We set off for the day's adventure in an Easterly direction, roughly following the Superior shoreline. This segment was directly based on our earlier scouting trip. But, thanks to my engine-starting sequence, I consistently wound up at the back of the pack with the ambulance. So Luke lead the day, picking a slightly different route than I would have.
This bridge was a bit sketchy. The gap by his right tire is large enough to swallow a Suburban tire. We found this out the hard way on the scouting trip, and went out of the way to make sure we didn't hit it again this time.
The ambulance brought up the rear.
The soil is sandy here, so the soil flows when it gets sufficiently wet (rather than shedding water like rock or concrete). Dirt roads routinely wash out, and the easiest way to fix them is simply to cut them a bit lower. Some of these roads are more than a foot below grade now. In hard soil that would turn into a water channel, but it sometimes works in sand (scroll down a few posts for an example of it not working).
The scenery colors can change rapidly between frames. First a typical green shot, with cloud cover:
Then, since this is mid-August, some leaves are already turning (winter is coming, ya know):
Then we enter the Duck Lake Fire zone, with endless blue skies and dry shrubbery.
And then the clouds come back:
Those four shots were all taken during an 8-minute time frame, probably within 5 miles of trail. If you blinked, you'd miss it. But the scenery keeps changing all around you. Being close to Lake Superior's wind-n-cloud factory is one factor driving the abrupt changes in weather and cloud cover.
Here's a transition shot showing the cloud line moving across the landscape:
And back to bright again:
It has a weird deserty-feel to it. Forest fires leave behind weird changes in the environment, even years later.
These cones mark the end of a grass airstrip. Evidence that we've reached another tourist trap. We didn't stop this time.
Places for airplane tourists to stay. Ok, I guess car tourists can stay there, too. These buildings have all been built/rebuilt since the 2012 fire.
Immediately after the tourist trap, the road turns back into a winding trail with loose sand. Yay playground!
We took the winding trail to the next tourist trap. Off the ridge, and back to the beach!
