Savanna Portage State Park

Savanna Portage State Park

—McGregor, MN—

Well, this one is interesting.  As far as hard-to-reach state parks go, it ranks up there despite being within not-too-extreme driving distance.  You'll find out more about this shortly...

So we ended this whirlwind trip of northern Minnesota ("on the range") at a state park that I have never been to before: Savanna Portage State Park.  To start, this park is really in the middle of nowhere Minnesota (we duly offer our apologies to the fine people living in McGregor for that statement, of course; it just isn't easy getting there!).  It is closer than a lot of the other parks, but because it is not near any large cities, it feels pretty remote.  And there are a bunch of lakes kind of blocking the way making you feel like you might have to spiral in to get there (at least from the direction we came from).  It is one of those places that has to be your destination far ahead of time, or you will never end up there.

We woke up early on Sunday morning and headed down to it.  Luke has been tracking all of the roads we have driven along every single trip to and from a state park, and I think this would be a challenge to retrace because it wasn't exactly direct.  Part of that was based on our decisions we made along the way and another (larger) part of it was the fact that there was only one way into the park as you wind around and kind of get funneled into the main drive going into Savanna Portage.

The back of the van says: "CAUTION Bird Watchers"... weird!

One of the funny things that happened on that day is that, while we were driving in the middle of nowhere (on a very remote gravel road), we ended up finding a small bird preserve with birders from Chicago stopping there on a birding tour.  Luke checked it out while Marcus and I stayed in the car – Marcus was actually sleeping at that time (good timing).  We didn't stay long before heading back down the small county road.  The birders that were here were driving across the country to see birds.  Seems kind of funny to go so far for birding to me, but I probably can't judge since I drove approx. 8,000 miles this summer in the name of state parks and geocaching!

When we finally got to the park after the long drive, we were ready to roll.  Marcus was wide awake and wanted to play.  We all got out of the car to check out the Visitors Center at this state park (oftentimes we are rushing through so that only one of us gets to run in).  Our intention for this state park was to knockout two geocaches while we were here: the regular Avian Adventure regular geocache and the Coniferous Biome Geocache.  The clues we would need later for finishing the Coniferous Biome Geocache were posted here at the Visitor Center.

Biome clues!  (See the next blog.)

Look at the cute Visitor Center—only one like it in the state
as far as we know.  Kind of the European half-timbered architecture.

The inside of the center was really cute.  Marcus loved checking out the display.  It was full of historical information on the Savanna Portage and explained why it was so important to the voyageurs and the Native Americans: "The park contains the historic Savanna Portage Trail that the Dakota and Ojibwe Indians, explorers and voyageurs found a challenge. The trail required a six mile portage across marsh, swamp, and forest which took an average of five days to reach the West Savanna River. Today, visitors can hike a large portion of the Savanna Portage Trail. Currently the eastern 1.6 miles of the trail is minimally maintained. 

Marcus loved the 3D topo map at the Visitor Center.  It is pretty cool!

Walk the Savanna Portage Trail, a historic trail traveled by fur traders, Dakota and Ojibwe Indians, and explorers more than 200 years ago. Savanna Portage State Park has 15,818 acres of rolling hills, lakes, and bogs. The Continental Divide marks the great division of water: water to the west flows into the Mississippi River; water to the east runs into Lake Superior. Visitors can hike the Continental Divide Trail and see forested vistas." —Minnesota DNR

One of the displays was a topographic map that showed the area and how the continental divide impacts where the water flowed.  Marcus LOVED this!

Incidentally, the continental divide separating the Mississippi watershed and the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence River watershed runs right through this area.  It is hilly and slightly higher elevation.  Historically, people would cross through the Savanna Portage's marshes to hop from one watershed to the other.  Rivers in their day were the superhighways of undeveloped North America.  It is interesting to think of the geography of the State of Minnesota without reference to any roads or cities and to view it simply in terms of its waterways, the rivers being a kind of hidden geography overlaying the usual layout in our mind's eye when we think about Minnesota.

Eventually, we finished playing and decided to head out geocaching.

When we finished playing at the Visitor Center, it was time to get to work and find the geocache.  We headed down the road to the first location.  It was actually quite a ways to go.  While heading there, we took a moment and stopped by the sign for the actual portage the park is named after.  Today there is a trail (and boardwalk) that runs for the majority of this path.  The sign just indicated where the old trail crossed the road.  (This was such an immensely-important trail to the voyageurs and Native Americans in the past!)  We got back in the car and headed towards our first geocaching location.

This brought us to one of the lakes on the state park property.  Marcus was so excited to be at a lake, and even better, it had a boat.  (Any time he sees a boat (or canoe/kayak right now), he says, "BOAT!" and points at it.)  He really wanted to climb in, but we held him back.

Full speed ahead!  While Marcus ran for the lake, I found the first clue behind the sign.  This really was a beautiful lake on a beautiful fall day.  Notice the canoes up here by the landing, also.

Funny enough, when we got to this dock there was a couple who were pulling out of the water and had been camping at the canoe camping site in the park as part of their 9th anniversary (they were married almost the same day we were, only one year later!).

