Full Circle Superior: Just keep going

You ever want to just keep going? Head out with no plans to turn around?

Kate Crowley and Mike Link took off yesterday morning on the very first leg of their walk around Lake Superior.

It was quite a scene in Canal Park for a blustery April day normally reserved for gliding gulls and stormwatchers. Mike has always been a people magnet, with his charisma and his knowledge of the natural world, so I was not surprised as he led and read his way through his own kick-off ceremony. The wind and the waves washed out most of his readings and Kate's thank you's, but the spirit was infectious.



It was pretty cute to watch Mike and Kate with their children and grandchildren. The big crowd accompanied them as far as the Lift Bridge and the start of the sand beach.



They will be accompanied by an RV sag wagon, and most of their hikes will be daylong stretches along the shoreline and adjacent trails. Watch for their rig at various beaches and overlooks as they head counter-clockwise around the big lake.

I think this will be a great experience for them, and I'm optimistic that they'll complete their journey. I might even join them for a day or two late this summer or fall as they come down the Minnesota shore.

Guess what? They started their hike with a hike out of our forthcoming Hiking the North Shore! Hike 7: Duluth Beach Walk. Except they're not going to turn around and come back like a day hiker would.

They are going to just keep going.

Best time for the trees

"The best time to plant trees was twenty years ago.
The second best time is now."

That's wisdom from the Minnesota Tree Planting Handbook. It's especially true the next two weeks on the North Shore. Community groups and resorts are all ready for a busy tree planting season, and they really want your help. Earn a very cheap stay at a Gunflint lodge, or just help out the neighbors in Hovland.



The Gunflint GreenUp has become a huge event. After the 2007 Ham Lake fire,Gunflint residents and businesses turned crisis into opportunity. It's not just a tree-planting event, it's also a half-marathon and live music with dancing. It's May 7-8. They've had so much success planting trees that they aren't planting anymore, instead doing the VERY important work of clearing grass away from the trees that were already planted. That's called "releasing," and there's lots of work to do.

If you really want to plant trees on the Gunflint, get in touch with Boundary Country Trekking. They're planting trees along the Banadad Trail. Stay at Poplar Creek Guesthouse for cheap and help out. Their dates are April 30-May 2, May 7-9, and May 14-16. Volunteers eat well and stay two nights double occupancy for $89. Call Barb or Ted at (800) 322-8327 or write bct@boundarycountry.com.



On the North Shore proper, head for Hovland on May 1 or May 8. The good folks of the Flute Reed Partnership are planting 1300 white pine, black spruce and white spruce. Meet at 9:00 AM at the Hovland Town Hall...free box lunches will be provided! Contact Rick Schubert if you have any questions, rschub@centurytel.net.

Plant trees...good for you, and good for the North Shore.

Looking for Old Sam Peabody

Walking through Duluth's Canal Park this morning, on my way to a meeting at the Amazing Grace bakery, I heard a very familiar song through the din of traffic and construction. Like in the old game show "Name That Tune," I could name that tune in three notes.

"Old Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody."

(or was it "Oh My Canada Canada Canada?"

I went three or four summers in the BWCA hearing the song of the white-throated sparrow but never ever seeing the bird. They hide so well in the thick shrubs next to the lakes. So I listened hard and the next time the sparrow called I walked in the direction of the sound. I did that three or four times until I reached a little corner of rocks and spruce trees in the corner of the parking lot, I was surprised to pick out the bird right away, perched on a short mugo pine. Like in the BWCA, these shrubs were near water, the famous Canal Park fish fountain.

The video above captures another whitethroat on another pine tree. I love how the video captures the bird listening, looking around, hearing other sparrows sing, then launching into its own song. Actually, it's just like our psycho poodle, who goes out on the porch and does the same sequence. Listen, look around, bark, listen, bark.

Poor little lonesome white-throated sparrow was looking for love in all the wrong places. I hope he's moved on to some fitting shoreline or outcrop deep in the North Woods. But I'm glad I found him when and where I did.

North Shore ski season review: One finger up

Someone must have found this glove and placed it oh so delicately...and provocatively...on a shrub next to the Piedmont ski trail here in Duluth.

Probably there was no foul intent, but it sums up a lot of peoples' feelings about the sudden and early end to the ski season here.

Memo to green things: Be careful now

The dog and I walked...WALKED...the Piedmont ski trail here in Duluth today. The alder bushes look like a cluster of shy scared green people stepping outdoors all wrapped in heavy blankets and just beginning to let the blankets go loose.

