OKAY, We Can Leave Now

There is only one hiking trail on the mainland part of Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, and that trail starts here, at Meyers Beach.

It runs through the woods for almost two miles before it comes out along the cliffs you can see in the distance. Of course I wanted to walk it, but it would mean an almost 5 mile round trip, and neither Bud nor Matey would do that. So today I went alone.

The first three quarters of a mile was entirely on wooden planks, with steps through the gullies…

and bridges over creeks and ravines.

This appears to be mushroom season,

and the leaves are just starting to turn.

The plankway ended in a well worn track.

There were bridges and I was happy to take this new bridge instead of the steep trail.

There were still some pretty steep places to negotiate.

Then, after 1.8 miles, the lakeshore, just as promised.

There was a bridge across this ravine and fencing to keep people off the natural bridge that still remained.

To the right of the trail bridge the ravine ended in a cave.

It seemed that every vista…

was more spectacular than the last.

I found another entry for my tree hall of fame.

He was clinging on the wall above some lake caves.

Cliffs,

crevices,

overhangs,

and caves, some really big caves, lined the shore.

See the couple on the other side? I waited for them to get in sight to show the scale.

Better yet, I caught these kayakers coming out of the cave.

The last section I visited is called the bowl.

I walked to the far end of the bowl for these shots.

That’s about as close to the edge as I wanted to get, and this is where I turned around. From what I read the spectacular stuff ended here.

On the way back I saw that one of the points I’d walked out on had a water passage underneath it.

It was a beautiful day and a beautiful place, well worth the 4.77 mile walk. I won’t feel bad moving on, now.