Winter Breathes its Last at Pine Lake

As many of you know, Pine Lake is one of my family's favorite hiking destinations.  There is always a new adventure to unfold, and each season brings a different flavor of beauty.  We finally had a warm day on Tuesday and decided to take our first hike of the year around the upper lake.  

The first sight to meet our eyes was a flooded-out bridge (above), so we took a detour up a steep snow-covered hill and climbed up to the Christians summer camp where we crossed on their much higher bridge.

We did our best to avoid some very muddy spots on the trail.  Anyone interested in a cabin with a lakeside view?

Uhmm...no, that's the road.

We climbed down another very steep snow-covered hill back to our trail.  It's a bit tricky to climb down a hill like this while taking pictures and still not slip, so I finally put the camera away, and my dear papa and brother (wonderful gentlemen) gave me a hand over the steepest parts down to the trail.

We passed a few real lake-side houses.  This beauty (below) was for sale, if any of my readers would like to buy it we can stop by for hot cocoa and a visit every time we hike here...

Unfortunately, it appears that the lake has a big fish kill this year because of the heavy snow and ice cover which denied sunlight to the lake and seriously depleted the oxygen supply.

What you see in the water above is a mass of dead fish.  Some were rather large--why can't we ever catch any big ones when we go fishing here?  What a sad sight!  There were some living fish that we saw swimming among the dead--hopefully they last until summer!  Winter can be very cruel.

We continued on our hike...

Until we saw a dismaying sight!  

The trail was flooded once again, so we took another detour across a swiftly flowing little stream.  Most of the party jumped across, but Mama and I opted to walk over the log below.

Soon we had to cross another creek, this time over more substantial logs placed there by the park for hikers.

We reached the concrete part of the trail and as the sun set we made our way back to the van and left for supper (a snack) and a peaceful evening at home.  Isn't God's creation beautiful?

Welcome to the Far North

     I don't get to walk on water every day, so yesterday was a pleasant change.  The temperature was pretty close to 40 F, and Pine Lake was still very much frozen.  We decided to take another hike around the upper lake.  This time of year everything is a bit tamer.  There are no mosquitoes and no living plants to get in the way (Although some dead thorn bushes did get in the way!)

   We started our hike walking on the lake, but found a place where the ice was shallow (Thankfully we didn't find out the hard way!) So we walked on land for a while.  The woods were pleasant, but the ground under the trees was frozen and in some places, slippery.  The swamp that always is incredibly unpleasant to walk through was also frozen and therefore gave us no trouble.

We crossed the lake on/near this dam designed to keep out silt, and resumed our walk on the other side, some of us on the lake, and some of us on the land beside the lake.  The "land beside the lake" turned out to be more slippery than the lake itself--and very steep!

Yours truly is usually sure-footed, but near the spot above I found a slippery spot, fell ( a little fall is nothing), and started sliding...down!!!  I started worrying about a bigger fall...The prospects for a good landing weren't exciting and after the little slope, there's pretty much a short 90 degree drop into the lake.  Thank the Lord, a protruding tree root was handy!  I grabbed it and pulled myself up to higher ground!  

It was not exactly a pleasure to meet this interesting tree; which seems common enough in the woods here in Iowa:

It wasn't long before we decided it would probably be easier and more pleasant walking on the lake...so once we found a not-so-steep place to descend, we "land-lubbers" joined the rest of our family on the lake.  

The ice in this area was very thick--probably close to a foot thick.  Although we weren't worried about it breaking, we walked single-file 15 feet from each other, and kept a rope handy just as a precaution.

Near the dam we returned to land.  The hiking trail was icy and in some places muddy, but beside the trail, the ground was good and easy to walk on.  The dam finally had some water flowing over it (a pretty site after such a dry autumn and winter.  We reached the paved trail and finished our 3 hour hike with a leisurely stroll.

     While this isn't exactly the far north, sometimes it certainly feels like it...but on cold winter days we do get to enjoy some pleasures folks in Southern California, Florida, and Hawaii never have a chance to enjoy...

...Like walking on water (frozen water, that is)

Hike Around Upper Pine Lake

We decided to take the trek around Upper Pine Lake.  