Yes, it's the end of April and I had no right to think I might still be skiing. Still, the last time I was there it was very early March and the woods were full of snow. The air today was gray and cold and nearly felt like snow, after weeks of way-above temperature. Two miles from Lake Superior and I could still feel her chilly breath.

Anyway, the North Shore forest seems to be responding reluctantly to the early warm spring. Yesterday's 30 degree temperature drop in 30 minutes might have made the green things a bit more reluctant, like they're saying, "Told you so."

Yet the shrubs in the woods inevitably leaf out. It's like Nature Central sent out a memo.

April 21, 2010
To: Plants
From: Nature
Re: Green up

The warm early spring might have fooled you. Green up should begin, but be careful now.




Flowers are starting to come up as well, like the Canada mayflower slowly unrolling the first of its two leaves. In today's gray and cold, nothing seemed to be in much of a hurry.

The only plant that seemed like it was getting ahead of itself were the marsh-marigolds down in the little forest cricks. Their leaves were big and bold, and the flower buds already have a yellow hue. Maybe they didn't get the memo.



This is spring on the North Shore. The wind may shift, and the temps may not hit 60 again until June. Yet nature marches along.

I now pronounce you goofy

On my drive back from Arizona, I listened to the audio version of William Kent Krueger's Purgatory Ridge. Purgatory Ridge is a fictional North Shore location, just west of Beaver Bay. It was pretty cool running across dry flat South Dakota while immersed in Northeastern Minnesota. The mystery plot is riveting and the action spreads from Ely to the North Shore to the depths of Lake Superior.

The CD's producer, Books in Motion is based in Washington State. The Northwest performer, in addition to relying heavily on "Fargo" for his Scandinavian character accents, has some issues with pronouncing North Shore landmarks:

Here's "Tett-a-goo-chee"



Okay, that's a common mistake. But here's "Grand Ma-ray-iss"



The little town at the intersection of Highway 61 and Highway 1 is "ILL-ghen." Oh, and the vast Ontario wilderness north of the BWCA apparently is pronounced "kwa-TEEK-oh."

My own town's name is butchered all the time. At the Super 8 in Dillon, Colorado, the clerk read my address as "DULL-ith."

Thanks for trying. Next time, check those pronunciations with the author, who knows better.

Yield to the trail

A good trail gives you comfort. There's a reason those blue blazes on the Superior Hiking Trail are called "assurance markers." The SHT is well-marked and easy to follow, but it's still comforting to see those rectangles of paint.

Today I hiked five miles through Canyonlands National Park on the Neck Spring Trail, up in Island in the Sky. The first quarter mile of the trail was very hard to follow. The route ran on slickrock and vandals had knocked down many of the cairns. I felt unsettled. It was not enjoyable. If I'm hiking, especially if I'm hiking alone, I like to walk and enjoy the surroundings, not focus on the turns of the path.

Eventually the cairns got better and the route became clear. And I could relax and yield to the trail. I loved it. The cairns were set up just perfectly so as you approached one, the next one came into sight. The cairns led the perfect route down the Navajo Sandstone to the valley below.



Yesterday I had to yield even more. I had to totally set aside my own need to navigate and simply follow the leader. After at least five visits to Moab and Arches National Park, I was finally able to sign up for the guided tour of the Fiery Furnace (through Recreation.gov, if you're wondering). The Fiery Furnace is a maze of sandstone fins in which it is VERY easy to get lost (ask me, I've been lost there). I tried for a while to keep track of where the ranger had led us, but soon realized I was thoroughly lost...and took comfort in following the group and the ranger through and out of the labyrinth.

Hiking in Canyonlands today, I kept thinking of a scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Not the scene at Double Arch in the beginning, but the scene at the end as Indy works through the final challenges to reach the Holy Grail. In the last challenge, he has to have the faith to step out into the void. Which he does, only to find that there was an invisible stone beam underfoot. He proceeded safely to find the goofy immortal Knight from the Crusades.

A trail through the woods (or through the desert) is a lovely, nearly spiritual thing. I yield to the trail.

The lupines are blooming...

...in Arizona. I went for a guided wildflower walk yesterday in Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area, outside Carefree. Not only lupine but the whole palette of desert wildflowers were blooming.

