Two Snowshoe Trips to the Lake County Demonstration Forest

Of course!  Now that winter is almost over (I hope), I suddenly become interested in snowshoeing.  It's been a long cold winter but it's almost done.  Meteorological Spring has arrived (March 1st), the Equinox has gone by (March 20th), and the snow is starting to melt.  But before it all melts, we needed to get some snowshoin' in.

On Wednesday, March 20th, Thunderdog and I celebrated the first day of spring with a walk in the woods: the northern, 1.5 mile loop of the Lake County Demonstration Forest.  And, because we JUST CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF SNOW NOW, we went back on Thursday morning for another mile on the southern loop.

o hai Thunderdog!  

I bought Joe a new camera for his birthday, so he gave me his old one.  SO much better than my cell phone camera!  Although you'll probably see better pictures eventually, please be patient with me as I figure out how to use it.

Happy first day of Spring!

Ah, spring.  The birds are singing!  The grass is rising!  Verdant blooms and warm breezes and...

...nope, still over two feet of snow on the ground and freezing temps.  But it looks nice in pictures, eh?

First beings on this path

Thunderdog enjoyed both of our hikes, but it was hard work for her.  If she stayed on the path (well-snowed over, but underneath the snow was somewhat packed from earlier snowshoers) all was well.  But if she went off the trail?  In she went up to her shoulders.

We snowshoed 1.5 miles on Wednesday afternoon - the Orange Trail, if you're familiar with the LCDF.  On Thursday we snowshoed .9 miles on the River trail (the Blue one).  Both were untrodden upon, with the exception of the section of the Orange Trail that is part of the Superior Hiking Trail.  That one looked like it had seen visitors within the last day or so.  Hardy folk!  As with every other time we've been there, the forest is eerily quiet and we didn't encounter any other critters.  No wait - we saw a Downy Woodpecker, pecking away at the trunk of the birch tree.

What's THIS???

I'm so glad I got this picture.  Whenever Thunderdog hears/smells something interesting in the snow, she will unreservedly and enthusiastically plunge her head (and whole front half, if necessary) into the snow.  She'll root around for a while, and when she backs out she's covered in snow and perfectly happy.

 

Okay, it was a nice day

Ah, I can't complain.  I got a call from a good friend at about 5:15 on Wednesday.  She was driving home from work and talking on her Bluetooth.  She asked what I was doing - I said that I'd just gone snowshoeing for an hour or so on the Superior Hiking Trail.  I am a lucky, lucky person that I can do this.  Here's to getting out there and enjoying it!!  Spring!!  Come to me!!

Lake County Demonstration Forest to Drummond Grade; Superior Hiking Trail: August 14, 2012

After my successful outing on Sunday at Lake Maria State Park, I decided that it would be good to get back into the habit of hitting a chunk of the Superior Hiking Trail on Tuesday afternoons/early evenings.  Thunderdog was certainly up for a big walk!  We hopped in the car and, not wanting to tempt fate (or my shaky cold and health in general) we went to the Lake County Demonstration Forest for a quick little hike.

A multitude of signs

We've been here before, twice.  Both times I have noted that the LCDF is part of a Superior Hiking Trail spur, but I've never actually taken the spur out to the main trail.  My goal on Tuesday was to take the spur to the main trail, follow the trail to Drummond Grade, and then take the road back to the LCDF.  It looked to be about a 3 mile hike: 1.2 miles on the spur trail, .6 on the main trail, and then another 1.2 or so back to the car.

Quiet forest

I have noticed something interesting all three times I have been here: it is so quiet in the Lake County Demonstration Forest.  I'm not sure what it is about the forest, but it's almost eerie how silent it is.  The wind just doesn't seem to blow and there don't seem to be any animals scampering around.  I do remember hearing Knife River gurgling away when we visited that, but even then I thought it was a loud and invasive sound.

Go ask Alice, I think she'll know.

While we were ambling along, we came across something new: a blue mushroom.  I am no mycologist to be sure, but I had to stop and look at this strange thing.  It looked like something had taken two perfect bites out of it.  There were no dead animals nearby, so if it truly was as toxic as it looked, at least the critter got some distance before exploding (or they shrunk to a tiny size).  

Ah yes, here's the main trail.

This section of the Superior Hiking Trail felt kind of odd to me.  It wasn't just the quiet, it was...different.  It took me a while to figure out what was so strange about it, but I think I have an idea.

