I lie apon a carpet of moss six to eight inches deep. I’m on top of a bluff in the area that escaped glaciers. I’ve found fosils on the top and a mosses bed to lie on. The tall pines in the valley rise with their tops even with the cliff. You think that if you leapt but five feet over you could be at the tree’s top. From the cliff issues a small trickle of water that plumets to the valley floor. It is small because it is summer not spring. The trail has been abandoned for at least twenty years, but that makes it special, not tread every day by people. The clues to the old trail remain, for those that can discern, a bit of man made residue that nature never knew.
In the head of the vallay, below the cliffs is something unique to view. To climb to the end of the valley is a super view. The sandstone cliffs have eroded so at the bottom you are under them. The unique erosion is wonderful to behold. You stand on a pile of sand that covers the area. The sandstone is in reds, yellows, golds, browns, whites, and somethimes purple. The trickle of the cliff above is wonderous when it falls.
Goveren Dodge State Park. Wisconsin.
I had a little chickade that would let me walk right up to it. I can get many birds to come within viewing distance or as close as a couple feet away. I can’t whistle a tune, but I can copy a bird song, and call them in. Once I saw a hen turkey and tried to call her closer by copying her. A near by tom came up looking for the females. It started to call, and we battled it out for about five minutes. In the end I watched them mating a few feet away.
Oh lordy, Phobe, Governor Dodge and Wyalusing are gorgeous. So are Nelson Dewey, Roche-a-Cri and O L Kipp (MN) State Parks.
If you can ever make it up there, however, the Nicolet National Forest is indeed Heaven On Earth.
There are a number of “dispersed” campsites that we like to frequent; off the beaten path and not included in a developed campground. These places are not always on the maps; if you’re ever planning to go up there give me a buzz and I’ll send you a list of these “secret places.”
You’re giving me spring fever, man! I can’t wait to get out there again!
My favorite park Is Amnicon Falls. The Amnican river runs over the dark volcanic stones and drops hundreds of feet in a short run on the river. The river is full of areas that have pot holes under a cascading fall. The water gets warm because of the black rock, and the pot holes are like a whirlpool with tiny bubbles breaking on your skin. Wear a pair of shoes, or your feet will get cut up.
Try a visit to Patison and see the forth largest waterfall east of the Mississippi.
I’ve been to the Nicolet and Chequamegon. I love Bayfield and Douglas counties.
Plenty of great sights listed that awe us for nature’s beauty and grace. Here’s one that awes for another reason:
I visited Mount St. Helens’ “blowdown zone” several years ago. Though it was fifteen years after the blast, plenty of areas still looked like the surface of the moon. The most awesome sight, however, was that of miles of blown-down timber. For as far as one could see, trees three to four feet in diameter were sheared off knee-high, stripped of their branches and laid down in parallel like so many toothpicks. A very humbling panorama.
good evening friends,
Last spring Sunflower (Mrs. Longhair) and I traveled to Puerto Rico. We spent one day hiking in El Yunque National Park, the only tropical rain forest on U.S. soil. As mid-westerners, we were awed by the beauty of the trees, and wild flowers. Wild hibiscus and ferns lined the trail, and hundreds of butterflies were our companions, and at one point, we heard bamboo grow.
All of the places described so far sound wonderful.