Adventures with Big Blue

[campfire]

Leaving Calumet behind, we hit the trail again for a short ride up to the top of a cliff.






Tailings pile? I never got around to asking.


Parking at the top of the world. Luke decided he needed a rock to level out the truck.







Looking down the cliff.






Dave found a new hood ornament.


Starting the campfire with scavenged cardboard.






We watched the moon rise above the cloud layer, but the clouds came back and covered it again.



Pretty fire. Nice glow (though this evening was warm enough that we didn't need any heat).

 

[campfire]

That was the end of day 2 (or 3 if you count the meetup day). We covered the equivalent of 100 highway miles from the Porkies up to Phoenix, MI. And then it rained again that night.

 

[beags86]

My truck consistently felt short.

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The folks were kind enough to pick a diesel-friendly filling station. Good thing, I had used half my fuel by this point. I only had 20 gallons of fuel left!

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Wheels censored so @beags86 doesn't have a conniption.



@GWeakland620, this station has had so many tourists trying to prepay for gasoline that they posted this sign to remind folks that this region doesn't typically do that.

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At least the black squares match....whew!

 

[Blue85]

Heading North we caught a brief glimpse of the Centennial shaft house. These 4 shaft houses are all that's left of the dozens that used to fill the countryside, and we saw them all within a couple hours.

I hadn't thought of that, but we saw them in order from oldest to newest, too.

Tailings pile? I never got around to asking.

Yes, that is the "upper Cliff" or "North Cliff" mine, which is later than the lower workings. (I wish we had the weather to explore down there because it's awesome). C&H owned the property later and did more exploration for conglomerate under the most famous mass mine and produced some of those tailings ("poor rock"). You can see an original stone smokestack partly buried by the pile. The concrete footings up there also came from C &H.

I had forgotten about building that fire ring on the cliff, but it's quite useful. The rock is at no risk of burning, but the angle makes your logs want to roll around.

 

[76zimmer]

Ethan I can really appreciate the time it takes to put all of these shots together. Melody and you make a great team at gathering shots and thanks for taking the time to explain them...I can't remember half of what I'm taking pics of, so I just throw them up for the picture loving whores on CK5!
and just for the record, we put a winch on Ethan going up that slick muddy bank just to keep him on the top of the ruts instead of sliding into them. He gave just enough throttle to turn the tires a bit faster than I was winching him and he had slack in the line most of the time. this with street radials on the front!

 

[campfire]

Ethan I can really appreciate the time it takes to put all of these shots together. Melody and you make a great team at gathering shots and thanks for taking the time to explain them...I can't remember half of what I'm taking pics of, so I just throw them up for the picture loving whores on CK5!
and just for the record, we put a winch on Ethan going up that slick muddy bank just to keep him on the top of the ruts instead of sliding into them. He gave just enough throttle to turn the tires a bit faster than I was winching him and he had slack in the line most of the time. this with street radials on the front!

Thanks, man. I'm always surprised at how long it takes to sort & post pictures (my timestamps say it's taking 15-20 minutes per post, you do the math), but when I'm done I have a really neat journal of the places I've been. Nowadays when I wanna see highlights from previous trips I just read through the trip reports again.

That whole "can't remember half of it" is exactly why I'm documenting these adventures...I wanna get stuff written down before I forget it all. Even last summer's trips are already getting fuzzy.

 

[campfire]

P.S. - the backs are street tires, too, albeit more aggressive than the fronts. The farm truck struggled soooooo much harder than either of the others did. It's crazy how easily the Maiden rolled through everything. Luke was saying we needed to hide one of your axle shafts to even things out. The more I think about it, it still wouldn't have been close. High-clearance 2WD would have rolled through this stuff just fine.

 

[76zimmer]

I think I used 4wd 3 times?
in that mud hole, that strip by the power wires and the rock ledges

 

[campfire]

I think I used 4wd 3 times?
in that mud hole, that strip by the power wires and the rock ledges

Gay beach?

