The Place
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| Downtown Grand Marais |
Grand Marais is a tiny town on the shores of Lake Superior with a beautiful natural harbor. In the
1890’s it was a timber boom town with 5 sawmills working two shifts a day processing
the logs. Then when the timber was
logged out the town shrank to almost a ghost town. The opening of the Pictured Rocks National
Lakeshore in 1966 brought in tourism as Grand Marais is the eastern most point
of entry into the Park.
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| Grand Marais Harbor |
The National Lakeshore preserves shoreline, cliffs, beaches and
dunes of about 40 miles of the Lake Superior shore. It is a study in the
interesting geology of the region.
The Adventure
We are staying in the Woodlands municipal campground in
Grand Marais. It is located on a bluff
overlooking Lake Superior with a long 40 stair staircase
down to the beach. The
beach has loose sand right up to the water’s edge where it turns to rounded
stones and pebbles. There are many
beautiful, colorful rocks covering the beach.
Some of the campers hunt for the elusive Lake Superior agate on the
beach. The National Lakeshore Park starts
at the edge of Grand Marais.
We took our bicycles into the National Lakeshore. About 1 hilly mile into the Park are the
Sable Falls that tumble 75 feet. They
are very pretty. From them you can hike into
the Grand Sable Dunes. These dunes are
300 feet above the surface of the Lake.
You initially hike through woods along the edge of the Sable Creek. Then you start to notice as you climb upward
that you are walking in loose sand. The
dunes are wind blown and rounded with a few brave plants growing in them. When you get to the edge, you realize that
you are way up above the Lake. Very
dramatic and scenic.
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| Grand Sable Dunes |
After our hike we bicycled several more very hilly miles to
the Grand Sable Visitors Center and back to the campsite. It was the hottest day they have had this year
in Grand Marais (close to 90). We spent the afternoon sitting with our feet in the
icy cold Lake Superior water to cool off. It was Dana’s birthday so we walked into town
to one of the 3 restaurants there for a pizza and beer dinner.
The Lake
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| The View From Grand Sable Dunes |
Measured by surface area, Lake Superior is the largest lake
in the world. It is 350 miles long and
160 miles across at its widest point. At
its deepest spot (35 miles north of where we are in Grand Marais), this huge
inland sea is 1,300 feet deep. To give
you a sense of scale, if all of the water was drained out of Lake Superior, it
would fill a swimming pool the size of the lower 48 states 5 feet deep. That’s a lot of water. The water in this immense, deep lake is very
cold. This year it is particularly cold
as ice was still seen floating in the lake in mid-June, after a bitter cold
winter. That said, the cold water did not stop Tiki from fetching her ball in
it or Russ from making his third Great Lake plunge this trip.
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The winter of 2013-2014 was a very harsh winter, everywhere,
especially in the Great Lakes region. In
an area that is notorious for cold winters, the Great Lakes were 96% frozen for
the second time in the memory of some of the old-timers. In fact, the last big freeze like this was in
1979. Generally the lakes are 30-40%
frozen over a typical winter.
Lake Huron and Lake Superior have both had higher water this
summer. The same old-timers are telling
us that when the lakes were frozen, the water didn’t evaporate off the lakes for
months. Then higher than usual snowfalls
contributed extra-large amounts of water when they melted.
Sources
http://www.accuweather.com/en/features/trend/nearly-frozen-lake-superior-ma/234393
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