Itasca State Park: The Headwaters

There's nothing more Minnesotan than walking across the Mighty Mississippi, am I right?;  (except perhaps purifying yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka, but that's another thing entirely), so we simply HAD to do it while we were at Itasca.

Joe and I went to the Headwaters around noon on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend.  We should have known that it would be crowded...and it was.

Lots of people, lots of shouting and running kids, lots of dogs.  We hung out for a bit and then decided that we would do the unthinkable: wake up before dawn the next day and get there for sunrise.  We were hoping that there wouldn't be anyone else around and that we could get some good pictures in the early morning light.

We took one selfie off the little bridge before leaving.

The next morning - our first wedding anniversary!  We woke up at 6:30 and away we went.  We got to the headwaters and were greeted by a couple and their dogs.  We asked them to take our pictures - they did - and then they headed off.

Happy Headwaters!  We both look a bit sleepy.

After the couple and their dogs left, we had the headwaters to ourselves for about an hour.  Joe took lots of pictures, I waded around in the river, we joked around and had a fine time.  I know it's not for everyone, but in order to find solitude at this park on Labor Day weekend, we had to get up early.  It was great.

Daybreak

The first rapids on the Mississippi

Joe is pretty sure on his feet...

...and Michele is not.  Lots of arm-waving but at least there was no Split Rock-type experience.

All weekend long we had a running joke about "surely THIS is the source of the Mississippi", whenever we came across a tiny streamlet, rainwater puddle draining into a larger puddle, even when I was taking a shower.  Who knows if this rock bridge truly is the source of the Mighty Mississippi?  Well, if it is, we've walked across it and completed our very Minnesotan Quest.

Happy anniversary to us! 

And that's it, folks.  All good things...

We'll embark on many more adventures in the future, but I think we're going to close the book on the Witch of November blog.  Thank you for joining us on the journey!

All Good Things...Itasca State Park: September 6th, 2015

We end at the beginning.

Itasca State Park was Minnesota's first State Park - and only the second one in the United States (Niagara Falls State Park came first).  It was created in 1891 to preserve and commemorate the headwaters of the Mighty Mississippi.  Our friend Schoolcraft, that whimsical namer of places, determined that Lake Itasca was the true Headwaters in 1832.  There's been plenty of controversy about that (there are small streams in the watershed that drain INTO Itasca) but it'll probably always be Lake Itasca that people flock to in order to dip their feet into the beginning of the greatest river in the USA.

Itasca is worthy of several blog posts, especially since we spent several days there.  For this post we'll focus just on the Hiking Club Trail.

One more time!

The Hiking Club Trail in Itasca doesn't hit any of the Big Deal Sites in the park.  It follows a few woodsy trails just south of the tip of the East Arm of the lake: the Ozawindib Trail and the Deer Park Trail.  The trailhead was actually right next to the Douglas Lodge - which is where we stayed!  More about that in another post, too.

Dodging puddles

We were there for three nights, and I think it rained every single one of them.  At least the rain didn't start until the evenings...but it made for muddy trails.   That's alright, we're used to them by now.  It was fairly hilly but we're still in pretty good shape what with the 5k training.  Our glutes and quads were up for it.

Lovely Myrtle Lake

The trail passes by many smaller lakes of the park:  Myrtle Lake, Mary Lake, Allen Lake, Deer Park Lake.  It felt more deciduous-y than northwoods-y, and we didn't see that many animals.  Certainly none larger than a squirrel.  I suppose that's what happens when you have over 500,000 visitors a year trampling through the park.

Blue sky, sky tinted water.

To be honest, the Hiking Club trail was not the highlight of the trip.  It was kind of boring compared to the rest of the park.  But it was the last one!  Our Hiking Club Trail Quest had come to an end!

Well...almost.

Upon completion of the trail, we hotfooted it on over to the Ranger Station to claim our prize.  We were done!  We didn't expect a ticker-tape parade or anything, but we kind of expected the Ranger to know what the Hiking Club was!  He didn't know much about it and told us that we would have to go the DNR Headquarters in St. Paul in order to get our final patches.

Hmmph.

Luckily we live in the Cities, so on September 8th we took the light rail on over to the DNR HQ and took one last hike for the Hiking Club.  They were much more helpful there, and we emerged victorious.

We are the champions!

