sliding and being hit by rocks on the unsecured path. No danger, however, of being eaten by wolves.

It was a great day and an adventure that combined culture and nature in a way that almost never happens in the US. 

So this weekend, Sally and I headed out for a hike here in Duluth. No streetcars here, so we drove, with the poodle along for the ride. We went to the Willard Munger Trail, since we guessed it would be dry and sunny. One of the scenic highlights was passing through a steep railroad cut, a gorge if you will. And wouldn't you know it, on the far side of the gorge, we found wolf scat, four or five piles along the edge of the paved trail.


It was a real wolf's gorge, our own actual Wolfsschlucht

In Germany, you find little pockets of wildness surrounded by fields and cities and highways. In northern Minnesota, you find pockets of settlement and trails surrounded by wildness. In Germany, wolves are only found in the most remote and broad forests along the eastern border. Here, wolves are almost everywhere.

I like it this way better.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

It's not THAT warm

After a lovely late winter snowfall and a fine Tour Duluth cross country ski experience, record warm temps rolled into the North Shore area and have thrown local folks in a tizzy. Last weekend, spring-hungry Duluthians were out doing the bizarre. Out past the ice piles left by the Leap Day Blizzard, two guys in a canoe drift alongside the Park Point beach, right where one year ago the ice volcanoes were still blowing. It's not THAT warm.

Although about half the Park Point beach is still covered in blue-ice boulders, there was enough sand for at least one person to stroll barefoot. It's not THAT warm.



 This was a little more like it. Duluth's Lakewalk was full of strollers enjoying the sunshine. Maybe it WAS that warm; I sure enjoyed my walk.

Just to remind us here on the North Shore how long we've got to go before it's really spring here, there's been a poof of wind off the lake the last few days. Lake Superior water is about 38 degrees, so it's a cool poof. And as the Twin Cities reaches freaky high temps in the 80s, we are still a pleasant 45 here.So even if it is THAT warm somewhere else, it sure isn't here.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Tour Duluth 2012: SKI THEM ALL

Hans at Chester Bowl, Trail #5, 1:45 PM
Tour Duluth is the year-end celebration of Duluth's great cross country ski trails. It's organized by the Duluth Cross Country Ski Club, or DXC for short. Duluth has over 80 kilometers of groomed ski trails spread from far west to far east, and including both city trails, a private system, and the University's nature area trail. 

Mark at the Magney Ski Trail trailhead. Trail #1, 8:30 AM
We were going to SKI THEM ALL. Some people try to ski all 80-plus kilometers in a day. Not me. It was quantity over quality for me. I was determined to ski at least two kilometers at each trail system. I called my friend Mark the day before and invited him and his skiing teenage son to join us  for the big day, and he was game. He brought Logan and another Denfeld skier, Kai.

Hanging over the whole plan was a forbidding weather forecast. Way too sunny and warm. While the day started at about 22 degrees, it was going to climb into the 50s by the afternoon. 50 degrees was going to turn our ample snow into slush. The 2012 cross country ski season was going to end this day, and we were going to take it out with a glorious bang.

We went roughly from east to west, following the schedule DXC had set up. At each of the trailheads in the morning, we'd see friends and colleagues. Some were out for the Tour. More were out for the glorious day. The city groomers had been out the day before and conditions were the best of the year. I called Sally and urged her to join us at Piedmont, our favorite local trail.

Sally at Piedmont, Trail #3, 10:45 AM
At Piedmont, we felt like champions as we skied past the casual crowd. Lunch was at the famous Snowflake Nordic, home of Olympians and state champions. All of a sudden, our little promenade of underachieving skiers seemed teeny, as fancy racers with expensive skis glided circles around us. But were any of them going to SKI THEM ALL? I don't think so.

After Snowflake, it was about the pride. The next two trails had hardly been touched, even on busy Tour Duluth. Who could ever skip the roller coaster rides of Chester Park and Bagley Nature Area?! Obviously, some people just weren't in the spirit.

Logan at Bagley, Trail #6, 2:30 PM
We took a short break in the afternoon. Hans had to get ready for a date, so we left Mark, Logan and Kai to finish the challenge. I went out again at 4:30, as the sun was headed to the horizon, and skied my last two trails.

Me at Lester Park, Trail #7, 5:00 PM.
Tired and proud, I made it to the year-end club potluck, turned in my form, and headed home. I put away my skis and took the ski box off the top of the car. Ski season is over.

At middle age, it's hard to find those landmarks to check off as life passes by. Days turn into weeks turn into years. Suddenly our children are adults and my legs just aren't as strong as they were. But this year, 2012, is the year that I SKIED THEM ALL.

Monday, March 5, 2012

The great lake swirl: WAY better late than never

What an amazing day we had on Saturday here in Duluth. The meteorologists got it all wrong in the right way. What started as a forecast of an inch or two of snow overnight turned into the biggest single dump of snow we've had in over a year. 

Apparently, two air masses ran into each other over the western part of Lake Superior and the resulting lift sucked the moisture out of the open lake water and turned it into snow. Lots of snow. Snow that fell all day. We shoveled three times just for the joy of shoveling. Meteorologists, at a loss for words, called it a "lake swirl." Over a foot of fluffy snow fell over places in Duluth.

Here are the forecasters trying to figure out what was happening:

UPDATE...A VERY INTERESTING SITUATION WAS SHAPING UP ACROSS THE NORTHLAND DURING THE EVENING. IT APPEARS THAT A "LAKE SWIRL" HAS SET UP AT THE HEAD OF THE LAKES. HAS ALREADY BEEN A GOOD COUPLE INCHES OF SNOW ALONG THE HILLSIDE OF DULUTH AND INTO THE SUPERIOR AREA. HAVE NOT SEEN A SWIRL LIKE THIS FOR MANY YEARS PERSONALLY. FROM PREVIOUS RESEARCH...THE SWIRLS TEND TO SET UP WITH WE HAVE WEAK OFFSHORE WINDS AT THE HEAD OF THE LAKE...CREATING CONVERGING WINDS IN THE BOWL LIKE TIP OF LAKE SUPERIOR.  CONCERNED THAT WE COULD SEE SOME IMPRESSIVE SNOWFALL RATES OVERNIGHT. WILL NEED TO WATCH FOR POSSIBLE AMOUNTS JUMPING OUT OF THE ADVISORY CATEGORY INTO THE WARNING CATEGORY IF THE SWIRL CONTINUES TO JUST SIT THERE. ...WENT FOR 5 TO 7 INCHES THROUGH SATURDAY MORNING...AND WILL WATCH VERY CAREFULLY FOR THE POTENTIAL FOR HIGHER AMOUNTS.

It's early March in what had been a nearly snow-less winter, so our sense of the season was all thrown off. Not sure what to do, Sally and I headed for the Hartley ski trails. It was perfect conditions for snowshoeing, much less so for cross country skiing. In fact, I think we got passed by some snowshoers. But it was lovely and amazing just to be out in the midst of a big dump like that. I love this place.