Lake Maria State Park: Volunteering, November 1st, 2014

After a spooky and fun Halloween night, Joe and I decided to start off November with a bit of volunteering.  He had heard about Fall Volunteer Clean-up Day at Lake Maria, and that sounded like a good time.  Lake Maria State Park is our "backyard park" now that I've left Two Harbors...better get to know it!

Joe and I arrived early, and spent a little time checking out the displays in the Trail Interpretive Center.

We were joined by two regular Lake Maria volunteers, Steve and Nan.  Our job was to assemble and install a foot brush station next to the trailhead, like those we have seen at other State Parks.  The DNR is installing these at all parks - good idea, and a good volunteer project.  There was also a crowd of Cub Scouts present to volunteer: they were put on Buckthorn-pulling duty.

First we assembled the sign.  Nan had to tend to their dog, so it was just Steve, Joe and I working on this project.  The instructions were for a completely different kind of sign, so we just winged it.  I think that it turned out okay.  The picture was facing upright, the brush was facing towards the front, easy peasy.

Joe with the assembled sign

Our next task was to dig two holes in the ground for the posts to set in.  As you can see from the above picture, the brush is well off the ground!  We had to sink the posts so that the brush was right on the dirt.  That meant digging two holes, about 18 inches to 24 inches deep.  See that shovel and post hole digger on the left?  We got to know them well.

Most of the time, Steve and Joe dealt with the shovels.  I helped the Cub Scouts with the Buckthorn project.  November is a good time of year to pull Buckthorn: it's one of the few bushes left that still has green leaves.  So if it's green, it can be pulled up.  Every once in a while I saw a Cub Scout walk by with what looked like small Aspen trees.  Oh well...if they pulled 10 Buckthorns for every Aspen, we'd still be doing good.

Begone, Buckthorn!

After a while, Joe and Steve started to tire out and we rotated digging duties.  I had never used a post-hole digger before, but I got the hang of it fairly quickly.

Hi-YA!

Once the holes had been dug and all of the rocks had been pried out of them we had to mix concrete to hold the sign in place.  The closest water was at a spigot about 100 yards away, so there was a bit of a rest while we dragged a few buckets back to the wheelbarrow and sign.  We mixed up the concrete, held the sign upright, and filled in those holes.  Every once in a while a curious Cub Scout would wander out of the woods to see what we were doing.

Mmmm, concrete mixer

It took four bags of concrete to fill the holes.  We made sure that the sign was upright by holding it into position with some framing boards and C-clamps, and we were done!  Once the concrete was dry, the ground would built up a bit so that the brush rested on the dirt, instead of an inch above it.

Joe and the completed project

Now people can brush their feet off before hiking at Lake Maria...people like me that may have brought invasive Tansy from the North Shore, or Buckthorn from across the state.  Every effort helps.

Brush off those boots, buddy

Superior Hiking Trail: Reeves Road to the Waterfall...again! June 29th, 2013

Joe was jealous of my waterfall-viewing without him.  That, plus the need for me to do a little maintenance at the trailhead, meant that Thunderdog and I would be retracing the steps of our hike two weeks ago.  No big deal!  There's always something new to see!  Plus, I needed his help.

tap tap tap

Remember me mentioning that the Superior Hiking Trail sign was broken; and that I, as the Trailhead Maintainer, needed to fix it?  Like, six months ago?  Well, I finally got my butt in gear and picked up a new sign.  Joe helped me to pry off the remnants of the old sign (he did that part) and hammer in the new sign.  I was encouraged to put a couple of nails through the middle of the sign in order to discourage people from stealing it as a memento.

Into the woods

I've hiked back and forth on this section of the Superior Hiking Trail many times, but Joe's never been on it.  I guess it's kind of my "mid-week hike" since it's nearby and not terribly exciting.  I'm so spoiled though...how many people get to just pop on over to the Superior Hiking Trail after work on a Monday?

Joe looks at Reeves Falls

We found the waterfall, and once again I struggled to take a good picture of it.  It's kind of around a corner, and the big frothy pool at the bottom isn't that picturesque.  So just trust me when I say that there IS a waterfall, we saw it, and it was very nice.

Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

I got a picture of one nice butterfly, the Tiger Swallowtail.  We saw plenty of other flying things though...mosquitoes.  Oh, man, were there a lot of mosquitoes.  Joe and I bathed in bug spray before heading out, but we were still pestered.  I guess it just comes with the territory.  Because of the bugs, we opted to take Reeves Road itself back to the car instead of backtracking through the woods.  I was fine with this detour: there's nothing wrong with taking a different way back.  Actually, it's nice to see something new - even if it is along the side of a road.

