big equipment

Our trip to Isle Royale got delayed a day because of severe weather on the Lake. So we did sight seeing in the U.P. We did a mine tour of an old copper mine. Turned out to have a unique mine hoist in very good condition.

Not a great photo to capture the size of this thing, but it is quite impressive.

Google quincy mine and read the wikipedia article. Pretty interesting stuff.

water taxi

Here is a shot of the gang getting ready to load our gear back on the Park Rangers shuttle boat to take us back to the main dock for our trip back to the mainland. We work on trails the first part of the week, then get about a day and a half of free time to hike around or canoe Tobin Harbor before riding the big boat back to Houghton.

Isle Royale- the hidden national park

Here is a shot from my trip to Isle Royale. Weather was good during the week, and we got our trail reroute finished with time to spare. I left some fresh food in the rangers office freezer for when we got back to the dock and campground. This was the last chicken breast just finishing up on the grill. It was a nice change of pace from foil pack tuna, noodles, rice, soup mix, and so on.

A cold beer was pretty good also. I didn't take too many nature photos, we had many better photographers in the group than I, I'll wait till they post theirs.

The great north woods

So busy lately, very busy at work, projects at home, that's why no posts, blah, blah, blah. Nobody wants to hear about that.





I went to Isle Royale for my annual Sierra Club trail work trip. We had rough weather at the start and at the finish, the boat had to wait a day before bringing us back. Gale force winds and 10 foot waves on Superior are to be taken seriously. Our overall week was good, and our trail reroute looked very nice when finished.

I used two different camping ovens, and the crew really liked fresh warm brownies for desert.





Of course, when we arrived in Houghton, we had to do a little window shopping while waiting for the boat to make way. Here is a shot from the outdoor store we browsed.

It was a relief to see such a well stocked store up in the UP, as I only had one set of nunchaku in my backpack. Several of us stocked up.

More photos from the actual island coming soon.

busy summer

Gotta keep up with this! Very busy at work, and running up to Wisconsin every chance we get.

Above shot is of the wood chips we made. Last trip up was for a week, and we did a lot of working and playing. One day we rented a chipper and chipped up the prickly ash we cut and piled this spring. We'll use this for mulch to suppress weeds and retain moisture.

Hiking in the Prairie state

Here is a photo from a Sierra Club hike a while back. This is from Starved Rock park, less than a couple hours from Chicago. There are a lot of ravines and formations in this area, where creeks feed in to the Illinois river. Admittedly, much of the state is flat cornfields, but there are a few places with interesting scenery.

summer like the good old days

Here is a shot of the ice cream stand in downtown West Chicago. It is a sure enough Tastee Freeze, and since it was renovated, repaired, and reopened, has become quite popular. It is a short walk from our house, so the net caloric results of my evening walks are somtimes in the wrong direction.