Cascade River State Park: a Mixed Review

Monday we crossed back into the US, a total nonevent, and stopped at Grand Portage State Park, just as you enter Minnesota. This park was free, had RV and trailer parking and nice paved walkways up to High Falls on the Pigeon River, which forms the border here. Very nice.

We were stretching our legs and taking our time because we gained an hour crossing the border and check-in wasn’t until 4PM (now Central Time) at Cascade River State Park where we were headed.

We got here right at four, only to find that the office closed at four and the map on the wall didn’t show where the water fill station was. Another camper stopped behind us told us that.

We found water and our site, but as you can see by our needing three blocks under both right side wheels, the site is not at all level.

It does have reasonable privacy and 50 Amp service, though. That’s nice, but despite having one of the most open sites in the campground, we have very little open sky and Starlink is struggling and we have inconsistent connectivity.

But then there is the river and the trails. This is the Cascade River. It is much smaller than the Pigeon River…

but just as pretty.

There are trails up one side, across a bridge,

and down the other, so you get plenty of opportunities to see the cascades that gave the river its name.

At the bottom the river flattens…

and just on the other side of the highway flows into Lake Superior.

This was our only view of the lake that day because there was construction at the lake access here.

Another day we found a different trail along Lake Superior. This is still the north shore, and though not as rugged as it is east of Nipigon, in Ontario, it’s still quite beautiful.

No beaches, but nice flat rocky places to walk.

Between the highway and the lake is a picnic area. It’s part of the park, but there is no fee for stopping here.

There’s a nice bit of trail…

through some very old arborvitae.

Looks like they are doing some reclamation work here, but unfortunately for us the trail disintegrated into two muddy ruts and we ended up bushwhacking a hundred feet up a thickly grown bank to get back to the highway and the campground entrance. Neither Bud nor Matey were impressed.

I’ve found a lot to like here, including this tree which might just be the gnarliest tree I’ve ever seen. But the check-in experience was not good and now we’ve found they’ve closed the trailer dump station, so we can’t drain our waste tanks when we leave. Add to that the inconsistent internet and the fact that YouTube TV just stopped working because it’s been too long since we’ve watched in our “home area”, and you can guess we’ll be happy enough to be on our way tomorrow.