Reeves Road

Not far from the very end of the road we came upon a dead deer being tended to by a half dozen vultures.  I didn't get any pictures (ew, gross) but it was kind of cool to see so many vultures up close.  I think that vultures are pretty cool birds and, dead things notwithstanding, wouldn't mind learning more about them someday.

Total miles hiked today: 3.2
Total miles hiked in 2013: 51.1
Total Superior Hiking Trail miles hiked in 2013: 10.9
Total ticks today: 5
Total ticks in 2013: 49

Superior Hiking Trail, Reeves Road

Oh, Minnesota.  How I love you and your weirdness.

I wound up having to work on Wednesday morning, and rain showers were predicted for the late afternoon. Given the small window of time, I decided that a short hike was in order.  It was about time for me to do a little trailhead maintaining anyway, so off to Reeves Road we went.

The last time I went to check out the trailhead, my car got stuck in the mud.  This time it didn't look too bad. I picked up some trash that had probably blown in from the highway and picked up the half of the Superior Hiking Trail sign that had broken in half and fallen to the ground.  I'll stop by the HQ later to request a new one.  Then it was hiking time.  Little did I know that, in the next hour of hiking, I would wish for my snowshoes, yak trax, hip waders, and sunscreen.  I was glad to have brought my rain jacket, wished for a warmer sweater, and regretted not just wearing a t-shirt.

Check out how perfectly upright this sign is.  Gotta get the little sign on the upper left fixed, though.

The trail was a mess.  An absolute mess.  If it were not for the blazes (and Thunderdog's keen sense of direction) we would have been lost within minutes.  There was no trail: snow, water, mud, and ice covered the forest floor indiscriminately.  I didn't see a single other human footprint the entire time we were out there. Apparently this is not the best time of year to go for a hike?

We also came across a lot of downed branches and trees.  Those late spring snowfalls with their heart-attack heavy snow did a number on the forest.  I cleared away those that I could, and counted six trees that I couldn't move on my own.  I'll tell the staff at the Superior Hiking Trail HQ that there's need for maintenance, but odds are it's the same story from Duluth to the Canadian Border.  This is a low-use section of the trail.  I probably will Shanghai Joe into helping me do some clearing the next time he's up here.

"I'll help!"  Thunderdog helps me clear some branches from the trail.

It was such a weird hike.  According to my magic phone, it was 72 degrees outside when we left the car.  But when we were in the woods, it was downright chilly.  I was glad to have my rain jacket on because droplets of water (probably melting snow dripping off of trees) plopped on me from above.  But when we got to sections of the trail that were open to the sky, it was almost hot out.  Back into the woods, back into the cold.  I wished that I had an accurate temperature gauge to see what the difference was in and out of the forest.

I spy with my little eye...a trail?  I think?

If I weren't so happy to be out in the woods, I would have been cursing the path.  There were sections in which the snow was over a foot deep, there were sections in which it was bone-dry.  Some pools of water were actually ice (slip slip) and some icy patches were actually pools of standing, just melted water (slosh slosh).  My favorite was when I stepped into a foot of snow only to discover that, under the foot of snow, was six inches of freshly melted water.  Both of my boots were soaked through to the foot.  Yay.

Who cares about fish?  Let's roll in the snow!

Thunderdog didn't care, though.  She loves the snow.  I was glad that she got one more chance to play in the snow this year. But the way that spring is going, she could be snorting around in snowdrifts on the fourth of July, and ice fishing through the summer.

Speaking of fishing, this upcoming weekend is the Fishing Opener - and I'm not sure what people are going to do.  The vast majority of northern lakes are still covered with ice.  The only lake that's open right now is the Big Lake itself, but most people don't go fishing on Lake Superior on the Fishing Opener.  It's very unusual to have such late Ice Out dates up here.  Yet another way in which this has been a Very Special Winter.

Total miles hiked today: I'm going to guess that we did 2 miles total (one mile out, one mile back).  It was pretty pathetic...but we were moving so slowly.  We didn't even get to the first campsite.
Total miles hiked in 2013: 8.2
Total Superior Hiking Trail miles hiked in 2013: 1.8
Total ticks today: 0
Total ticks in 2013: 0

Volunteering: My Very Own Trailhead

One of my goals for 2013 is to volunteer more often.  In order to keep my Minnesota Master Naturalist certification active, I have to volunteer 40+ hours a year.  I tried to hold down an ongoing volunteer position with a local Environmental Education organization last year, but I wound up having to back out due to the ever-changing hours of my job.  I did a couple of trail-building shifts on the Superior Hiking Trail, but the dates they needed were weekdays - also incompatible with my work schedule.  Woe!  What's a wanna-be volunteer to do?