Naturalist Edwin Way Teale came up with one of the great big-picture observation, that spring moves north across the continent about fifteen miles per day. Let's do the math.

It's April 5. The trademark lupines along Highway 61 bloom in late June, as I've observed in this blog. According to Google Map calculator, it's 1415 miles from Carefree AZ to Beaver Bay MN. But we're as much west here as we are south (gee, that's why they call it the "Southwest"). For the Teale analysis, we're about 900 miles south.

900 miles at 15 miles a day. That would take 60 days. Which would put the Highway 61 lupines blooming June 1. It's been a freaky early spring on the North Shore, but not that early. Teale's observation is within range, however. It would have been ten or twelve miles a day instead of fifteen.

I love big broad natural history patterns! It's true, I am a nature dork.



So spring wildflowers are down here in Arizona and I can promise you they're coming north. When will the cactus bloom in Minnesota?

Goodbye old friend

My daypack for the last 20 years has been a miracle. Just a month old, it was stolen by a car prowler in Seattle and we just happened to find it in a dumpster three blocks away, emptied of anything "valuable." But far more valuable was the pack itself and all the adventures it's been on.

Wherever I've gone, it's gone too. To Germany and back. Down the Green River in Utah. And up and down and all over the North Shore, spring, summer, fall and winter.



When the seams began to burst, Get There! Designs in Ely fixed it up and made it good for another 4 or 5 years. Now the seams are really going. The nylon is so worn it won't hold the thread used to fix it.

I splurged on a new pack at REI last month. I'm not feeling real good about it yet. I found one that was as simple as the old one and nearly as big.

Thank you, Sally, for that wonderful birthday present back in 1991. May be the best present ever. Especially since I've gotten to share it with you so many times.

Coho canoe

In the early Lake Superior spring, coho salmon move in schools from the South Shore to the North Shore as the water warms, stopping for a few weeks at Duluth's Ship Canal piers. If I were only a fisherman, I'd be totally happy now, as this prime fishing spot is right in my backyard.

Instead, I just observe. Pickup trucks line our block as the guys park and head out to the piers. This spring has been so early that the motorboats are out too, trolling back and forth by our house to catch the fish many call "Lake Superior candy." Fisherman must wait hours in between bites, and the cost of those trolling boats must far, far exceed the protein value of any fish they might catch.

But the guy in the canoe was after my own heart. He paddled back and forth dragging a single line. What a great view and a great day to be out on Lake Superior.

Good luck coho canoe guy!

Walking Minnesota, smelling Utah

The North Shore...The desert Southwest...bound by the juniper.

I'm headed to the Southwest in a few days. We'll be in Phoenix for a week, then I'm road-tripping back home through SE Utah.

My mind is already making the leap to the desert country. Which is why I went to Minnesota Point yesterday evening. I was drawn to the dry sands and the shifting dunes. Along the way, I found the juniper bushes. Brush your leg against a Minnesota juniper on a sunny spring day and you smell Utah.



Our juniper is Juniperus communis, the common juniper. You find it in abundance on the sandy dunes of Duluth, and occasionally on rocky outcrops of the North Shore. In Utah, it's J. osteosperma, the Utah juniper. Both have the waxy cones that look like blueberries. Both thrive in dry, sunny areas.

I love the desert, the slickrock, the canyons, the sunshine. How cool is it that I can step out my door and get a whiff of it right here on the North Shore.

Lost and found on the SHT

County’s search and rescue team gets its man | Lake County News Chronicle | Two Harbors, Minnesota

You might need to log in to read this. Interesting glimpse behind the scenes of the Superior Hiking Trail.

Posted using ShareThis

Reflecting on the great meltdown of 2010

No one saw it coming.


In the first week of March, the whole state of Minnesota was covered in 2-3 feet of snow. The North Shore trail groomers had their big rigs out and the trails were in great shape. Skiers were blogging about the amazing conditions. I had just completed a skijor circuit. I had pulled out the no-wax skis and was ready for a great last month on the trails.


Then the temperatures turned warm. Too warm. For three days and nights, it rained and rained and never got below freezing. The snowpack pulled out of the woods like a windowshade snapping up.




I was not ready for this. It's like my child left on a trip and I didn't get the chance to say goodbye. It's like you're just getting comfy in your seat in the movie theater and the projector blows up. It's like burning the brownies so badly even the dog won't eat them.

The North Shore waterfalls, normally fed by melting snow until early May, have already done their thing. Even big Lake Superior isn't delivering its load of ice to our shore: our beach is just sand and waves now.