The trip started with a detour down a steep trail and a rickety ladder to take a look at one of our favorite spots on the Iowa River.

Then, we went on to Pine Lake, 

starting on the same nicely paved trail we used to walk around the lower lake.

The upper lake was beautiful with autumn colors.

We glanced at the spillway, which was still dry as a bone, and then headed up this path

(My parents)

Until we came to a fork in the road

  

The right path leads around the lower lake, and the left path leads to an adventure around the upper lake, so we chose the upper lake.

The going was still easy...a leisurely stroll on a decent path...but it was only a decent path for a while.

Remnants of an old bridge

To cross this bridge we would have needed wings.  

Fortunately for us, though, the water was gone too.  This is what our path looked like next:

If you can't see the path, I can't blame you

We ran down some hills (slid down the ones that were too steep) and crawled up others.  We also spotted about 4 deer.

Finally, we saw the rock dam which keeps silt from the stream from flowing into the lake.

There was some talk of walking across the rock dam like we did this winter.  But the decision was out-voted by the majority of people, who were not interested in getting their shoes and socks wet.

We left the woods behind and reached a dilemma.  How were we to cross the stream that feeds the lake?

The answer:

Jump onto an over-hanging tree branch and walk over!

There was a SPLASH...and it's a good thing there are no piranhas around.

Our courageous scout accidentally slipped into the creek just as he was landing on the other side.  He jumped out of the water, dripping wet from the waist down. 

I waited to see how the others would fair; with my brother's help on the other side, everyone made it safely.  So, I crossed second to last...

and, fortunately, I made it without mishap.

  A dinosaur egg?  Nope, it's a  mushroom.

Our path became less than pleasant on the other side of the lake.  We had to stoop to get through brush, and sticker bushes and cockle-burs wouldn't let us forget their presence.   

But the fun wasn't over yet.  Next we crossed a little swamp/wet-land.  So, everyone who didn't have wet socks yet soon had them.  I was wearing rubber boots, which I thought would keep my feet dry, but unfortunately I stepped in one spot where the water was too deep. We all faced the same fate.

We hiked through another wooded area and then came to another grass/wet-land.  This one was, except for one small stream, dry.  But we were in for a big surprise.  My brother took a step and stopped.  Not more than 6 feet away from him, a giant wild turkey jumped out of the grass and flew away.  I couldn't resist thinking what a good Thanksgiving dinner that turkey would have made.

We walked through a stretch of pine trees, over a couple creeks,and under and over dead logs, and  acquired more cockle-burs in the wood-lands and brush.

Our pathway... 

Papa found an arrow an archer had lost.  Then finally we glimpsed civilization through the trees!

Our hike was over, and we were very glad to get back to our van for glasses of water and refreshments.

   In my post "Gone Hiking: This Land is Mine" I wrote, "I know from experience that the route around the upper lake is not for the faint in heart."  Well, it isn't, but it's certainly a lot of exercise and a lot of fun.

Gone Hiking: This Land Is Mine!

This land is mine!  And yours too... Psalm 37:11 says, "The meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace." God is our Father, and the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.  He owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10).  Since we are His children, the earth is our inheritance.  The clip above is the theme from the movie Exodus, which I haven't seen for ages (and can't tell you if it's worth watching or not), but the song is beautiful.  

Hiking in the Iowa River

     We decided to take a little adventure and headed down to the Iowa River.  Because of the drought, the river is quite low.  This year we have walked down the river several times, but even when our intentions have been to find a good swimming hole, we have never found a place more than waist deep.  This time I had the vain hope of not getting my socks wet...  

     Our starting point was near the bridge in Steamboat Rock, Iowa, and for a short time I was successful at keeping water out of my boots...until we came to a spot where the river narrowed.  On one side were steep limestone cliffs and on the other side not much of a bank, just water.  I gave up, and soon water sloshed over the top of my rubber boots--up to my knees--and my socks were soaked!  

