We just couldn’t get enough of the Superior National Forest.

We had one more waterfalls to hike to in order to complete our survey of waterfalls at Tettegouche State Park. This required a more vigorous 3-mile trek over rocks, boulders, tree roots, a swinging foot bridge, hundreds of stairs, and climbing steep hills. The thick forest, the gushing Baptism River, the overlooks, the falls, and that awesome swinging foot bridge made it all worthwhile.

The arduous 3 mile trail to the falls.

This hike actually had a side benefit - a spur trail to another smaller waterfalls. Of course, to access it required down, and then back up, a long steep 200 step staircase. We just couldn’t say no. I counted the steps and I only got 196 steps.

After that invigorating walk, we rewarded ourselves with a leisurely ebike ride on the Gitchi-Gami Bike Trail along the Lake Superior coast. Starting at a boat landing parking lot, we first headed south on the paved bike trail. The trail weaved up-and-down steep hills and in-and-out of thick woods. The hill tops afforded us great views of the big blue lake. This trail was not a converted rails-to-trails route which are always level. Our electric assist bike, however, made easy work of the hills. I know, purists moan the need for the assist, but for us typical “nearly 70 year olds” it is a godsend.

Our first stop was Iona’s Beach, or commonly referred to as the Red Beach due to the smooth red gravel that appeared to be poured in along a mile of beach. Of course, the gravel wasn’t brought in by trucks. It was built by Lake Superior beating the piss out of the red ledges behind the beach for a few thousand years.

Walking on the gravel was quite the chore as our feet squished and twisted in the deep gravel banks. Kids were tossing the red rocks into the lake as the lake’s waves returned red rocks back up on the beach. I believe that Lake Superior would win that battle.

A bit farther south on the Gitchi-Gami trail brought us to Gooseberry Falls State Park, home of the 5 Falls Hiking Trail. The Gooseberry River really puts on a show over its final mile before getting swallowed up by Lake Superior. The five waterfalls are more like one long tumbling series of falls and ledges. The path to the lower half of the falls area is a wide civilized paved road. The upper area requires a more primitive hike through the forest. Due to time, we only checked out the civilized sections.

Gooseberry Fall State Park was as far south as we got. We headed back north, but we went past our boat landing starting point to see if we could check out the Split Rock Light House, another 5 miles north of the boat landing.

Accessing the Split Rock Light House State Park from the bike trail got a bit complicated. Part of the walking trail that connected the bike trail to the light house was closed - a bridge was out. We tried bushwhacking our way, but that didn’t yield any results. Sadly, we turned back to the boat landing.

The boat landing wayside where we caught the Gitchi-Gami Bike Trail.

Iona’s Beach, better known as the Red Beach.

A long bike bridge over the Gooseberry River provides a gorgeous overlook of the river and the Gooseberry Falls State Park.

Gooseberry Falls.

One of the overlooks of Lake Superior from the Gitchi-Gami Bike Trail.

We wanted to get back to the Northwoods Family Grill in Silver Bay. Wednesday’s special was spaghetti. For some reason I really craved spaghetti after we missed out on yesterday’s taco Tuesday special. (I forgot to mention that Monday’s meatloaf special was fantastic. The words, meatloaf and fantastic, usually aren’t associated together, but I swear, Monday’s meatloaf was really really good.)

Glossary of terms used for newcomers: 1) V-Jer. The name of our camper. 2) Saturn. The name of our Van. 3) Duende. Our mischievous gremlin that breaks things. 4) Tata. The good gremlin that helps us fix Duende’s dirty work. 5) The Black Hole. This is what we call Walmart because every time we go in for just a couple of items, we come out spending way more than we figured. 6) QT. Quaint Town. 7) Little Buddy. This is what we call our Dyson cordless stick vacuum. 8) “ing-ing”. All the activities that we enjoy that end in “ing” - hiking, ebiking, motor biking, camping, boating, swimming……

Dave and Wanda

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