Friday, September 2, 2022 Monson Lake State Park: Two Lakes, Invisible Sentries

Monson Lake State Park has much to commend it, not the least of which is that the hiking club trail is only 1 mile long. It’s a smallish park boasting of two lakes: West Sunberg and of course, Monson. We had come from a distance, so we didn’t get started on the hike until almost 3:00 p.m. on this sunny day. Although it was 81 degrees, the breeze made everything just right and it looked like we’d be well shaded along the way. We set forth with a song in our hearts and a spring in our steps.

I started taking photos right away. It gets challenging to find new things to photograph, but if I don’t limit myself to that standard, I happily trod along capturing what catches my eye.

It wasn’t long before I realized I was seeing a lot of spider webs. Maybe they’ve always been there on every hike, but once I started to hone in on them, it seemed that they were ubiquitous.

We even noticed delicate web threads across the path, as if they were set there as invisible sentries to detect our presence as we walked through them.

I thought about good old Bilbo and his taunt to the spiders in Mirkwood Forest. “Old fat spider spinning in a tree! Old fat spider can’t see me! Attercop! Attercop! Won’t you stop, stop your spinning and look for me?” Well, if there were large menacing spiders lurking in the woods at Monson Lake State Park, we never saw them and they left us alone. As opposed to the Upper Sioux Agency State Park, the frogs here were heard, but not seen, and definitely not underfoot, the way it should be.

We walked close to the two lakes at different parts of the trail. A fair amount of brush separated us from the shore, however, and occasionally we could tell that we startled some waterfowl as we could hear them flapping wings and moving in the water to distance themselves from us. Kris caught a glimpse and said they were ducks. The trail description noted that we’d be likely to see pelicans and sure enough, we did – way, way, way across the lake where they were no more than elegant looking tiny white shapes. Disappointing, but we can’t expect the pelican community to flock over to us for a photo op.

There were no maps on the trail and several forks in the path, so once again, we were glad to have the trail on the Avenza Map app that Kris uses. We weren’t in any hurry and took several side detours, feeling the luxury of time on our side. The entire hike was in shady, sun-dappled areas, which made it very pleasant indeed.

Short hike, short post! On a side note, my husband has been making a batch of beer while I’ve been working on this, so the whole process has been infused with that marvelous smell of hops. I really wish I could enjoy the taste of beer – I sure enjoy the smell of it being made.

Knee Score: 1 out of 10. Easy peasy, flat terrain.

I might not delete this post in the morning unless the smell of hops has dissipated.

Next hike: Sibley State Park