Hike Info:
Type: Hiking on a Boardwalk
Trail: High Falls Trail
Trail head:
Destination: High Falls
Trail head: Grand Portage NM Visitor Center
Trail: Mt Rose Loop
Destination: Mt Rose
Distance: 1.15 miles 2
Elevation Rise: 365'
Descent: 358‘
Maximum Elevation: 906'
Minimum Elevation: 698'
Type: Hiking
Trail head: Gooseberry SP Visitor Center
Trail: Gooseberry Loop Trail
Destination: View of Lower Gooseberry Falls
Distance: 1.10 miles 3
Elevation Rise: 226'
Descent: 226‘
Maximum Elevation: 711'
Minimum Elevation: 610'
2Approximate track from plotting the course on Google Earth
3Approximate track from
plotting the course on Google Earth. Also the profile and elevations
are based upon one direction of travel.
Description:
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| Gary the Passenger |
I slept well last night, even
if I woke up at 3:30 California time. No lightning to report, which
is good. I laid in bed until 6:30 Minnesota time. Then I got up.
Rachel went out for a run or walk, not sure which. Today we go up to
Grand
Portage
before heading back to Duluth.
We had breakfast at the
hotel-I had oatmeal and cereal. The already made pancakes looked a
bit unappetizing. We got our stuff packed in the car and checked out
of the hotel about 8:30. Rachel drove us to Grand Portage State Park.
Along the way there were some interesting sights, including what
looked like a front yard to rival Nitt
Wit Ridge
in Cambria. Some mailboxes or something disguised as various
figures. But what really caught our attention were two deer on the
side of the road eyeballing traffic, appearing confused. Fortunately,
they just stood there, making sure we moved on.
When we got to the State Park,
we walked to High
Falls-a
total round trip of just over a mile on a paved path or as we
approached the falls on a set of stairs and boardwalk. There is a bit
of lushness to the area which reminds me of a rain forest. This
surprises me: in these northern latitudes, which I think more of snow
and cold and maple and pine trees.
 |
| Pigeon River |
Yesterday we saw Caribou
Falls.
High Falls is has more of what I expected. Maybe it is because of the
presentation that we could fully see the falls versus yesterday with
sun glaring across the falls and seeing it more from the side. I am
glad we did this walk. On the way back I took a side trail down to
the Pigeon
River.
 |
| Canadian side |
I should add that across the Pigeon River is Canada. We did not see any Canadians
on the other side, but the novelty was there.
Our next stop is Grand
Portage National Monument.
It is just down 61 from the StatePark. I confessed that about 50% of
the reason is to get my National Park Passport stamped. The other
50% is to see it with my own eyes. We had debated about going on a
short, one mile hike here, but decided that we probably did not have
enough time. We went into the visitor center. Sherri and Rachel talk
with a docent while I got my page stamped. Looking through the old
stamps, there is a 2025 page which I do not have. Then a eureka
moment: I found the 1989 page which I had given up hope of finding.
Yipee for Grand Portage!
 |
| Stair climbing up Mt Rose |
I looked through the exhibits
after saying to Jada, the ranger that we probably could not stay for
more than a few minutes. When I came out, Rachel and Sherri said we
are going on a hike to Mt
Rose.
Sounds good to me.
Before we went on our hike,
the docent recommended we see a video about the Grand Portage. Turns
out it went on a brief history of the relationship between the Ojibwe
native tribe in the area and the French Voyageurs. From the video the
relationship was amicable and mutually beneficial. The relationship
was broken only when the border of the United States and Canada was
established. The French moved to Canada leaving Grand Portage.
 |
| Outstanding in the field |
There are two trails up: one
from the Visitor Center, the other from the historical village. Since
we are at the Visitor Center, we started this one.*
It seems that this area uses stairs quite liberally. This trail is no
exception. A short distance, we start climbing up and up and up
several sets of stairs. The compensation is the amount of greenery
around us. I take several breathing breaks on the way up. As we
climb, we move to more hillside vegetation. The only animal life we
see are some butterflies and mosquitos. I give Rachel my mosquito
netting as they seem to like her more than me.
About ¾ of the way up, the
trail from the village merges with ours. A couple we had exchanged
greetings going up as they passed us was coming down the trail after
reaching the top. The lady advised us to go down the other path as it
was paved and the stairs had railings. We reach the top of the ridge
and shortly afterwards reach the end of the trail. We can see out
past Grand Portage Island and even out to Isle
Royale,
22 miles away. Looking inland, we can see the gap where the Voyageurs
came through, carrying their heavy loads.
 |
| Voyageurs Gao |
After spending 15 minutes at
the top, we start down, taking the other trail. Maybe it is not
easier, but the footing is better and like the lady said, there is
railing. We probably took over an hour and half to do it. When we got
to the bottom, we walked a bike path back to the Visitor Center.
 |
| Drury Lane Books |
From there, I take the wheel
for the next 40 minutes. We all agreed the hike was a good use of
our time. It takes about 40 minutes to get back into Grand
Marias.