I know!  I went to the Superior Hiking Trail Association Headquarters to renew my membership - and volunteered to do Trailhead Maintenance.  We went through a list of available trailheads, and I picked the one that is closest to where I live: Reeves Road.

Reeves Road sign, standing upright

We've been to Reeves Road before - twice!  It's just up the road from Two Harbors - very close to my house.  As trail sections go, it's not very exciting: the northbound trail follows Highway 2 for a mile before turning off onto the snowmobile trail; the southbound trail follows the dirt Reeves Road for a mile before turning off into the woods.  Not exactly Wilderness, but it's something that I can do whenever I have time.  Trailhead Maintenance involves making sure that the sign is standing up straight (a trail-wide problem!!), there's no trash or anything littering the trailhead, the parking pad is in good shape, and that the paths leading into the woods are cleared and well-marked. If I'd been doing maintenance on this Trailhead last year, I would have been the person to inspect the damage done by the big flood and report back to the Superior Hiking Trail Association.  This year, I'll stop by once a month until the busy season starts, and then I'll stop by more often.

Thunderdog and Joe, exploring the ice sheet otherwise known as Reeves Road

In other news, temperatures have been hovering around zero and the wind has been just wicked in the last few days.  We had a brief January thaw last week - just long enough to melt all of the snow! - but now we're back into dead-of-winter.  I hope that we'll be able to go out for a hike/snowshoe sometime soon.  Planning for summer is all that I can do.

Volunteering: Building the Superior Hiking Trail: June 3, 2012

Now that I am a Master Naturalist, it's my job to be on the looking for volunteering opportunities.  I don't know if I've mentioned it on this blog, but...I love the Superior Hiking Trail!  It seemed natural that I get involved with the Superior Hiking Trail Association.  Not only am I a member and financial supporter of the volunteer-run and managed Trail Association, I want to get my hands dirty and help with the stewardship side of things.  That is how I wound up in the woods on Monday, June 3rd, building a section of trail.

The Superior Hiking Trail starts at Jay Cooke State Park, south of Duluth.  Keen readers will remember that I saw a SHT sign while at Jay Cooke earlier this year - it turns out that I was looking at the start of the trail.  It goes northeast through Duluth but stops north of Duluth.  The SHT picks up again in Two Harbors and continues north/northeast all the way to within a mile of the Canadian Border.  This summer, the SHTA is working on closing that last 20-mile gap between Duluth and Two Harbors.  Since I live in the area, I signed up to be on the Weekday Trail Volunteer mailing list.  Anxious to jump right in, I waited less than a week after my Master Naturalist Graduation before starting to rack up volunteer hours.

There's a trail in there somewhere.  We need to dig it out!

We met in Duluth and carpooled out to the day's work site.  We were made up of volunteers, SHTA staff, and Minnesota Conservation Corps members.  I didn't get a chance to talk to any of the MCC folks - next time I'm going to chat them up a bit.  I love CCC history and am curious to see what the modern incarnation is like.

It was a good mile or two out to the work area.  Someone had already gone through and roughed out a trail - flagging trees and leaving a very small path to guide us.  Tools were distributed, and we started hacking roots, pulling roots and rocks, sawing trees, lopping branches, and tamping down dirt.  Building a trail is hard work!  My sad little Tyrannosaurus Rex arms were in for a real workout.

 

This tool is called a McLeod.  It's used for both raking and tamping down dirt.

 

This tool is called a Pulaski.  It is used for chopping (the axe part on the left) and grubbing with the sharp grub hoe on the right.

Not shown are the loppers - a crazy huge pair of snippers that can cut through a 4-inch thick tree trunk - and the Mattock, which kind of looks like a huge Pulaski.  The Pulaski is smaller and sharper, and not meant to be swung over the head or used on rocky soil.  The Mattock is more of a brute force tool.  We also had rakes and saws.

I used the Pulaski most of the time, chopping and removing small trees and brush and digging up roots that would likely trip a hiker.  There was a part of me that cringed when I first started hacking away at a perfectly good and defenseless tree...but I reminded myself that by building the trail, I was bringing people into the woods to appreciate and love the outdoors.  The sacrifice of a few trees was worth it.

Ah, there's the trail!

I was only able to help for about 3 hours before needing to take the 'early bus' home.  I needed to shower and then go in to work.  3 hours was a good first day out, though.  I wasn't sure how my arms would feel.  So far, two days after I put the Pulaski back into the truck, I feel pretty good.  I feel especially good for being able to help with the trail construction.  The people I met were great, it was really interesting to learn about how to build a proper trail (I will talk about that process on this blog one of these days) and I got a good workout.  Win win win!