Here are some great pics of Marcus and the lake.  It was a great day out.

Marcus learned the word "cattails."

"Please......"

The geocache coordinates were on a metallic plate was really nicely embossed alumium ("aluminium", or "Al" as Luke would write it).  This park ranger went all out!  (Well done!)  Easy to find and easy to read – I have no complaints, only compliments on this one.  

The fall colors were amazing!

We then set off down the road in search of the next stop.

Hmmm... that is not just a birdhouse at left... why, it is also a clue!

What's in there?

Marcus investigating this birdhouse
business...

And off we go to the next stop... once again, this was just an amazing fall day.

We started to get close, and we also had a poison ivy sighting.  That means that it was Mommy's turn to carefully head into the woods to find the final prize.

I found it!

Marcus examining his loot.

Our time at this park was not done... we still actually have one more geocache to do here—and it is an exciting one... the finish to the Coniferous Biome!  In the meanwhile, we had a nice hike back to the car.

See – Luke really was along for this one!

Here are some final pictures of this park.  It was pretty great.

Luke explaining things about trees to Marcus.

The color of this sugar maple was amazing.  I took a LOT of picture of it.

Iron Range Off-Highway Vehicle State Recreation Area

Iron Range Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) State Recreation Area

—Gilbert, MN—

A few months ago I heard a debate about adding a new off-road vehicle recreation area on Minnesota Public Radio.  At the time I really didn't understand what they were talking about.  After visiting the Iron Range Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) State Recreation Area, I know a lot more about this topic.

The premise behind the park is pretty interesting: it provides an environment for people to drive their OHV in a safer, more environmentally-friendly, controlled manner.  Here is what the Minnesota DNR has to say about the park: "Come and experience Minnesota's premier off-highway vehicle recreation area, located in Gilbert.  With 36 miles of OHV trails, whether you ride an ATV, an OHM, or an ORV, there is something for you! Trails range from Easy to More Difficult to Most Difficult..."

When we got the park, we didn't know to expect, but it was a busy place.  Luke ran inside to talk to the ranger (we were headed back to Biwabik for the evening and figured we had just enough time to jump off the highway and do a small detour to get this recreation area before it closed) while Marcus and I waited in the car.  We could see all kinds of ATVs, jeeps, and dirt bikes zooming by behind us.  It was busy!  It also looked like a really fun place to go if you are into ATVs or dirt biking.  In fact, if you are and live in Minnesota, I would definitely say you have to come here at least once!

The ranger gave Luke some advice on where the best place to park would be, and we headed off for our final adventure of the day.  One thing that was different here is that this was NOT a multi-cache (maybe the only time this happened) and so we only had to go to where the coordinates told us.  On the other hand, this is probably the one time we had to most be on our guard with all of the motorbiking activity and crisscrossing trails around.  But because we just had to find one spot, it made it so much easier than most of the parks.  I think this is just because they didn't want too many people wondering around the park on foot with all of the activity.

We had gotten to the park right about a hour before it closed, so we were moving quickly right away.

Check out the red soil.  I think some of our shoes are still ochre-colored weeks later!

Like we said, there was a LOT of activity here, and there was the sound of buzzing engines coming from every direction, fading in and out the whole time.  Very hilly terrain and surprisingly easy to get turned around with all these crisscrossing trails despite the fact that you don't really go that far in and there is not too much foliage!

When we got further up the trail, the GPS directions turned us into the woods and off the trail.  We left behind the trail and started walking into the woods.  This was actually a nice trade-off because it was a bit safer for us to let Marcus walk on the ground by himself in the trees.  The people on the bikes were actually not going that extremely fast, so it was generally safe to just carry Marcus along.  Every minute or so we could here another group coming down the trail we were on and just had to step aside.

It didn't take us long for us to see the tree ahead.  Marcus was getting pretty excited.  He knew what was coming!

Can you see the box back there "hiding"?—as Marcus would say.

A closer view.

We opened the box and found the card.  This was not a very busy geocache...  I think that this cache was mostly visited by serious geocachers and people like us who were working to finish the entire avian adventure... you really have to go out of the way to get to it.  But it was worth it.

We got the card and started to head back down.  We decided to take a different trail on the way down, and we were happily surprised by the view.

It wasn't too wooded up here, so we had a pretty good view of things as we trekked along.

Atop the hill, looking out over Gilbert ahead of us.

A pretty panoramic of the valley from the hilltop.

We hiked back to the car and started to head out of the park.  One of the interesting things about this park is that it has a wash-down station so people are able to remove the red soil from their Jeeps/ATVs/bikes...  It was fun to look at the OHV's and all that fun stuff going on here.

I bet people come from a long ways away to play at this park.

Check out the jacked-up pick up.

Cleaning their ATV off at the water station.  Lots of red clay!!!

With this bird card we are so close to done.  All that is left is two stops and three geocaches... so excited!

I didn't get a good picture of everything, but we were all pretty dirty from the red soil.  It got all over our shoes, pants, and even a bit on our faces from all of the dirt flying from the OHVs in the park.

See my red feet! That what I get for wearing sandals to this rec area!