It's sad. Really sad.

Carpe diem, they say. Did I ski enough in February? That is, did I ski every chance I had? No.

We live here in the North so we can take advantage of the seasons. We swim when the water is warm. We hike when the trails are dry. And we ski when there's snow on the ground. Of all those seasonal cycles, winter and cross country skiing are my favorites, and the most essential to my sense of well-being. To have that winter ski season yanked away so quickly and dramatically is leaving me wounded and scarred.

Sure, it will snow again. Sometime. And sure, we can start hiking soon. But I need to wallow in this a week or so longer. Get me into April, when skiing is a luxury never to be taken for granted. But a snowless, ski-less March? I feel a little like Luke Skywalker in Cloud City, clinging to a post with his one good hand, yelling at his new father Darth Vader, "That's not true. That's impossible!"

Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

May I see your special place?

Last fall I did a program at the Larsmont Cottages about North Shore special places. For a trade-out, management gave me a certificate for "Dinner for Two." It had a March 21, 2010 expiration date. So when did we finally go cash in? March 21, 2010.

It was the sort of dinner we'd never buy for ourselves...salad, appetizer, main course, and dessert. We could order up to $80 of food...but no liquor. Apparently, some beer-swillin' trade-out hard-partying fools had made them change their policy about alcoholic beverages, because drinks were off limits.

The food was very good. I had a big hunk of salmon and Sally had pork tenderloins. There was not just one vegetable, but two, including big green stalks of asparagus. Not to mention the salad. This was dinner that never happens at our house: I couldn't make it this good, and even if I did, the boys wouldn't touch it.



My favorite part of the evening, however, was rolling our post-dessert bods down to check out the lakeshore. There's something so personal about each little stretch of Lake Superior shore. Sure, it's more rocks and more pebble beaches, but each one is different. If we hadn't just eaten there, I wouldn't have been comfortable walking down to "their" shore. But after a trade-out meal, I was practically like family.

Walking to someone's Lake Superior shore is like walking to their shrine. It is their special place.

As you drive up and down Highway 61, you see the fronts of cabins, resorts and large vacation homes. Just like at Larsmont, whenever I visit a landowner or even resort manager, I always want to see their shoreline...and generally they want to show it to me too. It's their own back yard. It's an intimate moment and a glimpse into people's lives. Their own favorite bit of Lake Superior shore is a deep connection for them. I know this from my own experience at my family's place in Little Marais.

As much as I try in my writing and blogging to help people find new special places to explore, the most special place is often the one you can most easily reach.

The King of Inertia at Gooseberry Falls

"If there's one thing I don't like...it's excessive walking."

Thus spake my own darling son, the Zen master of the North Shore, exalted in his Inertia. When we took off on the Falls Loop at Gooseberry Falls State Park this afternoon, he was reluctant to cross the bridge over the river because, after all, every step across that bridge he'd just have to turn around and walk back.

But that is why we love loop hikes. As in the Falls LOOP. No sooner have you headed OUT than you're coming BACK.

The falls were raging, spring melt-off underway. The trails were full of people on the sunny day. It was too noisy and there was not much room for the King of Inertia to work his ways.

The gorgeous views and the stream of smiling faces kept him off his guard until we were actually more than halfway around the loop. Then it was too late.

I even got a smile out of him at the bottom of the loop. As generally happens, the endorphins had kicked in and he was all goofy.



How much walking is "excessive?" To my son, "excessive" is one step more than necessary. On a beautiful day at Gooseberry Falls, I felt like I could not get enough walking. In the end, we compromised at a one-mile loop and a picnic down on the Lake Superior shore.

If there's one thing I don't like, it's excessive whining.

Grand Portage: "I'd rather be here than anywhere."

Grand Portage National Monument just announced some great news for North Shore explorers. Entrance to the national monument is now free. It wasn't expensive before...$3 per person, $6 per family. Park Superintendent Tim Cochrane said in a news release, " In these tough economic times, it made little sense to charge fees that kept visitors from coming." That gets you into the reconstructed fort and into the cool new heritage center.

So plan this summer to head to the far end of the Minnesota North Shore and experience some history. Haul a pack of furs at the voyageur encampment. Try your hand (or bloody your fingers) at grinding corn. Hike the Grand Portage itself.



And then take the few bucks you would have spent on entry and drop them into the donation box. It's all for a good cause.

