Climbing, boating, and hiking

Have you heard of the "I Can" program through MN State Parks?  Noah had some interest in rock climbing after trying the army recruiter tower at Rochesterfest, so we took him out to Blue Mounds to get a little more serious about climbing.

He was a natural and had a fun time.  An hour and a half wasn't as long as he wanted to go, even though the older batch of us had some really tired muscles by the end of that time.

He wants to go back again every time they have the I Can Climb program.  Probably not, but we'll definitely take advantage of other opportunities to climb.

Luverne, MN is just down the road from Blue Mounds and has a river area that caught Brian's eye while figuring out what else to do while over there.  There's a playground and city park adjacent to a fun spot on the river.

The playground was pretty well forgotten about and the river became the playground.  We did lap after lap after lap of the rock garden area.  Brian finally has an excellent use for his toy boat that hasn't seen much water in it's first year in our gear closet.  It packs under the car seat real easy, so it's always handy if you find an exciting piece of water.

Upon return home, Brian immediately found more fun river locations to take his little boat to.

There's also a National Wildlife Refuge within a couple miles of Blue Mounds called Touch the Sky.  It's an area that was restored to native prairie.  We chose to hike the <1 mile prairie waterfall trail. It was absolutely gorgeous!  It reminded us of the north shore with large rocks to jump across, but it was surrounded by flat expansive prairie land and big sky.

That was all done between breakfast and dinner on one action packed day.  Dinner was quite late because of adding on the play time at the prairie waterfall.  Who knew the SW MN farming region had so many fun recreational opportunities?!

We camped overnight there too, but the camping wasn't much to recommend the place.  Blue Mounds has a rentable tipi camping option, we might see if we can get that next time - they built the tipis in the best camping area.  We were deep in the woods and could barely stand to be in our campsite because of the mosquitoes. I bet it's beautiful in the fall too, after a frost so the bugs are gone...

Vacation re-cap: North Dakota relaxing

It's August now, so I'll tell you about all the fun we had in July.  We've been going, going, going and making the most of the summer.  We headed out to the northern fringes of our favorite "West Dakota" region, this time visiting the North Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park and touring the campgrounds of the Little Missouri National Grasslands.  Here's TRNP beauty and hanging out:

After taking in the main vista point, we thought we were going to spend a night in the back-country inside the park.  They wouldn't give us a back-country permit for the trail we wanted to follow (really odd...), so we took the recommended trail permit and headed out thinking we were being all chill and flexible.

 Here we were less than 2 hours later...

The trail was hard to follow, over grown, and full of ticks. I don't think this park sees many hikers. So we headed back to the driving tour and allowed our buddy to catch some zzz's.

 He woke up before we left the park, so we enjoyed one more short hike on the interpretive nature trail.

 You see we tucked our pant legs into our socks - this is to help prevent ticks from getting to our skin.  These light pants were a really good choice for Noah, as we could see the ticks very easily.

Is there anything more scenic than badlands and buffalo?

Camping spots - National Grasslands in style.

We started at CCC which is right next door to TRNP north unit.  When we bailed from our hiking trip, we went back for a second night at this location.  The big issue right now for campers in this region in North Dakota is that the Bakken Oil field is contaminating the wells. CCC water was deemed non-potable.  TRNP water was high in fluoride and not recommended for children under age 9.  Good thing we were planning for being in low water conditions and had lots of water with us.  We got some nice evening shade at this site and Brian biked the Maah Daah Hey a bit from camp.

 Our most unique camping location - Sather Lake.  We really liked the shelter, which all sites had available.  In spite of some sprinkles that night, we packed up a completely dry tent and gear. This lake area would be great for a picnic or fishing trip.  Sleeping there with the oil activity was a joke.  It's at the corner of 2 highways (county roads).  There were trucks going sporadically all night - and rumble strips approaching the junction and stop sign.  It was really hard to sleep there, but a beautiful little area.  

 Our third camping area is Burning Coal Vein.  We loved it! It was on the south edge of the National Grassland at the opposite end of the Maah Daah Hey trail from CCC.  It had a cool badlands feature to hike around at and bike trail access.  The drive into it was absolutely breath-taking beautiful.  Badlands, grasslands, and some evergreen trees in just the right portions.  I want to buy a ranch in that area and never leave.

There was another, newer campground halfway between BCV and Medora - Coal Creek.  We stopped there briefly at the end of our trip. It had potential to become a favorite.  It's on our list to stay at next time we go out there. I forgot to mention that BCV and Coal Creek are far enough from the oil activity that they have clean water!

