Sucker River

 

Today I joined 9 other Master Naturalists for a snow shoe hike up the Sucker River. I drove north of Duluth for about ten miles and took a left on Homestead Road. Once on Homestead Road I took the first left on old North Shore Road and drove to the dead end. There I parked and put on my shoe shoes. Even though this was advertised as a snow shoe hike and it snowed 3 inches this morning, everyone else chose to wear boots. The path was packed down enough that boots were easier. Eventually I removed my shoe shoes and left them standing upright in a snow bank and picked them up on my way back. Here are 3 people ahead of us going up the waterfall. This is my first time actually hiking on top of a fast moving river.

Sometimes we saw open water. At some spots the water was low and we could see a few inches of air space between the bottom of the ice and the top of the river. We could see the ice was a good 5 or more inches thick. In other spots the water came close to the bottom of the ice. In other spots we could hear the water running but not see it. I think if I could tape the muted sound of the water running under the ice it would be a good sound to go to sleep with.

Eventually the path on the river got to be too dicey so we took another path on the shore. This path took us high above the river. When the path turned into some private property we turned around and headed back. A two hour hike was just the right length of time.

First pussy willows of 2021. This is a sure sign of spring.