The Brownstone Trail and Bayfield

Tuesday Bud had to go back to a dentist in Duluth because his front tooth broke while we were in Black Beach Campground. He drove to Duluth then and they X-rayed and took impressions. The whole time we were in Duluth they couldn’t see him. So Tuesday he drove 90 miles back so they could pull the tooth, put a bone graft in, and give him a temporary fake tooth to hold the space open while everything heals. Anyway, Matey and I were at the camper and I decided to take Matey into town in the stroller. This is from the app that tracks our walks. I wanted to take the Brownstone Trail, which I thought I could access from a little dead end road just down the highway. I couldn’t find the trail. The little tail below the 13 is my aborted attempt.

I did make it into town,

which is quite pretty, and all hills.

This was the corner of Manypenny and Fifth. I took a photo of the sign just because I love the street name.

That would be a fun address. We walked down Manypenny…

to the harbor.

Bayfield is a touristy little town,

but nicely done.

There are several beautiful old places that are hotels and restaurants.

The hillsides afford nice views,

and everywhere you look there’s Lake Superior.

I was disappointed that I didn’t get to go on the Brownstone Trail, but I found out the part from town to the little road near us is not revamped and not bike or stroller friendly, but the trail did continue southwest, away from town. So the next day I decided to go that way.

This was better.

We walked behind some interesting old properties.

These people’s wood storage was art.

There were some steep portions, but it was doable.

The only lake views were right at the start of the trail,

and where I turned around.

I could have walked further, but I didn’t want to have to come back too far along the highway and I didn’t want to have Bud come and get us as he was hurting from the surgery on his mouth. So I backtracked to this little dirt road…

and only had a few hundred yards to come back along 13.

Today Bud was feeling better, so he agreed to pick me up and Matey and I got to walk to the end of the trail.

Turns out most of the rest of it was along a private road.

There were beautiful houses but I was most impressed with this. This bench and dog watering station…

were next to the Little Free Library,

built by a neighbor in memory of Peggy Foss Dollinger. What a lovely legacy!

Earlier today the three of us had gone into town to a short trail there.

This was the Iron Bridge Trail, part of the Big Ravine Nature Preserve.

At the start was this structure.

It’s an old apple storage shed built by William Knight into the slope beneath his house and made from fieldstones collected from his orchards. This area is known for apples and I was able to buy some Wealthy’s from a local orchard.

Just up the trail you get a glimpse of the iron bridge for which the trail is named. Those stakes are pieces of railroad rails implanted to catch debris when the creek floods to keep the debris out of the underground portion of the creek just below. The creek was rerouted after a flood buried downtown in mud and debris in 1942.

The bridge from below. The wrought iron bridge was built across the ravine in 1912 by Wausau Iron Works.

The trail continued up the ravine, now forested.

Looking back down you can see the bridge and the rather unusual ground cover of ferns and equisetum.

There was a trickle of a waterfall…

that came down in steps along the trail, which was starting to climb here.

We went up…

and up,

and came out of the ravine by the school. Can you see the peak of the old school completely surrounded by the newer parts? That part was the new school when the bridge was built to give easier access from Catholic Hill to School Hill.

We walked down the street and across the iron bridge, a pedestrian only bridge since the 60’s.

There’s a nice view from the middle and you can see where the creek goes into the culvert where it now flows under downtown and out to the lake.

We continued down the streets,

past more pretty houses.

We came back to the parking lot from the other side and saw this building,

the old jail.

Then we went into the hills to get apples for me and came down to the shore and went to Red Cliff where Bud was able to get smoked whitefish and frozen walleye from the Red Cliff Chippewas, or Ojibways or as they call themselves, the Anishinaabeg. It’s nice to get a taste of a place, as well as taking in the sights.