I have a ton more pictures of our tourist activities and the scenery, but this is getting plenty long for now!

Spring on the Shore

We had our final visit to the condo, and enjoyed some fun time on the shore while we were there.
The weather was typical spring - different every day.  We had snow, cold, cloudy, sunny, warm, windy weather that week. We were determined to not spend too much time indoors there (because we would get bored without projects going on).  We hiked the Oberg peak loop. The trail was covered in ice; crampons would have been helpful.  There were usually places to get by the ice, or rocks and roots sticking through to keep some traction.

There was frost in all the trees making for some beautiful vistas.

When we crossed the windy side through the trees, the frost was actually falling out of the trees.  It was a new weather phenomena for us - kind of a cross between a blizzard and a hail storm.  The larger bits of frost had some mass to them.  We tried to hurry through that area, but of course, the snow packed trail made that challenging.

Have you ever been in a frost storm?

One day it was 50+ degrees, so we spent most of the day outside.  We got our biking gear together and packed a picnic and played around near Beaver Bay.  The intention was to bike much farther, but with the warm temps, came a strong wind...  We turned back after only 5-ish miles, took the requisite giant chair picture, and went exploring.

We took some time at a beach and river confluence for a bit.  There were rock treasures to hunt for and Noah didn't want to leave the beach.

Then we went up into the woods to try to hide from the wind some.  We hiked up to high falls on the Baptism river.

 Took the happy family photo on an overlook.

 Got in to see the falls up close.

 One thing about hiking to waterfalls along the north shore is that the hiking trails around them usually have large staircases going from top to bottom.  We counted stairs - one of the sides of the falls we went to was 180 stairs (we went up and down).  I don't take the stairs at work to the 7th floor, but in my vacation time, I willingly do the ultimate stair workout!

In spite of the wind, it was a beautiful spring day!  Best day of the week.

How many stairs do you climb for fun?

Good times in Bad Lands

So I haven't posted since September - just after our Badlands trip.  Let's just say sending your baby to kindergarten is one of those life events that changes everything! The good news is we haven't had a vacation since, so I'm not behind on blogging in the vacation department...

This trip was the last big hurrah before school started.  We went Labor day weekend seeking adventure.  We had a fabulous time!  We spent 3 nights sleeping in the back country and the days hiking in and out.  We couldn't cover too much distance because there's no water, so we had to carry enough for the time we were out - and when you're 2 people carrying water and gear for 3 campers, there are limits!

 Here's our young outdoor's man all loaded with his "share" of the gear.  He carried his sleeping bag and clothes.  There was also a water bladder in there - his "gas" for the hiking.

 The weather was nearly perfect.  At dusk everyday there was a strange phenomenon where it became very windy for an hour or so.  We were trying to settle down for the night in our tent and had to listen to it flapping and flapping in the wind.
The first day we hiked to the backcountry to find a place to camp, Noah spotted a porcupine!  He waddled off before I could catch him in a picture.  We also spotted some larger animals bounding on the prairie in the distance.

 We filled up our cells with lots of strong prairie sunshine.  It was much needed!  It helped us all to fun.

 The landscapes were terrific!

 I love the picnic shelters that the park service puts out there!  Yes, even though we enjoyed soaking up all that sunshine, we couldn't take THAT much of it since we're from a cloudy place and unfortunately spend a lot of time indoors.
The second and third nights, we left from this same parking lot and picnic area.  There's something of a trail out here that we thought we could follow to get into a "forest" area.  The trail wasn't very clear (we should have done a little more homework, so it would have been easy to follow), but we did make it to the forest we wanted to see.

 We followed "the wash" for a long ways - until it dead-ended.

 The second evening we set up camp on this small table - we were protected in case of rain since we had followed the wash as high as it went before getting too narrow to make camp.

 Here's the narrow area where we certainly couldn't make camp any more.  It was great for exploring and climbing!

 Day 3, hiking to the forest.

 Noah was often caught running ahead.  We would use landmarks like this to catch up with him!  Other times, he would fall behind and we had to offer snacks at landmarks like these to prod him along.

Can you see the forest now?  Figuring out the path to get there was a challenge!  Some clouds moved in on this 3rd afternoon so we were happy that we might camp in the protection of a forest - though we didn't know what a badlands forest might really be like!

 We made it!  We're now up in the forest along a high ridge.

 This campsite was named "Ram Skull Mountain" after we found this artifact hanging around.  There was evidence of a campfire nearby, we weren't the only ones to think it was a great camping spot!