 

[Blue85]

Gas stop was in Ontonagon. The trail North of town was probably the most technical stretch during this adventure.
Stopping to survey the crossing. This wasn't our tightest trail, but the branches were close enough that opening either window would lead to a mouthful of leaves. And the CB antenna on the top was hitting stuff constantly.

Most technical stretch that you drove, anyway

If you think that's brushy, you should have seen it before I trimmed it. That section you're sitting in for the picture would have dragged on quads. There were some 3" diameter trees on both sides, so I spent about an hour with the bow-saw, counting both sides of the river. On the North/East side I trimmed as much for visibility as clearance. It's probably because we were effectively running the bridge bypass. That's the only section that needed trimming.

Those antennas stay on pretty good, but if it gets knocked off, just put it on your hood near the windshield. Range is reduced, but still better than when the antenna is hanging down the side of the truck by the cord.

 

[campfire]

Most technical stretch that you drove, anyway

If you think that's brushy, you should have seen it before I trimmed it. That section you're sitting in for the picture would have dragged on quads. There were some 3" diameter trees on both sides, so I spent about an hour with the bow-saw, counting both sides of the river. On the North/East side I trimmed as much for visibility as clearance. It's probably because we were effectively running the bridge bypass. That's the only section that needed trimming.

Those antennas stay on pretty good, but if it gets knocked off, just put it on your hood near the windshield. Range is reduced, but still better than when the antenna is hanging down the side of the truck by the cord.

I'm not saying that we took the most technical trail out there, I was trying to illustrate to those reading that built offroad rigs are not a requirement for this trip. If I made it through the week with few issues, just about anyone could tag along. It's an adventure trip, not a rock crawling expo.

I don't remember where, but I think we ran a later section that was tighter than this one, tree-wise. And we definitely saw tighter stuff at 3 of the campsites (I'm thinking High Rock, the Cliff, and the last night at the Gorge).

 

[campfire]

In the soggy morning we packed up camp. Ponchos for everyone.












And then we headed out to an overlook point before hitting the road toward the point.




This climb I declined to travel due to one perpendicular rut right at the beginning. I just didn't have the ground clearance. So the others went up without me and I missed out on whatever view was at the top.



G'bye, folks!






They left me all by my lonesome.



After 10 minutes or so they thundered back down the climb and we headed back to our route.

 

[campfire]

The road took us to Copper Falls Park, where we pulled off to enjoy lunch. And some of us also enjoyed the outhouse.




It is the home of this peculiar watchtower. It's not at the highest point around, and it's shorter than the trees around it. Weird, weird, weird. Luke expected to find Ranger Gord living up there.



The view on the valley side. We decided that by the time you spotted a fire you'd hafta be booking it down the road to get away from the flames.







The guys tried being a bad influence during sandwich time. Tisk, tisk, tisk.

 

[campfire]

Heading down the road we heard a loud explosion and then saw Luke's rig lurch to passenger side.







Turns out that neither Luke nor Dave was carrying a jack suitable for changing this tire. I brought a 2-ton floor jack, which was suitable for my low-riding rig, but it wasn't tall enough for this one. So we used my jack to gain a couple inches, then Luke placed his crank-up jack (stock?) on a firewood & OSB cradle to get it raised the rest of the way.





One crank at a time.



Installing the new tire. A Wisconsin couple coming the other way stopped to chitchat (there was no getting around our convoy until the repair was completed).



Think that one will take a plug?




With the spare tire mounted we continued on our way.

Note for next time - make sure you have a jack with sufficient vertical range to both lift your truck off the ground and also be tall enough to change the tire. Bouncing between 2 jacks to get the required travel range was less than optimal. Luke was carrying a hi-lift jack, but was not eager to use it.

I think I'll pick up one of those Aluminum racing jacks if my rig gets taller (my small jack will just barely work with the 29" tires).

 

[campfire]

Next stop was Central. Home to (you guessed it) another mine.






Large sawn floorboards were a common sight in the old buildings that we visited. Huge.



This guy was a retired geologist who gave us lots of good info on the mining boom in Central.





Some hikers came in from the tailings pile and brought their finds. Was neat watching the geologist identifying the various mineral formations (no, don't ask me to repeat it all).



