Sable Lake Shoreline Snowshoe -- Post 1

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Grand Marais.  My friend, Jill, stayed in town while her husband and other relatives left to return down state.  Jill and I are leaving this weekend for a trip to Wisconsin and Minnesota -- which I'll talk about in future blog postings.  So since she was in town, she agreed to go with Jamey, Lois, and I on our weekly snowshoe trek.  It was such a nice day that I took a lot of photos, so I'll post half of the pictures today and the rest tomorrow.

We decided that it was Lois's turn to decide the route.  After much consideration she determined that we should explore the Sable Lake shoreline.  We parked at the corner of William Hill Road and walked down the road toward the Sable Lake boat ramp.

The four of us at the start of the trek....     Actually: the five of us.  The dog, Bear, can be seen behind Jill. 

 

There were animal tracks in the snow everywhere.  Sorry, Jamey, I forget which critter made the tracks in the snow shown in the photo below, but the tracks make a cool pattern.

 

 

Nice contrast with the birch trees and deep blue winter (spring???) sky.

 

 

I love the openness of the woods this time of year...

 

 

The view of Grand Sable Dunes from the southeast side of Sable Lake....

 

 

At the curve in the road we headed into the woods toward Sable Lake.

 

 

 

Once we arrived at Sable Lake, we snowshoed along the shoreline toward Towes Creek.  Before long we noticed there is some exposed rock along the shoreline.

 

 

Looking back toward the dunes from Sable Lake's frozen surface...

 

 

 

It is hard to tell the perspective in the photo below.  The snow bank on the left side of the picture is around four or five feet tall.  There is snow melt that has refrozen jutting up to exposed rock.

 

 

Janey checking out the rock on snowshoes....

 

 

 

All along the Sable Lake shoreline there were incredible stumps.  Nature's art....

 

 

As we snowshoed toward the south end of Sable Lake, Jamey spotted this old fireplace.  It is a remnant of one of the more than 30 houses/cabins that used to be on Sable Lake.  When the National Park was developed, people had to tear down or remove the structures.  This is such a magnificent chimney that even the park has left it be.  It has been many years since I've seen this chimney.  In fact I forgot about it until yesterday.