Out of the wild

The juncos are coming through. They're hoping around our backyard, cool as a cucumber. Check that, our garden cucumbers are gone already since it got too cold for them. The juncos are as cool as a...carrot...and nearly as earth-bound.

Juncos remind me of the wild woods, the deep real forests that surround Duluth and Lake Superior. They hang up there in the deep woods as long as they can, and only migrate a short ways south. Compared with the chickadee, juncos are a bit more shy and a bit more wild. Yet they come each year to our backyard and hang for a few weeks.

Juncos are ground feeders, often seen on the grass below feeders scooping up leftovers from hoggy squirrels.

I found the picture above from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. I searched a lot of images, but couldn't find one that showed the junco's most distinctive marking, the white outer tail feathers that flash when they flit into flight. I know this bird well enough to identify it by season, by association. Crisp northwest breezes? October or April? Smell of leaves starting to rot? Flash of white means junco.

As fall rolls along and we become increasing set at home, it warms my heart to have this little reminder of the deep woods come hang with us out of the wild.

My left foot

I shouldn't complain. I've had some great outings on the North Shore this fall already. But here we are at the peak of fall colors on the North Shore, and I am laid up with a bum heel.

Any time you have a Latin anatomical word, and it ends in "-itis," that means that part of your anatomy is injured or swollen. My plantar fascia hurts. I'd never heard of that particular body part, but it's the tendon that wraps under your heel and heads for your toes. The pain means I have plantar fasciitis.

I have the typical symptoms: the pain is worst in the morning when I first get up, it gets worse the longer I stand on it, and I'm feeling a desperate need for better arch support.

The best treatment is rest...for like three months. So I'm resting. And canceling hiking plans. I suppose the long hikes I've been doing on the SHT this fall haven't helped, and bouncing around the tennis court doesn't count as rest. Darn it. I don't want to be laid up by sore joints; it just sounds like middle age to me, and I'm not ready for that. What's next? Reading glasses? AARP mailings?

Girls' day out

Fall on the North Shore, there is no better place to be than on some rocky ridge over an inland lake peering out over the tapestry of maples. Here, it's Bean Lake on the Superior Hiking Trail. Incredible spot, challenging hike.

I didn't go, not this time. I stayed home with the boys to nurse a sore foot and to keep the boys from revolting. Nothing ruins a great hike like a child's complaints halfway through. There's only so many times you can pull out the M&Ms to keep the troops moving. Noah warned me that if he had to come along and hike, "Don't thing I'm having a good time. I'll just be looking at the ground and waiting until it's over."

So this was Sally's trip with her sister Anita. Sally carried the nice SLR camera in its sweat-inducing fannypack all the way in, and despite some camera malfunctions, got a very nice picture of Anita and Bean Lake. They continued around to Bear Lake and did the loop trail back to Penn Boulevard.


They came back glowing like the maple trees, flush with the exercise and the challenge of the SHT's rocks and hills. Like a detective, I plugged them for details, trying to experience the day through their tired eyes and limbs. Crowds? Only in the parking lot. Fall colors? Not quite peak. Trail conditions? Crumbly and calf-burning.

It's Monday, my foot still hurts, and Sally is back at work. But the pictures and the stories still resonate for me. To torture a pun, I "Bean" there before. Thanks, Sal!

Follow me

They call it an "assurance marker." A few years back, the good folks at the Superior Hiking Trail came up with a simple, affordable way to mark the route of the trail. Blue paint blazes went up on trees and rocks all up and down the trail, even in Duluth. The marks are meant to "assure" hikers that they're still on the trail. And they work. During a long hiking day, I watch for those blazes to keep my energy from flagging,

But I get goofy in the brain, too. To me, the blazes look just the size and shape of an old-fashioned chalkboard eraser, with those thick layers of black felt just waiting to be banged together at the end of the day by the star student. So almost everytime I see one I imagine a precocious second grader teacher's pet, dipping an eraser ever so carefully into a tray of blue paint and applying it to the tree or, harder to imagine, rough rock.

This particular blaze above is on an overlook near Wolf Ridge ELC. In their SHT book, Ron Morton and Judy Gibbs call the bedrock here "tortured basalt."

