Jay Cooke State Park

Jay Cooke State Park

Our final state park for the day was Jay Cooke State Park.  This is just south of Duluth by the small town of Thomson, MN, and it really has the North Shore feel to it.  The river that rolls through it is fast and beautiful, and the view is wonderful.  This is a really big state park with lots to see.  Since we were only there for a few hours, it is going on the list of places we need to return.  I have to admit that I did not document this park very well, so there are not as many pictures along the way as one would hope!

Jay Cooke Park Office.

Location # 1 – right in the parking lot

Marcus overlooking the river and loving it!

We took the path that went down by the river.  Luke was smarter this time and had his boots on just in case we ran across any mud (which we did, but it was not so bad).  The funniest thing we encountered was a downed tree that we had to lift the stroller over.

It took a while, but we finally found the second location.  At this point we realized that it was going to send us down the path we had already hiked in order to find the rest of the stages.  Sometimes it happens this way – you just figure out you took the wrong path, but it is never a big deal.  The funny thing is that it means we had already passed all of the rest of the locations without even noticing them.

Luke adding the coordinates to his old Garmin GPS.

We quickly found our way to the third location.

Can you see the final cache?

Marcus pointing to a "bock bock" on the river.

As Luke always calls them (and blue jays): "Our friendly neighborhood corvid."

Smart bird.  Oh, look!  Shiny...

The swinging bridge that was built during the Great Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) has had its share of being wiped out by the St. Louis River (the largest river that flows into Lake Superior that is in the United States).  The river this day was quite high.  There are usually rocks visible in the gorge below the newly rebuilt swinging bridge (it was last destroyed in 2012), but they are covered by the high waters at the time.

The ammo box that is the final geocache with the avian cards. 

We all had to cross the swinging bridge.  Marcus wanted to start climbing up the rocky hillside as soon as we got across! 

There were some extremely gutsy kayakers there looking at the river that day as seen here from the parking lot side of the swinging bridge. 

Fascinating geology at Jay Cooke!