We continued down the river and the river bed broadened again, revealing many spots which should have been wet but now were dry (see photo above).  The day was nice and warm, and we eventually came to a chair someone had left on a sandbar--with a container of fishing worms.  Poor things!  Next time the fisherman returns, I think he will be serving baked worms to the fish.  

The evening gradually wore on.  Someone found a piece of old pottery which they speculated may have been made centuries ago by Native Americans.  Finally, we decided it was getting too dark--time to turn around and head home.  But return by the same route?  Not us!  We cut through the woods and up a  hill.  A few of us found an old deer trail which made the going much easier, but the more adventurous ones of us literally crawled up the steepest part.  

                         

We reached the top hill, and someone happily remarked, "We made it!"  "To where?" someone replied.  Now that was the question!  At the top of the hill was a small prairie area and someone suggested, "Why don't we just camp out here?"  "We'd be dinner if we did that (dinner for the mosquitoes),"  I replied; we'd probably too swollen with mosquito bites by morning to walk out of there alive.  

So on we traveled.  We decided it would be a lot easier to walk through a corn field adjacent to the grass land than to cut through the woods, so we followed the rows of a corn field for quite a while until we came back to a hiking trail.  

The soil in the cornfield was sandy, so the corn looked very sad, hardly better than grass (sorry for the photo quality; it was very hard to get good photos in the dusk).    Farther from the edge of the woods, the corn was a little better and we did see some ears, but they were rather small in comparison to normal good Iowa corn.

The hiking trail was paved with asphalt, and so it was extremely hard to see any of us who were wearing dark-colored clothes--as a matter of fact, it was hard to see anything!  We did make it back to our van after a long hike down the trail.  And we were ready for our next adventure in two days!

Pine Lake

     This time, our goal was another family excursion around Lower Pine Lake.  We've hiked around both Lower and Upper Pine Lake several times, and once we did a double-feature: when we reached where the path forks to go around the upper or lower lakes, 2/3rds of our group were far ahead of  the others.  We chose the path around the lower lake...and when the others came to the fork in the road, they chose the fork around the upper lake.  A ways down the road around the lower lake, we sat down and waited for the others to catch up...and we waited...and waited...and waited!  Finally we decided to go back and look for them, so we retraced our trail to the beginning, then followed the other fork for a ways, but could never find them.  So we decided they must have turned around and started looking for us, so we followed our path all the way around lower Pine Lake and then sat on a dock and waited until, lo, and behold, they met us coming from around the Upper Lake!  We both had had quite the adventures but were we ever glad to see each other again!

      This time we hoped our trip would be less dramatic, without surprise "good-byes" and happy reunions.  

The lake was beautiful as always.

We passed by several other walkers and joggers, and then took a look at this tunnel from a parking lot on one side of the highway to the trail by the beach. 

There's a very nice picnic shelter near the beach, and we rested in that area for a while watching the vultures soar overhead.  Sometimes we see bald eagles or pelicans at the lake, but not today.

The path is paved and there were benches and picnic tables here and there along the trail for weary travelers, but we were full of energy, and not so weary... so we walked on. 

When we came to the dam which separates Upper Pine Lake from Lower Pine Lake we were surprised!

It's not supposed to be like that...

For the second leg of the trip (around the other side of the lake), the path is not as high-class, but much more exciting!

The younger ones of us jogged around curves, leaped over steps, and hid under bridges to try to make it especially exciting for the others...

Yes, this is what the underside of a bridge looks like... ;)

We made it back home in good time--no more hikes in the dark!

If you're looking for a great place to take a hike, I definitely recommend Pine Lake.  If you are less adventurous, take the route we took around the lower lake. If you are more adventurous, give the Upper Lake a try.  To walk around the Upper Lake, you will need to walk through woods without paths, fjord a stream (or grab a tree limb and swing yourself over the creek), visit a raccoon grave-yard, cut your way through brambles, and avoid sinking in a swamp (with clay-colored water which stains shoes and socks).   I know from experience that the route around the upper lake is not for the faint in heart.  Whichever route you choose, I guarantee you will have fun--if you survive!  

God created this beautiful land, and we should forever thank Him!

 This land is mine!  This land is yours!  Enjoy it to the fullest!