Sable Falls Hike

My sister, Diana, arrived yesterday for her annual visit.  This is the 15th year that we have gotten together to explore the U.P.  It was raining when she first pulled into Grand Marais.  When we noticed that the rain had temporally stopped, before it redeveloped last night, we decided to check out the fall colors at Sable Falls in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. 

Fall colors...

Going down the steps...

Looking down stream....

 

The third storm in the last few weeks took out more beach.  It is not possible right now to walk from Sable River down the one mile beach to Grand Marais.  Lake Superior ate the beach and did not spit it back up.

Even walking the 200 feet west to the mouth of Sable River, you had to time it right as you skipped across the high water mark to avoid getting wet feet.

As we watched the waves and took pictures, the glow of sunset started to intensify.  The picture below I took with a full 200 zoom hand held in a 25 mph wind.  Not easy.

The collapsed dune next to the river....

Notice the yellow ribbon.  The national park staff has blocked off this area to make sure that no one is hurt by collapsing sand.

Di tested the waves to get her photo....

The angle in the photo below shows the shore erosion even better.

By the time we arrived in town we rushed over to the boardwalk to capture sunset....

Notice how far further south the sun is setting relative to Au Sable Point compared to less than two weeks ago when the sun was still setting to the north of the point.