Total miles hiked at the park: 3.5 miles

Total miles hiked to the DNR Headquarters: 2
Total miles hiked in 2015: 45.7
Total ticks today: Joe - 0; Elly - 0; Thunderdog - 0
Total ticks in 2015: 9

Countdown to All Miles: 0 to go

Schoolcraft State Park: August 17th, 2015

At just 141 acres, Schoolcraft State Park is another one of Minnesota's itty-bitty State Parks like Franz Jevne (118 acres), Kilen Woods (202 acres), and Carley (209 acres).  It is managed by the staff from the nearby Scenic State Park, but doesn't have any of its own programming.  That makes it a nice little park for quiet camping, chilling out, and enjoying the winding creek known as the Mississippi River.

The park was named after Henry Schoolcraft, an historian and geologist who researched and wrote about the headwaters of the Mississippi River as well as writing a six-volume set on the Native Americans of this part of the continent.  His wife, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, was no slouch either.  She was half Ojibwe and half Scots-Irish, and was a writer of Ojibwe tales in English as well as novels, poetry, and folklore.  Henry Schoolcraft is also known as the person who gave many Michigan counties their names...faux Indian names.  They are mostly nonsense words that sounded "Indian-like" to his ear.  Lake Itasca itself is a faux Indian name that he concocted by combining the Latin words Veritas (truth) and Capit (head), meaning the true headwaters of the Mississippi.

Anyway, on to the park.

Joe gets a shot under the pines

Like McCarthy Beach and Scenic, this was another wonderful Northwoods Park.  Towering pines above and red needles on the path below, cool breezes off of the nearby water, and the feeling of being very much alone in the forest.  There are only two miles of hiking trails total in the park, and 1.8 of them are the Hiking Club trail.  There are some interpretive signs along the trail, which encircles pretty much the whole park.  The trail starts and ends at the Picnic Area - very easy to find.  In fact, you would have to try pretty hard to get lost in a 141 acre park.

Movin' right along, footloose and fancy free

Part of the trail follows the Old Grand Rapids Tote Road.  I wasn't able to find much information on that road, but my guess is that it was a mining/logging road that went from Grand Rapids (what a shock!) to this part of the Mississippi for sending goods downstream.  The Mississippi is slow and mellow here, right after the section in which it travels north for a while out of Lake Itasca.  This is mostly National Forest and State Forest land now, and the fishing here is excellent.

Lazy little Mississippi River

In addition to the Mississippi, the Vermillion River enters the park from the south and there are plenty of grassy backwaters to explore in a canoe.  I sure wouldn't mind coming back with a canoe or kayak and poking around for a day on the water.

Backwater and big sky

The trees along the Hiking Club Trail are amazing.  Towering old-growth pines that are believed to be over 300 years old and vibrant aspens, growing out of a bed of ferns.  Ferns ferns everywhere in this park.  Very peaceful.

Sun through the pines

I wouldn't mind coming back here with a canoe and spending a week or so exploring the waterways and the nearby areas of the Chippewa National Forest.  Leech Lake isn't that far away if you're interested in taking that big noisy motorboat out for a spin.  But here in Schoolcraft, you'll just that Northwoods Quiet that I love.

Joe likes it too!

This brings us almost to the end of our four-year-long Hiking Club Trail journey.  We have hiked 189.8 miles of Hiking Club Trails in 66 Minnesota State Parks (and many more miles on other trails).   We're going to visit the last park on Labor Day weekend and hope to have that post, and then a few wrap-up posts in the next couple of weeks.

And then there was one...


Total miles hiked today: 1.8 miles
Total miles hiked in 2015: 40.2
Total ticks today: Joe - 0; Elly - 0; Thunderdog - 0
Total ticks in 2015: 9

Countdown to All Miles: 3.5 to go

Scenic State Park: August 16th, 2015

So, we were wondering...out of all the State Parks in Minnesota, why did THIS one get to be called Scenic State Park?  Was it particularly amazing?  Did it just get to the name first, leaving other park rangers saying "shucks, we should have called OURS Scenic first"?

It turns out that there used to be a town nearby the park, and the town's name was Scenic.  The town has since disappeared, but the park was left behind.  Because of the park's isolation (seriously, we felt like we were in the middle of nowhere) there wasn't much development until the Civilian Conservation Corps arrived.  Scenic was the home of the first CCC-built facilities in Minnesota.  Annoyingly, the Hiking Club Trail doesn't go near any of them.

