October 4, 2012 Hiking the fall colors

This has been a week of changing weather.  The forecast for the week was for nice early on and by later week changing to rain and snow.  Since the fall colors last such a relatively short time, we decided to make use of it.  Monday, my sister and sister-in-law and our dogs...my golden retriever and their yellow labs, a brother and sister, took off for Mt. Josephine.  I, in all my years living here, had never climbed up there.  You can see part of the view from Highway 61.  However, the view is much better from the top of the mountain.  Of course, it is a good climb.  Just the uphill climb part on the narrow trail up is a mile long.  I would guess about a 3 mile round trip, which is not a big deal to someone who hikes every day.  This one is just steep.  The view, seen above, was magnificent.  It had really clouded up so colors all round on panoramic scenes were pretty flat.  But, we all had a new adventure and plenty of time to visit on our hike.  I think we will be back next fall to try and catch it on a sunny day. 
Tuesday brought my sister-in-law and myself and our dogs hiking a section of the Superior hiking trail in to Jackson Lake.  I had not been in there since they did the reroute of the trail.  They took out a gorgeous overlook that is really red with all the maples.....but, some of the new route is pretty decent too.  In fact,  since we walk through so many maples anyway, I think parts of the reroute were a nice addition.  The ruffed grouse were out and about this day so we got some of them as an added bonus and made out "bird" dogs happy.....as they each got some retrieving done. 

As you can see, a lot of the red is down.  But, there was a lot of yellow and gold up yet.  It was just beautiful with the afternoon sun shining through it.  It is days like this that really makes a person appreciate the outdoors and fall both.  It is just unfortunate that those days don't last a little longer.  It was such a beautiful day. 
On Wednesday, the three of us and our dogs were on the road again.  We headed up the Gunflint Trail to part of the Border Route Hiking Trail that goes to Magnetic Rock.  It is a bit of a different geological oddity and we had all been curious about it for a few years now and decided it was the time.  It was cool in the morning and we dressed appropriately, in layers.  Well, our frosty morning turned to mid 70s pretty fast.  We were warm and down to tee shirts in a hurry.  The dogs were looking forward to swims. Onward to the rock.  The trail on this whole section is going over or by different rock forms.  They are so interesting.  I could put a lot of photos of the interesting rocks just on this trip in here.  I guess that is another thing that makes living up here so interesting....the diversity of what we have to offer......

Here is a photo of me and Toby, sitting in front of this Magnetic Rock.  We look pretty tiny, don't we.  It really is something to see this standing in the middle of this landscape.  None of us remembered to bring our compasses along to see just how nuts it makes them....but, that happens in other areas of the county too, even on places on Lake Superior when you are out fishing.  That isn't such a bad thing on the lake, unless, of course, the fog comes in and you think you are going one place and end up somewhere else.  Been there, done that.  One always pays serious attention to what's going on when you are on the big lake.  But, that is for another time.
After we got out from our hike to Magnetic Rock, we had some hot dogs that wanted to cool off.  The place available on the trail was a bog hole that made our yellow dogs come out black...muddy...dirty dogs....which we didn't want a repeat of just before getting back in our vehicle.  So, leashes were put on to get by that water hole and back to the parking lot.  Then, we headed down to Gunflint Lake for a picnic lunch and swims for our buddies.  Boy, such happy dogs when we got there. 
From an enjoyable lunch break in the warm sunshine, we headed back down the trail to the Clearwater Road and hiked up to Honeymoon Bluff.  This hike is much shorter....though quite steep, it is well worth the hike.  The colors were amazing and all the lakes were flat calm.  There wasn't a ripple on them.  What a view!  Did I ever tell you we live in an amazing county?!  Now that I am retired, I guess I will continue checking out the rest of what we do have to offer that I haven't quite caught up with all these years. 
Thursday, brings clouds and rain squalls....no folks, we didn't get the snow here yet!  However, Lake Superior was absolutely roaring today.  Even Toby wasn't too anxious to get too close to those waves.  The leaves are quickly disappearing and roads are littered with blowing popple leaves.  Our beautiful fall days are nearly at an end for another season. 
I will leave you with a view of Jackson Lake as seen from the Superior Hiking Trail....gorgeous spot.  :)