Jay Cooke State Park: An Odyssey

Anniversary Trip Day One. We love being up on the north shore of Lake Superior so we decided to combine our hiking club adventures with a 4-day weekend up here to celebrate 34 years of marriage. Four days, four hikes. Let’s get started, shall we?

We’ve both been to Jay Cooke State Park before as children and even brought our own children here about 15-20 years ago or so. However, once we got here, we were like Gandalf in the Mines of Moria: “I have no memory of this place.”

We brought our tripod with us on this trip so we could give our overworked and unpaid photo guru a much deserved break. We salute you, Rich (metaphorically, since clearly we aren’t saluting in this photo).

The hike starts off by going over the Swinging Bridge over the St. Louis River. Reading about that ahead of time, I feared that this swinging bridge would be like those you see in movies, swinging wildly with every breeze, narrow, rickety and with rotting boards that might break under your foot at any moment, plunging you into the gorge far below. Sometimes an imagination like mine is really annoying. In reality, the swinging bridge at Jay Cooke is a very sturdy affair with barely detectable swinging. Works for me. The river at that point is shallow and sprinkled with little waterfalls, roiling waters and lots of rocks – a beautiful sight.

Once we got past the bridge, we also left behind most of the tourists – there were very few people doing the hike and we were alone on these green and pleasant trails – just the way we like it.

I have been reading through Homer’s Odyssey for the first time (I feel like my brain got bigger just by being able to write that) and we had discussed it on the way up here, so the story was on my mind. It occurred to me that we should consider this hike an odyssey and look for the various creatures that plagued Odysseus along the way: the Cyclops, the Sirens, and of course Scylla and Charybdis. Kris observed that in this scenario, he would be the Cyclops and I would be the Siren. Funny guy! I was feeling hot and sweaty and decidedly un-Sirenish, so I told him that no matter what I was singing, anybody seeing me would turn around and run the other direction.

At any rate, Kris spotted the Cyclops early on in our odyssey, which was fitting, since the ordeal with the Cyclops was the first one that Odysseus and his men encountered on their way home from Troy. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Cyclops of Jay Cooke State Park:

We passed a couple going the other way who warned us that the trail ahead was often muddy and they did not exaggerate – we often had to circumvent the trail on either side to avoid large muddy puddles and slippery mud slides. It reminded me of how Poseidon (who turned out to be the Cyclops’ dad and who was decidedly angry about the whole blinding-the-cyclops thing) began making the journey treacherous for Odysseus and his ill-fated crew as they traversed the seas. We had it easy, compared to them.

Kris brought my old camera this time and wore a nice harness to keep it handy for taking photos, so now both of us were stopping along the way to capture what we saw.

Scylla is a six-headed monster that lurks in a cavern near the sea. If a ship gets too close to her lair, she shoots out her hideous heads and grabs six men from the ship and bolts them down raw. Definitely to be avoided, but if you veer too far away from Scylla’s reach, you enter into Charybdis’s mighty whirlpools of death. Hence, instead of saying that you’re between a rock and a hard place, you may now use the phrase, “between Scylla and Charybdis,” to the same effect. Finding Scylla was going to be tough. We looked for an obstruction hanging over the trail, but the only thing of that type that we saw were these straggly branches with yellow flowers – not very scary.

We spotted some branches with clusters of round hanging “berries,” that could perhaps (with a LOT of imagination) look like the heads of Scylla. Beggars can’t be choosers.

The last third of the the 3.5 mile loop was a rather strenuous uphill climb. When I checked my phone’s health app after the hike was over, it informed me that I had climbed 21 flights of stairs. I began breathing deeply and slowly in the hopes of taking in more oxygen for my poor wee muscles and to make the ascent easier. This was moderately successful. By the way, if I say “Breathe deep…” what comes next in your mind? If you’re of my generation, you’ll be saying “…the gathering gloom” (from Nights in White Satin). But if you’re of my children’s generation, you might say instead “…fly high” (from Dinotopia). Just another one of my useless observations that you will read and forget immediately.

When we got near to the end of the hike, we were back by the river, so we took a small detour to go and sit on some rocks and have our Clif bars.

It was here that I found Charybdis and the Sirens. Behold the roiling waters of Charybdis:

The Sirens are harder to pluck out of this scene, but bear with me. The sound of a waterfall always draws you to it, doesn’t it? While it’s not high pitched, like the sirens, it is thrilling and alluring. And when you are standing near a waterfall, especially near the top, it’s quite mesmerizing – you even find yourself having a strange impulse to throw yourself in. The Sirens are “creatures who spellbind any man alive…the high, thrilling song of the Sirens will transfix him…”. It’s a stretch, but I’ll stand by it: waterfalls.

Back on the other side of the bridge again, Kris wanted to wash the mud off his boots in the river and we found some purple coneflowers that had to be photographed.

And now in honor of our anniversary, I’ll close with these words from the Odyssey about marriage:

“No finer, greater gift in the world than that…when man and woman possess their home, two minds, two hearts that work as one. Despair to their enemies, a joy to all their friends. Their own best claim to glory.” Oh yes.

Next stop: Split Rock Lighthouse State Park with a 5.8 mile trail. Gulp.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning…when young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shines once more.

Next Hike: Split Rock Lighthouse State Park