The SHT blaze system gets more complicated. A white blaze means you're on a spur trail. Two offset blazes mean something like a turn is coming up, watch out.


They even use the blazes on their signs, which seems a bit funky since a blaze is meant for a natural surface. But consistency is comfort.

To me, one of the great beauties of hiking is to let go of worry, to let good trail maintenance and design take over your day, to be guided through some spectacular land. I love rock cairns on slickrock or on the open tundra, the way they say "Hey you human, follow me." In short, I take great comfort in being "assured."

Carpe vesperem

With kids in school all day and sunset coming earlier and earlier, we can't really seize the day anymore, as in the old saying "carpe diem." Instead, for a brief window here, we can seize the evening, ergo "carpe vesperem." Darn good thing I had three and a half years of Latin to adjust the old saying. In late September, old sayings aren't the only thing needing adjustment: outdoor play time needs to be jiggered as well.

So we get dinner on the table early, say 5:30, and then get some of the dishes put away, and Noah and I have a magical half-hour before that 6:50 sunset to head out into the neighborhood on our bikes. You can't drive anywhere, since it would be dark when you arrived. And Canal Park is gorgeous at sunset, with the lift bridge and the slanting light illuminating the boats.

Seize the day...or at least what's left of it.

Where in the World?

On my North Shore hike today, I found this cool tunnel, formed by huge slabs of rock coming off of a cliff and stacking up like playing cards. I'm sorry to say this, but it reminded me most of the tunnel on the 18th hole of the minigolf course in Grand Marais.

But where was it? It was right off of the Superior Hiking Trail, for one thing.

Here's another hint:


I don't know who named this particular feature of the SHT, but I think it should be "Picnic Rocks" plural, since the main feature at the end of the spur trail wasn't a big overlook atop some rock perfect for lunch, but this amazing pile of rocks,some of which might actually work as a picnic table.

One more photo hint. This is 0.4 miles further up the SHT:


Still stumped? Here's the map.

It was a great hike, though my legs are burning from all the ups and all the downs. Maple trees are fully turned in some places, yellow-ish green in others. Get out this weekend!!

And watch out for snowshoers!

Deep in the backcountry of Jay Cooke State Park, be very very cautious. Stay on the trails and above all FOLLOW ALL DIRECTIONS! You just might encounter those dreaded and stinky beasts of the woods, the SKIERS.

You have been warned.

'Tweens in the Wilderness

Slim Lake, off of the North Arm Road off of the Echo Trail north of Ely, has been a great introduction to the BWCA Wilderness for our family and our friends. Our first tentative half-hour canoe outings were here. The portage in is short and easy, and the lake is beautiful. After a short canoe paddle, or even during it, there are high rock outcrops to climb, like Hans and his friend Albert in the picture above.

However, it's been hard to impress the boys with the importance of the Wilderness or the boundary they cross when we enter it. How do you impress a jaded kid with what isn't there? No motors, no houses, no tangible signs of humans. It's all about what is not there. Even the definition in the 1964 Wilderness Act is a negative: untrammeled.

What marks the Wilderness? Sometime in the last ten years the classic wooden sign at the wilderness boundary has disappeared, so you don't get that dramatic moment of stepping into the BWCAW. Instead, we filled out the day permit at the parking lot and talked just a bit about the rules and regs. Later, on a shore excursion to climb a nice hunk of granite, in a a fine moment of boy energy well-spent, we dismantled an illegal firepit and chucked the smoke-stained boulders into the lake with ginormous splooshes. The firepit had two of those plastic BWCA-legal beer bottles, which was ironic given the illegality of the campsite.

But I still don't think they got it. Twelve-year-olds maybe can't grasp the bigger concept...I didn't when I was canoeing the BWCA and Quetico at that age. And that's fine.

Wilderness is a great place to climb the rocks and make goofy faces and be with your buddy. And that's as true for a 12-year-old as a 44-year-old.

Walking in the rain

A wise person, eager to sell outdoor gear, once told me, "There is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing." When it comes to day hikes in the rain, I'd have to agree.

If I'm just out for an hour or two, I love hiking in a light rain. I love how the smells come out of the earth and the trees, and I like the muffled sounds and the atmosphere of gray and dark. The appropriate clothing is a decent rainjacket that keeps the bulk of the rain off of you, and some fleece underneath the jacket and maybe a warm cap. With that clothing, I'm in great shape and the weather is just fine. Keep moving, stay warm, take it all in.