We had decided on a promising sounding restaurant called My
Sister’s Place.
I have a Philly Cheese sandwich, Sherri a stuffed burger and Rachel a
whitefish sandwich. It seemed like it took awhile for the food to
arrive and then they got Racehl’s order wrong. They quickly
corrected that. The food is OK, nothing special, a bit disappointing.
After eating, we went to Drury
Books,
which we saw last night. Rachel had read a review saying it was a
pretty woke book store. No one would mistake the selection of books
as being of a conservative bent, but to me, it seemed to have a
pretty decent selection. They even had a good selection of Dorothy
Sayers! Along those lines, while there is a mixture of genders, it
seems like female authors are in abundance. The book quality looks
pretty good, from the titles I recognized.
We decided to forgo ice cream
at Superior
Creamery
as we are still full from lunch. Rachel drives us down the road to
Gooseberry
Falls State Park.
From several places I have seen where Gooseberry is the highlight of
the North Shore. Rachel has seen a three mile trail. When we got
there, the Visitor Center was about to close up. But we saw that the
Middle Falls is only a quarter mile away on a paved trail. We decided
that since it is 5, that would be a good trail to do.
 |
| Middle Falls of Gooseberry Falls |
We go down the paved path and
find more stairs. But we also find an accessibility path around the
stairs-well at least for a couple of them. The path has some bumps, I
am guessing from tree roots, so we are careful to watch how we are
walking. I think there are five different sets of falls as the
farthest one is called the Fifth Falls. We come to the Middle Falls
pretty quickly.
The Middle Falls are nice and
I think would be impressive when they are fuller. Sort of like
Yosemite
Falls is
impressive in the Spring and only leaves an impression of what it was
when viewed later on. There is still plenty of water in the creek,
just the falls are not thundering. Of course, the Middle Falls is
only 25 feet high. I guess it is hard to thunder with that kind of
drop
We go on down the trail to see
the Lower Falls. We follow a boardwalk down from the Middle Falls.
From the boardwalk we can see a bit of the Lower Falls. Only about a
10 foot drop and the view is more of a gap between two banks. But the
water flows pretty good. We just cannot get a good view from here.
But we spy a bridge and work our way oveer-it is a bit of a
convoluted way to this bridge. But it does give us a good view of
both the Lower and Middle Falls. Maybe it is the hype or just the
wrong season, while these falls are nice, I do not consider them the
highlight of the North Shore. Definitely Grand Marais’ harbor is
the most memorable followed by the High Falls.
Rachel drives us into Duluth.
On the outskirts of town, a deer crosses in front of us. Nothing
close, just unexpected. We do talk about future trips. Sherri brings
up the desire to do more extended day trips which will require the
need for a car. We also talk about how to choose what we are doing.
Our family has an awful habit of trying to defer to each other’s
wishes rather than expressing our own. This makes for indecision.
Maybe some sort of point scoring system where we all put in a
strength of our desire for an activity or destination. I probably
need to model that.
One thing which we agree on is
a desire for ice cream now. We went back to Love
Creamery
in Lincoln Park where we had ice cream Saturday, Still tastes
wonderful. I had a standard mint chip. Rachel was a vegan brownie and
I forget what Sherri had.
Rachel has been doing most of
the driving. This is a change since normally I do the majority. But
she yielded the steering wheel to me for the last half an hour back
to the hotel. We get back there at 6:45. After resting for a few
minutes, we pack up for a return trip to Minneapolis tomorrow. We
shower and Sherri gets her hair done by Rachel. By 11, it is time for
bed.
Background
*I found a reference that the
way we went up is the original trail: shorter, steeper and with
trails. The way back down is the more recent with a longer
ascent/descent.
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| Lower and Middle Gooseberry Falls |
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| Grand Portage Bay |
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| High Falls or Pigeon Falls |
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| Middle Gooseberry Falls |
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| Sherri looking over Pigeon River |
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| Pigeon River |
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| Pigeon River |
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| Pigeon River |
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| Flower on way to Mt Rose |
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| Grand Portage Island |
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| Lake Superior and Isle Royale |
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| Middle Gooseberry Falls |
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| Lower and Middle Gooseberry Falls |
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| Lower and Middle Gooseberry Falls |
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| High Falls |
Animals
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| Tiger Swallowtail |
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| Tiger Swallowtail |
Flowers and Plants
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| Dwarf Dogwood |
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| Dwarf Dogwood |
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| Columbine |
