July 2, 2004

• Up North, Part 2
  Palisade Head and Gooseberry Falls

  Thursday, June 24, we packed a picnic lunch and headed to Gooseberry Falls State Park with Betsy, Matt, Madison, and Ryan. On the way, we stopped at Palisade Head. Here’s Madison enjoying the view at Palisade:

  

  You do not get the full effect of the elevation in the picture above, but Palisade head is far enough above the lake to be really frightening when you get close to the edge of the cliffs. You often see rock climbers with their climbing gear scaling the rock walls there.

  Here are Betsy and Matt near the same spot.

  

  I had a really hard time choosing pictures for this blog because I have so many good ones from this day, but a blog can only be so long and my picture storage only holds so much, so those are the only two I am putting up from Palisade Head. The views from up there are magnificent and climbing on the rocks is fun but a little nerve-racking with a six year old and a three year old to keep away from the edges, so, after we had enjoyed the view, we proceded to Gooseberry Falls.

  Gooseberry Falls State Park is beautiful and it has been developed very nicely so that it is convenient for the many visitors who are always there. There are clean restrooms, a visitor information center complete with video presentations, and a very nice gift shop where all products are related to the area and none are over-priced or of poor quality. Many educational programs are held in the park. They day we were there, they were doing a presentation on ravens. All of the development fits in with the natural surroundings.

  Here are Dan and I on one of the rock formations at the Falls. Note the tree bravely clinging to bare rock by its roots. As you can probably tell, hiking and climbing are big activities on the North Shore.

  

  Here are Betsy, Dan and Matt with Madison and Ryan:

  

  You can only pose for so many pictures before people start getting irritated because they want to be about enjoying the park, so the rest of these shots are candids. I think they are better, anyway.

  One of the neat things about Gooseberry Falls is that the water in the river is very shallow there and the riverbed is very rocky, so you can actually walk back and forth across the river without getting wet (if you’re careful – I have a funny picture of Dan wringing out his socks a couple of years ago and you see a lot of abandoned socks on the riverbank). Here’s some of us crossing the river,

  

  Here’s a nice one of Matt and Ryan – Daddy helping his son:

  

  Much of the shoreline of Lake Superior is made up of hills or mountains, so the many rivers that feed into the lake often travel down a considerable distance and waterfalls are quite common. The picture above is of the lower Gooseberry Falls. This is the Upper Falls, just a short distance inland.

  

  This is the area above the upper falls.

  

  We had a lot of fun hiking and picnicing at Gooseberry Falls. As you can see, it’s a beautiful place. In the late afternoon, we returned to the cabin to await the arrival of our son Andy, his wife Jess, and Jake the Giant Baby.

  More to come …

  • 9:06 am
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