Hiking is not fun in a seek-shelter downpour, of course, though those minutes tucked under the spruce tree boughs or inside the old barn waiting for the heaviest rain to pass are memorable. I enjoy the kind of rain where you might even leave your hood down for a while. That frees up my ears to hear the sounds, undisturbed by the rustle of the nylon hood on my earlobes.

No place is more moody than the dunes and barrens at the end of Minnesota Point, on the far extension of Duluth. Pictured above is the Superior Entry, reached after 2.5 miles through the old-growth pines, past the ruined lighthouse, and across the barrens that practically shout "Heathcliff!"

Big bonus to hiking in the rain, especially if you tend toward the romantic (that's Romantic, like the Bronte sisters) or despondent: you have the trails to yourself.



And the poodle says: Let's Go Further!!

Did I mention...?

...that our first book, Skiing the North Shore, is a real winner?

Or at least an honorable mention.

It was a pleasant surprise last spring when Skiing the North Shore won the Honorable Mention for the nonfiction/memoir division of the Northeast Minnesota Book Award.

The reason I'm thinking of this now is that we've turned the corner from summer to fall and on to winter. Sales of Camping the North Shore are just about over, and it's time to ramp up the ski season...believe it or not.

Guess which one is me in the photo below. They had just cut off my elaborate thank-you speak, riddled with literary nuances, before I even started.

I should have had my hair done. I guess I really didn't think we'd win anything.

Is this the one Governor Palin asked for?

What's this little earmark about?

Well, I got a little message for you:

No, it's not for a pig to get to its lipstick.

It's not for Matt Damon or or Whoopi or Oprah to cross or double-cross

And the water ain't broken here.

It's...THE BRIDGE to NOWHERE!!!

(actually, it's on the Split Rock Lighthouse State Park ski trails up above Highway 61, and it crosses Split Rock Creek)

Signs of the times

A sign can make all the difference in an outdoor experience. True, off in the deep wilderness, there are no signs and you have to navigate by gut and by map. But in the intermediate zone between civilization and wilderness where most of us recreate, signs are a huge help and comfort.

Yesterday I hiked the Superior Hiking Trail from Beaver Bay to the Split Rock River. This section of trail was built about 20 years ago, and I last walked it fourteen years ago. That hike was for my 30th birthday, a fun treat up the shore in the days before we had young kids. I don't recall the signs at the time, but they must have been there.

It's still a great hike. I really enjoyed being out for a long stretch like this 10 mile trail. The signs that marked the way yesterday were definitely showing signs of aging.

A geologic process called solifluction has made the trailhead sign on County Road 3 bend downhill. Every winter the ground heaves out, and every spring the ground settles down. Out and down results in downhill movement.


Rot and irrelevance have worked on this sign. It was installed when the trail was first built to reach an actual overlook. It's no longer a dead-end spur, but part of a loop trail from Cove Point Lodge.


Here at Chapins Creek, the forces of nature have had their own way of rearranging signs and geography. North America's largest rodent, the beaver, has flooded the trail and the sign. Now the beaver's bay is 0.0 miles, not 6.5 miles.


One other change over time: when the SHT was first built, mileage was calculated using a meauring wheel. I know that because I was the one to measure the trail from the Manitou to the Caribou, pushing this bicycle wheel with a clicker through the woods. This hike was supposed to be 11.3 miles. According to my GPS, the hike was actually 10.0 miles. I've had the same experience on other sections of the SHT, with my GPS reading about 10% lower than the mileage wheel. I'm guessing that my GPS is correct, or closer to the truth anyway.

Stewart Brand (of Whole Earth Catalog fame), wrote an interesting book called How Buildings Learn. It shows how structures evolve over time. These signs on the SHT are a history lesson in themselves, about the organization, about the trail, and more.

Meet my psychiatrist

"Meet My Psychiatrist" was the name of a book by the photographer Les Blacklock, first published back in the 1970s. Yes, the self-help 1970s that brought us psychiatric advances like Werner Erhard's "est" and the bestseller "I'm Okay, You're Okay." But Blacklock's book wasn't about anything fancy or, um, self-indulgent. It was about a log, and that was the picture on the cover of the book. I don't remember anything from the inside, really. But that idea of a log being the answer to your emotional issues is very appealing.