 Here's what a Badlands forest looks like - in case you aren't up for the same kind of adventure we enjoyed.

 I told you some clouds were moving in.  After a short time of exploring, it started to rain, so we made tracks for our tent.  Turns out our <6 year old backpacking tent was no longer waterproof.  We spent an hour in the tent taking turns reading and diverting water.

 There was a fantastic rainbow when we got out after the rain.

One last trek around the odd mud hill formations and across the prairie to head home.

A few more logistical notes.
Normally we wouldn't eat freeze-dried backpacking food on a trip like this, but we did this time.  It was easy, though expensive, to just hit up our local backpacking store and buy the meals-in-a-bag.  As I mentioned earlier, we had to carry all of our water on our backs for this outing, so didn't want to plan for dish-washing water in addition to water to consume.  The option to add boiling water to the meal worked.  I don't remember all those that we tried - spaghetti and beef stew were definitely on the list.  I do remember that all were palatable for hungry hikers, and Brian had to pick peas out of one meal.
We hiked out with heavy backpacks full of food and water each afternoon, then the next morning, hiked back to the van with light, nearly empty packs.  I believe the MINIMUM recommendation is 1 gallon per person per day - that's a lot of water weight to be carrying around!  We regrouped and enjoyed lunch each day at the van. This is how we first introduced Noah to backpacking (before he was willing to carry a pack), and feels like a great way to us to get out into the wilderness with children OR out to a place where water is scarce.
You have to pack a small shovel on trips like this - it is your bathroom.  Established hiking trails will often have latrines, but this was backcountry camping.  The shovel doubled as a toy/distraction for our young explorer! Here's the shovel, go dig a hole.
Our tent went back to Marmot over the course of winter and they are replacing it under full warranty - this year, we will stay dry when adventuring!

Gear review

We had a super hiking trip recently in the badlands. As we were preparing to go, we had to think a bit about our gear situation. We have generally kept a reasonably well supplied gear closet, but we haven't done this much since Noah. And, now we have to carry equipment for him as well as our own gear. Space and weight are a much bigger concern! Brian did a little shopping spree and was pretty excited about his bedding before and after:

I got a summer weight camping sleeping bag 10 years ago, but he kept his mid-weight one around and sweated it out when we've gone in summer. It was finally time for him to have an appropriate bag for the forecasted overnight temps. It worked very well, he was pleased with the result!

The following are the 5 sleeping mats that we were considering bringing (4 went). We learned about these super minimalist sleeping mats that pack to the size of a pop can, sweet. Well, sweet if you ar 5'10"-6' tall, male proportions, and sleep on your back. After trying the minimalist route for one night, I lugged the second largest mat shown into the wilderness with me (gotta love traveling by van, aka gear shed on wheels!)

Noah is a super hiker and we will definitely do more of this, so it's time to continue refining our gear so we can manage the load and sleep well too!

I should go download the pictures from the trip, so I can show you "Ram skull mountain" and other highlights!

Fun things to do in the winter on the shore

Here are 2 of the most fun things we've done this winter!

Hiking up frozen rivers was the highlight of our time on the shore.  It was stinking cold up there, but we managed to get out some and have a little fun.  The advantage of hiking up a frozen river is that the wind doesn't usually get you down in the river canyon.  And canyon it is!

Explorers, ready to explore

Views at the top before going into the river bottom

Follow the trail

Since I'm always behind the camera, here's me dressed to face the cold!

 This river had a big room in the river canyon.  The rocks and walls were sculpted away in such a way that it felt like you were hanging out in a special place.

The room.

Noah kicked down most of the icicles while we were there.

End of the line

 When we turned around and headed back down the river, we decided to pull over in "the room" and build ourselves a little campfire and enjoy for a bit.  Brian couldn't get the fire going, so he headed out to find some birch bark.  While he was gone, I found a tiny scrap of birch bark and make the fire go.  Love it when I can own the fire!

Wilderness fire

 The other fun activity, which we did in a snowstorm, so forgive the pictures, was dog sledding.  It's not cheap, but a fun thing to do as a visitor/vacationer.

The dogs needed a snack before we went riding.

Nearly finished snacking, let's go for a ride!

Mush!

 Adrenaline junkies won't be satisfied, it's not fast.  Especially in new, soft snow.  But, it's amazing to think that those 10-12 small dogs were able to pull our whole family plus the handler over the hills and along the path faster than I could power walk it.  Makes for a pleasant family outing.

What's fun that you do in the winter?  Anyone else warming up to wilderness fires or snuggling in a sled?