Friday, October 29, 2021 Wild River State Park: Quaking Trees and Creeping Vines

Hiking season isn’t over until the snow lady sings, right? It’s been such a beautiful fall here in Minnesota that we’ve decided to squeeze in a few more hikes before it gets too cold. Now that we’re both retired, we have a little more flexibility on taking day trips during the week, so we recently went up to Wild River State Park along the St. Croix River. I’d like to tell you that the river was wild. I’d like to tell you that our hike turned into a saga for the ages. But momma didn’t raise no liar, so you’ll just have to hope that in spite of an ordinary hike, this will turn into a tale worth reading.

It took us nearly 2 hours to get to the park, but when you’re driving in the fall, even through big cities, it’s like driving through magical kingdoms where the trees and bushes all raise their fiery banners in welcome. The Sumac Kingdom was especially glorious, I must say. You’ll have to imagine it because photos through car windows are not very satisfying.

Wild River State Park is a relative young ‘un among the parks. I was in my second year of college when it became an official state park in 1978. Now I feel old. The days are just starting to get a little cooler – it was around 41 degrees when we got there, cool enough to make me glad that I had some wrist warmers in my pocket.

We drove to the visitor center where we would be starting the 3.3 mile hike. We checked out the visitor center first and took a few photos from the observation deck. I wish you could see it the way we saw it – I really missed my Nikon camera (recently stolen), but even with the most amazing camera technology, photographs don’t capture what you observe with all your senses.

The trail started out paved, strewn with leaves. Don’t you just love the swish ‘n’ crackle of walking on leaves?

Before long we were taking the right turn toward Amik’s Pond, but listen up – our path would not take us by the pond. I didn’t want you to get your hopes up like I did.

I’m going to go all “botanist” on you now because we recently rediscovered our “Picture This” app and have been like kids in a candy store identifying everything in sight. So here we have a cluster of Lady ferns looking a little embarrassed at being caught so late in the season as their green dresses fade to brown.

And if you haven’t picked a favorite tree yet, I’d like to commend the Quaking Aspen, known in scientific circles as populus tremuloides (kind of seems like made-up Latin, doesn’t it?). It’s not as showy as some trees, but oh, the joy of watching the bright leaves shimmer and shake in even the slightest breeze. That’s a lot of bang for your buck, I’m telling you.

Along the way, I took this photo of an extremely RARE event: Kris was behind me on the trail.

You’ll note that most of my photos show him in front of me because I’m often dawdling while taking copious photos. But Kris has been reading a book called Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold and it has inspired him to new heights of identifying plants and trees and slowing down to take careful notes and photos along the way. Perhaps a new blog will be forthcoming? We can only hope. (Side note: I’m trying to imagine the conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Leopold upon the birth of their son when one of them says, “Let’s name him Aldo!” and the other one actually agrees to this madness.)

Speaking of dawdling, I’d better move this along. We saw a bright red Virginia Creeper creeping up the side of a tree.

I feel a poem coming over me…
The Virginia Creeper creepily creeps
In and among the forest deeps
And when the Creeper creepily crept
It squeezed the bark until it wept.
Don’t imagine the Creeper stops creeping
Just because the trees are all sleeping.
And you’re not safe, I tell you true,
If you stand too still, it’ll creep on you!

There – I’m glad to get that out of my system. We went through a part of the trail where the birch trees almost formed an arch for us to pass under. Put on your Anne of Green Gable hats and tell me what you would name that. I will judge all entries fairly. I’d name it myself, but we must keep going.

We came at last the the riverside part of the trail – sweet! I would definitely vote this the Best Riverside Trail of the Minnesota State Parks That We’ve Hiked So Far. That’s probably too wordy of an award. It turns out this trail is a continuation of the Walter F. Mondale Trail that we encountered at Interstate State Park. Small world! 🙂 I like to think of young Walter skipping merrily along this trail as a young lad.

We turned away from the river briefly, but the consolation prize was being able to cross over a teeny tiny creek on a handsome little bridge.

We kept seeing tree roots on the path, the kind that could trip you if you weren’t very nimble on your feet. A park employee had thoughtfully spray painted them red to assist us in being nimble footed.

There was a short push uphill to get to the Nevers Dam overlook, where according to the brochure, “the world’s largest pile-driven dam once stood.” It’s hard to get excited about seeing a dam that isn’t there anymore. We took photos anyway.

After that, we left the river (and Walter Mondale, presumably) for good and were on the back side of the hike. We came to a fork in the trail that confused us momentarily and then my clever husband noted that although the sign was gone, someone with a “can-do” approach to life had taken their pocket knife and scratched in the directions so we’d know which way to go. We were bound for the Old Logging Trail, so we went left. Thank you, Anonymous Friend.

We then encountered the steepest uphill part of the trail, paved and with moss charmingly draped over the curbs on either side. We hoped this was not the infamous road paved with good intentions – that probably would have been going downhill, right?

When we got to the top, a picnic table awaited us and we took a short break to have our snacks and water. I had boasted to Kris that I could make our own Clif bars, but hadn’t actually done it yet, so he had a Clif bar and I took a walk on the wild side by having a Kind bar instead. We had a fun debate about the relative merits of these two snack bars, thus proving that you can take any old topic and create controversy out of it.

The last part of the hike was a long straight walk on the Old Logging Trail.

As we walked on the leafy, paved road, Kris began to look more closely at the mostly oak leaves under our feet, trying to identify them by memory.

He began listing the different kinds of oaks: white, red, burr, and pin oak and then lastly came up with the “oaky-doaky” tree. Applause, please!

We finished the hike in two hours. We conquered the Wild River!

Knee Score: 4 out of 10 (great trails but some ups and downs)
Total miles so far: 113.2 out of 197.

I’ll probably delete this while hiking along the Old Blogging Trail.

Next hikes: Charles A. Lindbergh and Crow Wing State Parks