It's a treat to walk out our back door to the beach of Park Point. Storms come and go, bringing a perfect array of logs. Some are good for throwing for the dog. Some are beautiful twisty cedars washed down a week or so before from a raging North Shore stream bank. And some are psychiatrists, like this one above.

Sit down, they say. Tell me your problems. You say you're thinking of the election a lot lately: how does that make you feel?

When the Lakewalk isn't a Lakewalk anymore

Everyone, I mean everyone, loves Duluth's Lakewalk.Except maybe Duluth's millionaire crowd.

It's been almost 20 years now since the first stretch of it was built along the renovated shoreline of Canal Park. Tourists flood it in the summer. Locals beam with pride when they bring their out of town friends down for a stroll. Kids cruise it in strollers, with training wheels, and finally on their own, as far ahead of their parents as they dare.

Here's an image from this afternoon. If you look closely, you'll see people on the Lakewalk and in the water.

Now there's more of the Lakewalk to love. With the new extension, it's 3.9 miles of paved bike trail from the Marine Museum in Canal Park to the end of the trail at 36th Ave. E., in Duluth's Congdon neighborhood. The easiest way to get on the new section is to park behind the Holiday store on London Road and 26th Ave. E, just off the terminus of I-35.

But it's not exactly, shall we say, a "Lake" walk anymore.

I guess we should have known that the huge mansions along London Road are owned by folks who wouldn't take kindly to eminent domain seizure of their shoreline property so that the masses could continue their route along the shore. So about thirteen years after the last extension of the Lakewalk to London Road at 28th Ave. (or so), the newest extension opened just a few weeks back...and it runs inland, not on the lake.

Actually, just as with the rest of the Lakewalk, it parallels the railroad tracks:


The new extension adds about 0.8 miles. So it's not on the Lake, but it's still used more by walkers than bikers. And there's a scenic new bridge over Tischer Creek:


Like any facial tissue is Kleenex, and any self-adhesive bandage is a Band-Aid, any stretch of trail in eastern Duluth is a Lakewalk. Get out there and discover the new stretch for yourself.

2008 minigolf challenge comes to an end

It was a glorious season of golf for the Slade/Rauschenfels family.


We kicked it off with spring training in the desert Southwest. Sally discovered her inner golf champion on the "Optical Delusion" course in Scottsdale. She tried to fool us with the "How do you grip this thingie?" ruse, but her final scores gave her away. Final preseason ranking: 1) Dad 2) Mom 3) Hans 4) Noah


The North Shore golf season got underway for real in July, with a round at the cool new "GolfN Stuff" course in Grand Marais. It was July 4, we'd just escaped from the bugs at Sawbill Lake, and the competition was as fierce as the mosquitoes. The course is spread along a hill, so there was all sorts of terrain to challenge our clubs. This place was a total tourist magnet, with the added bonus of a climbing wall. But what is it about mini golf and the letter N? The vowels always disappear, like Toys R Us for the sporty set. Too many "i"s around the "n" in Mini? Should we call it Putt Putt golf instead?


The tunnel was a highlight.
Finish: 1) Dad 2) Mom 3) Hans 4) Noah


Noah and I took a boring summer day and made the most of it with a trip to FarPar, a very rustic golf center on the north edge of Duluth. The course was in awful shape. The astroturf was either worn thin or flopping up in ripples, so putting became a huge challenge.
Finish: 1) Dad 2) Noah


The grand conclusion (at least so far) was at Ely's new "Puttn in the Pines." WHAT HAPPENED TO THE VOWEL?? Note the poodle in the car parked at the curb. Chloe really wanted to practice her "paw"-ting, but we didn't let her. It was a vicious round, with lots of holes-in-one and a few holes-in-one-dozen. This was our first encounter with the classic spinning windmill and a mean set of spinning bowling pins.
Finish: 1) Dad, 2) Mom, 3) Hans, 4) Noah.

Yes, I am the champion, my friends.

Watch out...he's gonna jump!!

When my boys were little, I couldn't stay close enough to them to ensure that if they fell climbing on a rock, I'd be there to catch them. I'd take a bullet for them, so to speak.