Over the boardwalk

 The Hiking Club Trail starts off right near the park office.  It felt a little bit like The Park That Time Forgot: the interpretive signs were unreadable, the path was kind of overgrown, and we felt very much on our own out in the woods.  We witnessed something unusual though - a few minutes into the hike, a full-sized pine tree fell down!  It just buckled and broke into a few pieces as it crashed to the forest floor.

"A tree fell!" I shouted.  "And we heard it!"  I'd never seen that happen before.

We took the trail through an old spruce bog (nowhere near as impressive or extensive as Big Bog or Lake Bemidji) and Thunderdog did quite well, staying on the boardwalk.  I always worry that her curiosity is going to get the best of her and she will belly flop into the muck.

Interpret this

Scenic State Park has almost 4,000 acres to explore, and that covers two large lakes and several smaller ones.  Part of the Hiking Club Trail is an out-and-back on a long, heavily wooded peninsula that reaches into the middle of Coon Lake.  We could see the lake on either side from our vantage point.  The park boasts campgrounds, backpack and canoe sites, a swimming beach and a fishing pier, and tall trees waving in the breeze.  It was beautiful.

What's this??

At one point we came across an abandoned baby buggy.  The trail was full of roots, I can't imagine anyone trying to bring a buggy out that far.  We hadn't seen anyone in a while...we really hoped that we would run into the baby (and hopefully some adults) somewhere further along the point trail.  There was a little baby walkie-talkie in the buggy and we considered using it to contact its owners.

Nature: Under Construction

Thankfully, we found the buggy-abandoning family at Chase Point, which is at the very end of the trail.  They were carrying the baby and laughed when we mentioned how glad we were to have found them.  The point was under construction: the old trail seemed undefined and the sides of the point were very steep.  I was glad to see this park getting a bit of attention, even if it meant that we couldn't get all the way to Chase Point to enjoy the view.

Okay, the view from NEAR Chase Point was quite nice.

While out on the point, we caught sight of the most adorable Least Chipmunk that has ever existed, seriously.  It lived at the bottom of a pine tree, with a little hole for his door and a well-worn sidewalk in front of it.  He hid when we got too close, but Joe snuck around the back of the tree and waited for him to reappear.  I took Lucy a ways down the trail so that the chipmunk wouldn't sense her.  Joe's patience paid off.

Peeking out

Then he got suspicious, and zoom!  He was gone.

Zip!  Back into his little home.

The trails in Scenic State Park are full of toe-stubber roots.  That's fine though, they're from the virgin stands of pine trees that somehow escaped logging.  We also went through a very impressive stand of old-growth maples.  This park would be out of this world in the fall.

Toe-stubber trail, Thunderdog does not seem to mind

 After a thoroughly pleasant hike, we headed out.  It wasn't until after we left that we realized we should have spent some time checking out the Civilian Conservation Corps buildings.  We skipped it partially because the Observation Tower was not open - also under renovation.   We should have gone anyway and visited the other buildings.  Oh well...next time we're in this part of Minnesota.


We returned to the hotel and all of us, including Thunderdog, engaged in our favorite hotel activity: hanging out on the bed and watching HGTV.  Woo hoo House Hunters International Marathon!!

I love this flat!!  Oui! Je t'aime!!  Fantastico!!

Total miles hiked today: 2.9 miles
Total miles hiked in 2015: 38.4
Total ticks today: Joe - 0; Elly - 0; Thunderdog - 0
Total ticks in 2015: 9

Countdown to All Miles: 5.3 to go

McCarthy Beach State Park: August 15th, 2015

Sixty-three Minnesota State Park Hiking Club Trails down, four to go.

Joe and I took a long weekend to drive up to Grand Rapids and visit three of the remaining four State Parks: McCarthy Beach, Scenic, and Schoolcraft.  We decided that it was high time we tried staying in a hotel with Thunderdog, so she joined us on this trip!

Our first park of the weekend was McCarthy Beach State Park.  McCarthy Beach is about 15 miles north of Hibbing, and it is definitely in the Northwoods.  Its two main lakes are Sturgeon Lake and Side Lake, and the park is surrounded on all sides by State Forest land.  Someday we'll be back to explore the Sturgeon River State Forest and the George Washington State Forest - and maybe the Taconite State Trail, which goes through the park.

