Judge C.R. Magney State Park

Judge C.R. Magney State Park

—Grand Marais, MN—

I have been to the North Shore many times and thought that I had explored most of it, but this geocache challenge has shown me that I have missed a lot of the north shore: of the 8 states parks on the Lake, I had not been to three of them, including this one.  This park is really far up north (north of Grand Marais) and pretty quiet.  It is named after a judge who was instrumental in helping create all of the parks on the north shore.

"Come for the quiet, the solitude, and the famous Devil's Kettle waterfall. The most popular hike leads from the trailhead upstream along the Brule River to Devil's Kettle, where the river splits around a mass of volcanic rock. Half of the river plunges 50 feet into a pool, while the rest pours into a huge pothole. Anglers can catch brook and rainbow trout in the Brule River or its tributary, Gauthier Creek." —Minnesota DNR website

When we arrived at the park we stopped by the ranger station and found our first location.  We entered the coordinates to the next stop and learned that it was a car ride away.  This park was actually about an hour from our first stop at Grand Portage State Park, and Marcus took a nap during that time.  Fortunately, he was waking up just in time to help explore this park.

We pulled into the parking lot for our next stop, and it was right at a trail head with a few different trails leading from it.  We asked Marcus if he wanted to "walk" or "stroll" – as I have said before, he has opinions these days, and he chose to walk, so we grabbed our stuff and set off.

At the end of the parking lot there was another path.  The coordinates brought us right there, and we found the next location – posted on this Raspberry sign.  This was one of the fun things about this park -  there were lots of signs identifying the nature around them.  

Wild raspberries.

The GPS told us that the next location would be right up the path ahead of us.  We had grabbed a map at the rangers station (actually two), but somehow both Luke and I left them in the car, not our smartest move.  Fortunately, we found a map on the trail and took a picture just in case we needed to refer to it later.  Marcus and Luke spent some time studying to make sure we were headed the right way.

We headed up the trail and quickly discovered that it was a good thing we had not brought Marcus's stroller – with the uneven ground and high grass, it would have been difficult to push.  Marcus, however, got a little tired and decided that he would rather be carried than walk.  Two minutes later he would want to walk again... it was a never-ending cycle.

The path we took was pretty and remote.  We saw a lot of fun things while hiking on it.

Bright red mushroom.

"Down."

"Carry me."

The woods were beautiful.

Luke and I took turns wrangling Marcus – sometime that is the best way to describe it.  He LOVES walking through the woods and gets easily distracted by birds, grass, rocks, and anything else that catches his eye.  It is awesome how he is so enchanted by the world around him.

After about 0.5 miles we found the next location – once again listed on a sign teaching us about a plant.  The path we were on was a circle, and it was kind of hard to tell which way we needed to walk in order to make it to the next destination, so we moved on forward to continue on the path.

We kept on hiking but eventually figured out that we had chosen incorrectly and that the location was actually behind us on the path.  Since we had almost completed the loop, we decided to just continue and complete that part of the loop again.

 We finally got to our final location – adding about an extra half mile to our hike (fortunately, it was easy).  The funniest part is that I totally remember seeing this bench on the hike the first time around. 

Marcus was ecstatic to reach the goal – love this face!

 We grabbed our cards and hit the trail again – after all, this was only park #2 for the day, and we had a lot more to go!  One of the sad things about powering through this many state parks is that it means we are missing some really cool things we would like to see.  This park has a trail that sounds super fun.  It leads to a waterfall on the Brule River called the Devil's Kettle – this waterfall falls into a hole in the rock and goes underground only to come out somewhere completely different downstream.  It is actually a gigantic mystery, and no one knows where it really goes or how deep despite scientists using colored dyes, ping pong balls, etc. to try and see where the water finally emerges again (it is one of the World's Biggest 5 Holes in this YouTube video).  I think that for our next trip I would love to do this.  Maybe for our 10th anniversary (hint, hint) since we went to the North Shore for our honeymoon.

"Let's see what we've got here..."