I went to the Marquette area this past weekend to give a speech at the Ishpeming Rock and Mineral Club. Thanks to everyone who attended and purchased books. Thanks also to Helen and Jimmy for their over-the-top wonderful hospitality. Yesterday, Helen and I snowshoed with two of her friends along the Little Garlic River, located a dozen miles northwest of Marquette. We took the spur trail to a small waterfalls. It said on the sign that the trail is 1.1 miles, but our measuring devices said it was 1.4 miles one-way. We did get to the falls area, but due to the terrain and winter conditions, I did not get a photo of the falls. The trail was extremely challenging. Someone post-hole walked the entire trail, creating thousands of deep holes that tried to trip you up. On the way to the falls, the snow was fairly firm since the temperature was below freezing. On the way out, however, temperatures rose above freezing causing the trail to soften up. In addition, there were several questionable ice bridges over tributaries as well as at least three narrow bridges with a ridge of uneven ice piled down the middle. It was impossible to snowshoe in the normal way. Instead you had to find places wide enough to even place each step -- sometimes straddling with each step either side of the ridge of ice; other times stepping with one foot on top of the ice ridge and the other foot barely fitting on the edge of the wooden bridge. It was not for the faint of heart.
I was concentrating so much on safely snowshoeing the trail, I did not take a lot of photos.
Going in from the trailhead.....
Ancient rock lined the trail. These cliffs are part of what is left from mountains that once ran through this region, which havve mostly worn away.
To get this group photo, which was taken on top of a snow/ice covered bridge, I set my camera on top of my backpack.
Although we did not see any wildlife, there was plenty of evidence. Woodpeckers did a major job hunting for insects in the tree shown below.
The creeks meandered.....
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