And then we headed toward Eagle Harbor.




These are thimbleberries. Think large raspberries with even larger leaves. Some of these leaves are the size of my head! We came across lots and lots of them, but each time I tried one (9 times, I think?) it was past ripe and winey.

This section did have some really good blackberries and red raspberries in season. If the other guys had been willing I think we would have picked a couple gallons' worth. Maybe next time?

 

[campfire]

We rolled into the Eagle Harbor lighthouse and visited the museum there. Baby had juuuuuuust fallen asleep, so I stayed in the truck while the others went inside.

The grey blob in the distance is a freighter.







Inside the maritime museum building.



Map of Superior's many shipwrecks.



HOLY SMOKES! You guys found an old Collins Radio.

I thought you said there wasn't anything of interest in that building. Grumpyface. I guess that's not of interest to almost anyone in the world, but I have family connections to Collins going back several decades. The lesson here...don't skip out on museum time.



QSL cards. Part of what Heather mistakenly called "pig radio."



The ghost of the Fitz is everywhere up here.




Watching the freighter steaming its way through the sea.

 

[campfire]

Baby did wake up and we joined the others in the lighthouse.




4th order Fresnal lens (probably the most common size on the Great Lakes). This one was omnidirectional with no pattern at all.



The winding staircase up to the gallery.





Access to the top is blocked because the Coast Guard still operates this light (so the lantern room is not part of the museum at this point).




View of the water from the tower.



Out in one of the outbuildings sits this drawing by local school kids.



Neat diagram of how the shaft mining operations worked.






Curiously enough, I didn't get a single picture of the car sitting behind the drawing, but that story is really neat. In November (the stormy month) of 1927 a freighter ran aground near Eagle Harbor carrying 220 new (1928) cars en route to Duluth. About 200 of the cars were safely extracted and brought to Eagle Harbor in time for winter to get serious. The insurance company covering the loss wanted to get the brand new cars back to Detroit, but the road up to Eagle Harbor had never been snowplowed. They waited until winter started to wane in April and then brought up snowplows to clear a path to Calumet (where the railroads ended). Locals were hired to drive these new cars to Calumet, they were loaded up and sent back to Detroit for reconditioning and sale. This was all completed before the next model year came out. The car in the museum is one of the ones that stayed in town all these years. Really neat story. Look up the wreck of the vessel "City of Bangor" for more info.

I'm hoping someone got some shots of the car and the pictures up on the wall behind it.

 

[campfire]

The view from the rocks behind the lighthouse. Superior never gets old. It's consistently awe-inspiring.








We then headed up the Brockway for more awesome views. Today it was quite foggy, so visibility was quite limited. But the majesty of watching the clouds dance around the mountain more than made up for it.
















Dave was starting to feel crazy...

 

[campfire]

Dave filling up (again) in Copper Harbor. He set the grill up on top of the pump and says "I might forget this thing here, I don't like it anyway." And that's just what he did.



Shortly after Copper Harbor the road ends and the trails begin.











We followed the route out to High Rock Bay, but 3 other folks were already camping there. So we decided to drive around to the Keweenaw Rocket Range instead.








There were a couple tight turns navigating this trail (slightly hindered by tents and at least one vehicle).



One of the campers brought a sailboat.



And then we headed out to the Rocket Range, which was pleasantly deserted.



Dave decided to park next to the monument.





Out here on the point it was both rainy and blustery. Lots more wind than our previous stops. I grabbed the spot back in the trees to keep the wind away from the tent (which worked well), while the others started stringing tarps up between the vehicles to keep the wind away from the canopy and the cooking area. The tarp hanging off the Maiden did a surprisingly nice job keeping wind & rain away from us. Though low spots collected rain and periodically dumped (sometimes on people ).



2 tarps, a tent, and some rope.





It stayed dry enough to play 2 full rounds of Euchre. Turns out that I'm pretty bad at it, Zim & Luke cleaned up the scoreboard.



Dusky, blustery shot.

 

[campfire]

Meanwhile, the waves were buffeting the shore just a few yards behind us.












This provided a steady roar to which we fell asleep.