As per usual, we stopped at the Ranger Station to pick up a map.  People, it is IMPERATIVE that, if you are going to McCarthy Beach to do the Hiking Club Trail, you MUST stop at the Ranger Station.  Otherwise you will never find the trailhead.  The trailhead road is hard to find to begin with, and it's a minimum maintenance road.

"The trailhead road is impassible right now," the Ranger told us.  "You'll have to go out of the park, five miles up on County Rd 5, and then park at the ski lot and hike in to the trailhead."  She drew us a map.  It wasn't hard to find, but we never would have known where to go if she hadn't given us instructions.  The ski lot was empty and we wound up hiking about a mile until we found the Hiking Club Trail.

Lots of info for skiers, none for hikers.  

This was an awesome, fantastic, great hike.  It started out on a thin footpath that edged along the shore of Side Lake.  It was a warm day and the air was filled with my favorite aroma: hot pine.  There's something about the way pine trees smell in mid-summer...and in mid-winter too, I guess.  But although I can find "winter pine" scented candles and even bring branches into the house for that fresh scent, I have never found anything artificial that matches the smell of hot pine needles.  You can only find it in places and times like this.

Thunderdog and I on the trail

It is a 3 mile hike, and it was fairly hilly.  We noticed how easily we took those hills, now that we're jogging a few times a week!  Apparently it really makes a difference. :-)  The trail stretched out into a wide path at some point, but it didn't lose the northwoods feel.  Lucy was beside herself with glee at going for a Big Walk in the forest.

Hi guys!  I'm in the woods!

I cannot recommend McCarthy Beach enough.  The hiking was great, and that's not even the star of this park.  McCarthy Beach has one of the best swimming beaches in the country, excellent fishing, snowmobiling on the Taconite Trail, mountain biking, skiing, horseback riding, and camping.  This is a northwoods gem and I definitely want to come back.

Pickerel Lake

And, of course, what would a northwoods experience be without listening to loon calls in the distance?  What a treat.

Total miles hiked today: 3 miles
Total miles hiked in 2015: 35.5
Total ticks today: Joe - 0; Elly - 0; Thunderdog - 0
Total ticks in 2015: 9

Countdown to All Miles: 8.2 to go

Myre-Big Island State Park: August 1st, 2015

Myre-Big Island State Park was the last of the day trips from the Cities.  At 6.2 miles and only a couple of hours away, it made sense that we wouldn't pair it with another park for a multi-hike day.

First things first: we are scared to death.

What's this?

enter the outdoors at your own peril

 The ranger warned us about the Wild Parsnip danger when we stopped in to get the map.  "If you get some on you," she said, "You won't be able to go into the sun for three years." I thought, "whaaaaat...." but there's something to what she was saying.  If you come in contact with the toxic sap and don't get it treated, you might get a festering rash that will discolor your skin for up to three years, and you'll be super sensitive to sunlight on the rash areas.  Not fun.

After her warning and reading the sign on the trail, Joe was apprehensive about it and looked as though Wild Parsnip might be waiting around the next bend, ready to accost him with toxic sap in Super Soakers or something.

No Wild Parsnip here, but there is a hiking club sign on the power line pole.

Myre-Big Island is about 1,500 acres of woods and wetlands alongside Albert Lea Lake in southern Minnesota.  The Hiking Club Trail covers most of the southern part of the park as well as a loop around the island (really a peninsula) in Albert Lea Lake, Big Island.  Some of the trail is on a paved road, some is on the Blazing Star Trail (a paved trail from downtown Albert Lea to the center of the park), some is on a footpath.  It's long, we went on a hot summer day, but there was plenty to see.  The trail starts literally 20 feet from the Ranger Station, so we had no trouble finding our way to the start of it.

Blazing Star Trail on a beautiful summer day

Most of the road walking is on the causeway that gets you across to Big Island.  There's a campsite on the island and you have to walk through it, which is always a little weird.  We kind of feel like we're being watched, and I'm sure the campers do too.  Thing is, this time we WERE being watched.  By hundreds of cormorants.

The trees around the lake were full of them!

As a kid growing up in Minneapolis, I was familiar with exactly two kinds of waterfowl: the Mallard and the Canada Goose.   Every once in a while we'd see a Grebe or a Wood Duck, that was about it.  I'd certainly never seen a kind of waterfowl that hangs out in trees.  So coming across these trees heavy with large black Cormorants?  Pretty cool experience.  Joe said that Cormorants were once considered a pesky bird and were driven out of Minnesota.  Their problem?  They poop everywhere, and it stinks.  "How bad could it be?" I asked, as the trail turned to go right underneath the Cormorant-filled trees.  I took a breath.  "Oh," I said as I wrinkled my nose.  Yep.

