Monson Lake State Park: August 31st, 2013

The summer is coming to an end.  Labor Day weekend has come and gone, and just like that *snap* it is cool enough for a jacket in the mornings up here on the North Shore.  One last hurrah before planning for leaf peeping and sweater weather: two Hiking Club Trails over the weekend.

First stop: Monson Lake State Park.

Here's the eponymous lake!

The focus of Monson Lake State Park is the lake itself.  There's only 187 acres of land in this park, the rest is all water.  The Hiking Club trail is only a mile long, and there aren't many more miles of hiking trails than that.  We decided that we'd wait to do Monson Lake until we could couple it with another park.  Luckily, we had the time on Labor Day weekend.

Grass and sky

The funny thing about the trail is that, for the vast majority of it, the lake isn't even in view.  We hiked along through the deciduous forest.  It was a nice hike: flat and relatively bug-free, with a pleasant breeze off the lake.  We walked right through the campground on the hike.  There's only 20 sites, and they looked pretty spacious.  

Thunderdog and I on the trail

I suppose that Monson Lake would be a great park to visit if we had a boat!  Otherwise, I think we covered pretty much all there was to cover on foot.  We'll go back once we get a canoe.

Total miles hiked today: 1
Total miles hiked in 2013: 82.1
Total Superior Hiking Trail miles hiked in 2013: 19.7
Total ticks today: 0
Total ticks in 2013: 54