The woods were mostly aspen and birch - white trunks, light leaves.  The trunks were mostly bare up to some distance over my head.  The floor of the forest was covered with ferns and other short plants.  The space inbetween was just...space.  I realized that I could see quite a long way in every direction because there was nothing except the thin white trunks and some small trees to block my line of vision from the forest floor to the canopy.  It was very light in the forest, and I kind of felt like I was being watched.  (I promise that I did not try the blue mushroom.)

Of course, it's impossible to take a picture of the woods in the forest, and it's impossible to verbalize what it felt like.  I did get one picture that sort of gives the idea of what I'm talking about (and an itchy Thunderdog scratching her ear at the perfect time), but it might be one of those things you just have to experience to understand.  

Itchy dog itches on the path, in full view for miles around

We didn't see another soul while we were out there.  This part of the trail isn't highly trafficked.  It's not exactly a premiere section like the Split Rock Loop or some of the other dayhikes up to the north.  It's kind of nice to have the trail to ourselves.  There were a few places in which the trees had been recently cut - there looked to have been some sort of logging operation going on.

When there are no trees left to blaze, we will follow the blazes on the stumps.

Three miles down, and a milestone has been reached: I have logged over 100 miles of hiking on this blog in 2012.  Of course I've hiked more than that - I don't blog my daily walks with Thunderdog, for example - but it is still something of which to be proud.

100 miles!  Here's to the next 100.


Total miles hiked today: 3
Total miles hiked (in 2012): 100.8

Total ticks today: Joe - n/a; Thunderdog - 0; Elly - 0
Total ticks (in 2012): 48

Lake County Demonstration Forest, part 2: April 1, 2012

Thunderdog and I returned to the Lake County Demonstration Forest last Sunday - and this time we brought Joe AND my phone (camera) with us.  Since I just wrote about the first trip to the LCDF (on Sunday we took the same path I'd taken earlier that week) I'll just post some of the pictures from Sunday.

Map of the Lake County Demonstration Forest, complete with buckshot

A carpet of red needles, walls of green (and Joe in the distance)

I love how the big needles catch on the branches of other pines on the way down.  They wave like dancers on the wind.

Red on green

Knife River, when it is but a gurgling brook

Thunderdog loves snow-
she enjoyed one last chance to chomp it and nose around in it.

Total miles hiked today:  2.0

Total miles hiked (in 2012): 14.8

Lake County Demonstration Forest, part 1: March 28 2012

Tonight, Lucy and I decided to go out for a special Wednesday night walk.  The sun is still setting around 7:30, so we once again were stuck with a short, nearby hike.  Luckily, there are plenty of interesting things to do around here.

We went to the Lake County Demonstration Forest, about ten miles north and west of Two Harbors.  Unfortunately, I forgot my phone (which is my camera).  Bah!  I did have such a good time that I plan on going back out there Friday, weather permitting.

The Demonstration Forest is a 400-acre "school forest".  Inconspicuous posts with numbers on them refer to the very well-designed free pamphlets that one finds at the trailhead.  The pamphlets give suggestions for things to observe: two marked trees, one Norway and one White Pine; an old beaver dam, the working face of an old borrow pit.  Most of the posts were so well-hidden that I missed them, but I enjoyed the ones that I found.

There are four main trails in the Demonstration Forest.  I took the Orange and the Blue trails, saving the Red and Green trails for another day.  The Orange trail goes through a wonderful pine forest.  It was silent: no wind, no animals, no sounds of humans.  The ground was coated with orangey gold pine needles.  The trees loomed overhead: it felt like the sort of place that fairies once lived.  The Blue trail looped down towards a babbling creek - the start of Knife River.  It was still partially frozen; it was covered in the hard crust of ice and snow that is usually the last to remain before finally washing away with the spring.  Thunderdog enjoyed the opportunity to run around on the snow, chomping at it.

One other neat thing: it turns out that 1.2 of the Demonstration Forest miles are actually a spur of the Superior Hiking Trail.  This is another part of the Duluth-Two Harbors section that is currently being constructed; of which I have virtually no knowledge.  It is becoming clear to me that my Superior Hiking Trail Guide (5th edition, 2007) is too out of date.  Luckily, the SHT headquarters is right in Two Harbors.  I will stop by tomorrow and pick up a current edition.

I hope to return on Friday - WITH MY CAMERA - and cover all four trails.  These two took about an hour of dawdling to hike in their entirety.

Total miles hiked today:  2.5 

Total miles hiked (in 2012): 12.8