One of the biggest thrills of young man-hood is cliff jumping. As our older son Hans roars past boyhood through his tween years and almost a teenager now, he's discovering his own thrills...and I'm learning to let go.

We discovered a great jumping spot on Tofte Lake, just off the Fernberg Road east of Ely. Tofte Lake is amazingly clear, and it has this one campsite right across from the boat landing with a terrific introductory jumping rock. The clear water makes it easy to scope out the landing zone for rocks, sticks, and other things that should give a father anxiety.



And then he's in the water, and everything is alright.


Fatherhood...life's lessons learned in leaps and bounds.

Hanging in Ely

To both of my loyal readers, who may be wondering about my next North Shore adventure, I just wanted to say I'm alive and well in the North Woods, hanging in Ely, hiking, canoeing, sleeping in.

If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

If an adventure occurs, but there is no cable to connect the digital camera to the computer to post the photo to the blog, did it really happen?

I'll leave it at that.

North Shore plants...but in Montana!

As a North Shore naturalist, I have often explained how thimbleberries are found all around Lake Superior...and nowhere else in the eastern US. I tell folks that you have to go to the wetter western slopes of the Rockies to find thimbleberries again. So I was thrilled to find some of those huge leaves and delicious berries somewhere else---west! This is a geeky nature concept, but stick with me on it.

After three days of hiking at treeline in the Beartooth Mountains and on their dry eastern slope, Sally and I did a hike up Pine Creek, on the wetter western slope of the nearby Absorakas. Western slopes catch the moisture coming off the Pacific Ocean. And a parade of familiar plants had me feeling right at home. Not only thimbleberry, but also giant cow parsnip, wild rose, and these familiar fruits:

Not exactly Minnesota blueberries, but Montana huckleberries. Here's the plant itself with a berry:

As a naturalist, I'm always tossing out fun facts, some of which I only know from books. It's particularly nice to confirm what I've only read with real-life experiences like this!

I hate my dog...isn't she CUTE?

I hate our poodle, Chloe.

She's a standard poodle, supposedly. But she's small for her breed, the runt of the litter and nowhere near as "fun" and "loving" as poodles are supposed to be. I call her a sub-standard poodle. My friend Lisa Johnson of KUMD wanted a label here for Chloe...here's her first AND ONLY post, just for you Lisa.

Here's Little Miss Prissy-Pants and I at Artists Point in Grand Marais:


Sure, she's adorable, until she eats your coin purse or your watchband. If she likes you, and finds anything that smells like you, she destroys it.

Yeah, we had some fun this spring checking hiking trails, when she gets to run off leash because no one else is out mid-week in May. And after a long hot hike at Split Rock Lighthouse State Park, it was sort of cute the way she drank up half of Little Two Harbors Bay.

Now, if we ever wanted to leave home as a family, we have to ask "What about the dog??" And darn it all if she doesn't enjoy the outing, the hike, the party. And it's pretty cute the way she sleeps so solidly after a five mile hike, wittle doggie dweams and all.

Aren't you a good girl now, aren't you??!!

I saw three ships come sailing in...

On a perfect summer afternoon, three tall ships sailed into Duluth to kick off the maritime festival. It was one of those "I love Duluth" days. If I didn't live here already, I would have been talking to real estate agents before I left town. But as the picture suggests, we live here already and were swimming in the luscious water as the ships came in.

I love that feeling of being in the water with something magnificent. Chemistry tells us that a body of water is fundamentally one long string of connected water molecules. So as we're in that water with those tall ships, we're very nearly touching those ships, even though they were 2000 feet away.

The ships had been gathering far off shore all afternoon, waiting for their planned arrival time.

Then at 4:00-ish, right on schedule, they lined up and came, full sails a-flying, through the Duluth ship canal. "Little" Schooner Madeline led the parade. The "Pride of Baltimore 2" set off its cannon when it reached the piers. The US Brig Niagara, not to be outdone, set off its cannon too when it hit the piers...suffice to say, the bigger the ship, the bigger the cannon.

Yeah okay, I love Duluth. The crowds in Canal Park were super bad with the ships in port, but we expect that anyway, part of the price of living here. This could be a great annual event.