The best things in life sometimes really are free.

"It's nice to go do something, then go have pie."

Rick Allen speaks from the heart (and speaks for me) , when he reflects on his ambitions as a North Shore ice climber, in this blog posting from Duluth-Superior Magazine. After you read the article to see if you're sympatico, check out his real work for Kenspeckle Letterpress.

Dylan Thomas to the rescue

Above is the four-day forecast for Duluth. With nighttime lows above freezing and rain for three days straight, the North Shore snow cover is taking a huge hit right now. Around Duluth, major brown spots are showing through.

I will ski again this year. It may be on a frozen lake in Ely. It might be after a miracle March snowstorm. I'm not going gently.

This stanza from a Dylan Thomas poem was stenciled on the side of a car door that hung on the classroom wall in my seventh grade English class at St. Paul Academy. I summon it for the cause of this forsaken winter:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Deer Abby: Advice for driving Hwy 61

It's March and the deer are all over Highway 61, making ravens and eagles happy and drivers nervous.

They say there are two kinds of North Shore drivers: those that have hit a deer, and those that haven't...yet. I still fall into the second category. But that's only a matter of my own dumb luck. My turn will come.

I'm tempting fate here, but here's what I've learned so far in my stellar no-deer stretch of luck:

1. If you keep it under 55 at night, you'll have much more reaction time should Bambi pop out from behind a birch tree.
2. Be especially observant at dawn and dusk . I see a lot more deer and they are moving more at those times. They call this behavior "crepuscular," which sounds like "creepy" and "muscular." Which is what deer are at night.
   
3. Watch for flashes. If an oncoming car flashes highbeams at you, it might be a warning that there are deer ahead. Check your own headlights and then keep your eyes out for deer in the next 10-15 seconds.
   

If you see a deer:

1. Where there's one, there may be more. In winter, deer are more likely to move in herds. If one has crossed the road safely, there's a decent chance that a second will follow.Don't let that SECOND one be your FIRST.
   
2. Honk your horn. Flash your highbeams for the oncoming traffic to warn them. No, gangsters won't track you down and kill you for a random gang initiation...that's urban myth.
3. Don't swerve. Stay in your lane. Brake firmly but not so hard you lose control. I've had plenty of close calls and stayed in my lane as I braked ("broke?"). By the way, experts suggest that you DO swerve if you're headed for a moose. I have never seen a moose on Highway 61, but it does happen. A 1600-pound moose wins the battle with your car much more often than a 200-pound deer.
   

If you hit a deer, hope you have your hunting knife. I'm not kidding: a friend of mine took this advice from her father and was able to gut out and keep a deer another car had just hit.


Okay, now I've done it. I've jinxed myself. See you at the body shop.

After the glory days of hiking, the real work begins

It's a sunny day in early March and I really should be out skiing right about now, as last night's crust softens in the sun. Instead, I'm inside working on Hiking the North Shore. Specifically, I'm working on the maps. The work takes me back to some mighty fine days on the trail, and I enjoy the process of turning my memories into the printed page.

Last fall, September 29 to be exact, I hiked the popular section of the Superior Hiking Trail known as Section 13, near Little Marais and Finland. It was a gorgeous fall day. A big windstorm the day before had dropped trees across the trail. I let the GPS unit record my journey, and it gave me 380 dots in a long and squiggly line. It was as if I'd dropped bread crumbs along the trail, and finally I'm picking them back up again.



I download all this GPS data in Garmin RoadTrip, an infuriating program that finally filled a massive Mac OS GIS gap. I went back through that hike nearly step by step, eliminating all but the most relevant of those little dots. There are 43 dots left.



This is part of the long slog of turning field research into a book. Hiking the trail is the funnest part. But I enjoy these hours on the GIS program too. They take me back to lovely days over the last two years.

There's where I doubled back for a photo opp.

Here's where the poodle and I stopped for lunch...and she learned to beg for PBJ sandwich bites.

THAT'S where I got on the wrong trail.

Going through this process of focus and clarification makes me all the more appreciative of my lovely wife and publishing partner, Sally. She does way more of the detailed, focused work than I do, AND she didn't get much of the fun part at all. Of the 50 hikes that will be in the book, she came along on 8 or 10 of the research trips.

Skijor for psychos

In honor of the triumphant Norwegian Olympic nordic skiers, this afternoon I donned my best red ski clothes and went out skiing. With the poodle. But it was not skijoring.