So cool.

Albert Lea Lake is supposed to be an excellent place to view migrating birds.  I believe it!

We also could make use of a wildflower identification book: there were a lot of different wildflowers to check out, including some that we'd never seen before.  Someday we'll read up more on wildflowers so that we are not just able to say, "Oh look at the puffy white one!" or "It's a pretty purple thing!  Wow!".  I had to look up the names of the flowers below...let's see if we can remember them in the future.  I guarantee we'll remember the name of the first one.

The delightfully named Rattlesnake Master

Yellow Coneflower, I think

I think this is Prairie Ironweed.  Or, the fluffy purple thing.

Tall many headed tiny sunflower like thing

Prairie Blazing Star and a really huge bee

OMG ITS WILD PARSNIP!!!

Joe ran screaming from the Wild Parsnip.  He stopped to take pictures of a few animal friends we passed on the way back to the car:  a shy Western Painted Turtle, and a skittish fawn.

Hello little friend

Watched by the fawn

Despite the scary Wild Parsnip situation, we had a fine time at Myre-Big Island.  It's right near the crossroads of I-90 and I-35 (indeed, we could hear the highways at times) so it would be an excellent place to stop if you're on a cross-country trek...especially if you're interested in watching migrating waterfowl.  We'll be back!



Total miles hiked today: 6.2 miles
Total miles hiked in 2015: 32.5
Total ticks today: Joe - 0; Elly - 0; Thunderdog - 0
Total ticks in 2015: 9

Countdown to All Miles: 11.2 to go

Red River State Recreation Area: July 19th, 2015

The Red River State Recreation Area (hereafter known as RRSRA) is kind of an unusual park.  It's on the banks of the Red River in East Grand Forks, and it is new.  Up until the floods of 1997, there were houses and businesses on the 1,200 acres that are now parkland.

Hiking through the wilderness

The flood destroyed entire communities, and the danger of future floods required the residents to sell the land when the Army Corps of Engineers rebuilt the levees and other flood protection systems.  Now, instead of houses and businesses, there is a greenway with walking trails, fishing piers, a campground, and playgrounds on the riverbank.  The Hiking Club Trail follows the river for a few miles, and then loops back through the nearby neighborhood.

Highway 2 heading to Grand Forks, North Dakota

While we were walking along, we thought about all of the other State Parks that bordered another state - or, in some cases, country.  We could have waded to Canada from Franz Jevne, or swam to Wisconsin from any number of parks along the St. Croix River.  We were right across from South Dakota at Big Stone Lake, a mile north of Iowa at Lake Louise, and now we were right under the overpass to North Dakota.  So many scenic borders!

A fishing spot on the Red River of the North

You may think that it would be impossible to get lost on a well-marked, urban trail.  You would be wrong.  We got into a rhythm and completely missed our turn.  If you are going on this Hiking Club Trail, make sure you turn before you hit the big floodwall.

Turn HERE!

In the Lake Bronson post I said that there were four biomes in the state of Minnesota.  That is not true, it turns out that there are five.  The fifth state biome is that of the Tot Lot.  There must have been about 10 playgrounds along the RRSRA Hiking Club Trail.  I suppose that, if there was another flood, it would be easy to clean them off and go on as normal.  But it was strange to see SO MANY playgrounds - including one very impressive one near the SRA headquarters - in one place.

I hike across the dangerous swinging bridge

This is the super-impressive park.  If I were a kid, I'd be all over it.

There was some wildlife on the trail: we saw a ton of dragonflies, a few deer, and many grey squirrels.  There were also a lot of people out and about: joggers, bicyclists, people with strollers, lots of kids in the parks.  It looks like the RRSRA is well-used.

As for us, we used the RRSRA to hit a milestone: we earned our 175 mile patches.  ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE MILES, people!  There is only one patch left and it is a big one.  We're on track to finish off the Minnesota State Hiking Club trails this summer...we're already thinking of what to do next.  Hmm...

What'll we do next?

Total miles hiked today: 2.2 miles
Total miles hiked in 2015: 26.3
Total ticks today: Joe - 0; Elly - 0; Thunderdog - 0
Total ticks in 2015: 9

Countdown to All Miles: 17.4 to go