Glacial River Valley Snowshoe

After all the blog postings from my trip out west, I am sure that many of you have been waiting for me for some updated pictures of the Grand Marais area.  I went on two snowshoes this week with friends, Jamey and Lois.  For the first one we chose to snowshoe down an ancient glacial river valley that parallels the Lake Superior shoreline.

It was a very gray day combined with walking deep in the old river valley lined with steep banks created a challenge to capture detail in the photos.  As we parked the car along side the road, a group of snowmobiles came by.

We snowshoed across a field to get to the ancient river valley.

Then we found a place to get down the steep banks.  The photo below shows a huge downed tree caught up in the branches.  The tree doesn't look that big in the photo, but it is almost three feet in diameter and dozens of feet long.

Lois checking out the big trees....

I have snowshoed this route once before when there was less snow.  Thankfully it was easier this time since most of the downed trees were under the snow, but not all....

Jamey and Lois....

Huge pine trees lined the banks...

We carefully crawled under this broken downed tree.  We had to make sure that we didn't cause it to release the tension...

A man with his dogs....

Finally we broke out into the open on the Lake Superior shoreline.  Everything was white...

As we headed toward the second car that we had dropped off earlier, we spotted a woodpecker.