Now skijor is a Norwegian word, meaning "ski-drive." Basically, some animal pulls you around the ski trail. In Montana, people skijor with horses. In Minnesota and in Norway, people skijor with real dogs. Dog and people are smiling as the husky or malamute or Marmaduke strains ahead and runs like the wind.



I am stuck with the poodle. The willful, paranoid, psycho poodle. Who does not skijor. At least not for long.

This is the same dog who, when out for a walk on the city sidewalk, strains at the leash to the point of suffocating herself just to get out in front. Do not dare to walk in front of her, you will kill her.

Out on regular ski trails that wind through the forest, she's okay. But on the open fields of Lester Park golf course today, there was, in the words of Bob Dylan, "No direction home." What fun to run circles around your owner...and tie him up in the stretchie leash! What fun to stop for a massive dump right in the middle of a downhill run!

Finally we figured out that someone had to ski ahead and challenge her to catch up.



At the top of the Ninth Hole, with a big view down to Lake Superior, we paused to soak in the sun and the scenery. The older son skied away and ahead, almost out of sight but not quite. Chloe watched him go. Then, with the target of a beloved boy in sight, it was time to run. I had the best 20 seconds of my whole winter as dog and I careened down the fairway toward the clubhouse and the lake.

Then she got all crazy again as all four of us people regathered at the clubhouse. Go to Mom? Dad? The baby in the sled? Poop again? Lasso the big guy?

Too much fun. I loved it all.

Goodbye, Moab Man

Over the years, your car becomes you. All those miles driving with friends and family. All those arrivals at trailheads and put-ins. And, of course, the stickers you apply.

Moab Man joined our Honda CRV after a particularly fun road trip three years ago through southeast Utah. It's a very simplified version of a real petroglyph just outside Moab, Utah. We LOVED Moab Man. He was like a family pet, only one you didn't have to feed or walk. He was our freedom and our wanderlust.

Moab Man, and the car he was attached to, went to the junkyard last week.

All four of us were packed into the car and on our way to Ely for the week. A car ran a red light in downtown Duluth and bashed us hard, sending us into oncoming traffic where we got bashed hard again. Air bags went off, it was way too loud and way too scary.



Moab Man made it through the accident without a scratch, unlike me (burns and bruises) or Sally (bruises all over). We also left the Minnesota state park sticker attached to the car.

The car was totaled, and now we're wrestling with the insurance adjusters to replace the vehicle. But there's no replacing Moab Man.

Gooseberry was JAMMIN!

At the cusp of a dark February evening, a North Shore state park is normally a quiet, serene place. But last night, Gooseberry Falls State Park was the absolute center of the universe for North Shore winter enthusiasts. It was the annual candlelight ski event, and the park was abuzz with activity.

This event has grown over the last 10 or 15 years to include more trails and more people and more fun. Dozens of volunteers set out real candles on five kilometers of ski trails. Campfires are lit and tended in remote corners of the park. This year, a Two Harbors High School jazz group filled the Visitor Center with dance-able tunes. There was a HUGE case of BIG cookies. And I was there to sign copies of Skiing the North Shore. It was the grooviest booksigning I've ever done.



The first sign for me that things were crazy was when I pulled into the parking lot...on a dark Saturday night...and could not even find a parking place. It was already overflow parking, like a fall colors weekend in winter's black and white.

Two loops had been lit. The Campground Loop runs right from the Visitor Center and down through the lower part of the park. A 1.6 km loop ran across the highway, across the river and up into the Center Fields area. Despite this winter's marginal lakeshore snow, the Campground Loop was in better shape, with decent ski tracks. The upper loop had been well used by snowshoers and the ski track had been demolished. Apparently, some park staff had told hikers to walk "in between" the ski trails, and that meant hikers were trying to walk on that narrow ridge between the right ski and the left...destroying the track.



I struggle with nighttime photography, especially since I don't use a tripod. I finally caught the light trail of a skier with a headlamp passing the Visitor Center, by resting my camera on a wooden post.

I talked with families from Duluth, a big pack of Rovers from the Twin Cities, and a couple from International Falls who had skied nearly every place I have and still wanted new ideas.

This is a great event and I was really glad to be part of it. Something about the jazz group and the big box of baked goods made the whole thing perfect. See you there next year!

Stopped at the gates of heaven

What does it take to enter heaven? Would a bag of M&Ms make the difference, if offered at just the right time?

When you stand by the pearly gates of heaven and St. Peter decides your fate, does he check out your posse too? When you want to head out onto the big back loops of Sugarbush, should you be stopped by the beginners you're skiing with?

I took my sister's family cross country skiing this weekend at the North Shore's famous Sugarbush trail system. Helen had skied a lot in high school but her urban art and architecture career has kept her off the ski trails. None of her boys (husband and two preteens) had ever XC skied.



The Sugarbush trails at Britton Peak start with three perfect beginner loops. From the last of these, Piece of Cake, some of my most favorite ski trails take off. But before we even got to Piece of Cake, the younger cousin had demonstrated his love for falling in the bottomless snow enough times to tire even himself out.

The Homestead Loop starts with the big bomber downhill of Bridge Loop. That's where our group stopped. My oldest son skied to the lip of the big hill to check it out. I had a BIG bag of M&Ms at the ready.



I chatted and schemed a bit. I had a bag of candy for rewards or bribes. Maybe the better skiers could just take the first bit of Bridge Loop around and catch up with the crowd on the way back. The cousins were ready to turn the corner, stay on the easy trails and loop back to the car. I was ready to go go go.

In the end, we all stuck together. I stood at the gates of heaven and I turned away.

They say it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. But what if you had the chance to love again, to ski that trail one more time...but cannot? Is that better?

Of course it is better...we were out on a gorgeous day on a great ski trail. We had a great time. The Sugarbush trails worked their magic.

But next time I stand at the gates of heaven, I'm going straight through them. Maybe St. Peter would like some M&Ms.

North Shore snow forecast, emphasis added

..SIGNIFICANT LAKE EFFECT SNOW POTENTIAL CONTINUES ALONG NORTH SHORE...MAY REACH TWIN PORTS TONIGHT...

..WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON CST TUESDAY...

* POTENTIAL FOR MORE SIGNIFICANT SNOW THIS EVENING IF LAKE EFFECT SNOW DEVELOPS. A WINTER STORM WARNING MAY BE REQUIRED.

* LIGHT SNOW WILL CONTINUE WITH 1 TO 3 INCHES OF SNOW BY AFTERNOON. WINDS ARE THEN EXPECTED TO BECOME MORE EAST TO NORTHEAST THIS EVENING. THERE IS A POSSIBILITY THAT HEAVIER LAKE EFFECT SNOW SHOWERS MAY PUSH INTO THE TWIN PORTS LATER THIS EVENING. ADDITIONAL ACCUMULATIONS WILL BE HIGHEST ALONG THE ELEVATED TERRAIN NEAR LAKE SUPERIOR.

Cascade: The Bridge is Back

As Elton John sang:
"The Bridge, the Bridge, oh the Bridge is back
Stone cold sober as a matter of fact."

If you're planning to hike up the North Shore...

If you want to reach Lookout Mountain...

If you're staying at Cascade Lodge...

You'll be glad to know that the footbridge over the Cascade River has re-opened. During the late October windstorm, a huge tree came down on the bridge and broke most of the railings at the est end.



Now you can hike the Cascade River Loop. Once again, if you're camped at Cascade River State Park campground, you can venture across the deep gorge of the river for a hot meal at Cascade Lodge.

THANK YOU to whomever stepped up and, in a time of state budget cutbacks, found the time and funding to fix this important link.

It's FREEZING here!

It's February on the North Shore. While all the other lakes in Minnesota froze over in December, big deep Lake Superior had stayed open. For one below-zero morning after another, sea smoke rose from the open water.



In the last few days, winter cold finally has the lake in its grasp. What was open water two days ago off Duluth is now a vast field of ice. The satellite maps are showing a ring of ice 20 miles wide around the entire coast.

The good news is, the ice is beautiful. A few more cold days, and ice anglers will take the first tentative steps out, followed by skiers and skaters.

The bad news is, this will cut off lake-effect snow on both the south and north shores. No open water means no evaporation, and no evaporation means no piles of yummy snow.

This morning, the vast ice sheet was not quite frozen in place. Waves from somewhere far away were still moving the ice and grinding it quite slowly against the shore.

But it was freezing.

Even the poodle, normally frenetic when she's offleash on the beach, froze for a moment:



It gives me a kick to see how big deep Lake Superior fights off the freeze for all those months. But nature eventually wins, and the lake begins to freeze.