Hiking the Baptism River Mouth and Cascade Falls Trail in Tettegouche State Park, Minnesota

This is a continuation of a travel series to Wisconsin and Minnesota's North Shore.  To start at the beginning, go HERE.   The rest of the posts in consecutive order are HERE,  HERE, HERE, and HERE!

After enjoying the morning soaking in the views at Palisade Head and Shovel Point, we had a nice picnic lunch then headed out for our last hike of the day:  the Cascade Trail.

We picked up the trail behind the visitor's center so we could enjoy the views of the Baptism River Mouth. If you want to make your hike shorter to the falls, you can skip this part and park in a lot closer to the start of the Cascade Falls trail;  but then you would miss out on all this beauty, so why would you want to do that? 😉

Baptism River Mouth Trail

The Baptism River Mouth Trail is a short trail that provides beautiful overlooks of where the Baptism River flows into Lake Superior.  You can also hike a few flights of stairs down to the shore line if you'd like.

This is really a pretty spot, not to be overlooked, so I highly recommend not missing it if you ever get a chance to visit this park.

The rock formations in this area are just breath-taking, and I love all the extra interest the beautiful pines provide as well.

There is a road bridge right above this spot,  so if you want to avoid hiking at all, and just see the view, you can drive onto the bridge and enjoy!

                         Cascade Falls Trail

The Cascade Falls Trails is an easy, 1.8 mile out and back trail that meanders along the river with the highlight of a lovely waterfall at the end.

This is a short, easy trail, so take your time and enjoy all the scenic views along the way!

At the very end, you have to scramble over or around some large rocks, but it is worth it to see this view.  

Cascade Falls is the closest waterfall to Lake Superior so it is small;  the waterfall is like a slide with a 12 foot drop.

It is a wonderful spot to slip off your shoes and enjoy the cool water.

I always like to include a video of any waterfall because I think you get so much more of an idea of what the area is like through a video than any photo.  Enjoy!

 

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

My Late Fall Garden and My Favorite New Garden Recipes

Although I am sad to report the garden seasoning is over,  I am thrilled to say that due to a very warm fall I completed all my fall garden chores!  Usually the cold and snow sneaks up on me so fast that I can't even finish chopping everything down;  but not this year!  I got everything done, so I won't have to be doing fall chores in the spring.

This will be the last gardening post of the year.  If I have a beautiful snow fall and I'm thinking the garden looks stunning with the fresh fallen snow, I may take photos of the garden in winter;  but that will be 2023.

This is what my garden looks like after every last flower has finished blooming, and before everything is cut down to the ground.

Even if all the fresh beauty has faded, I'm always awestruck with how pretty and colorful the garden can still look in the fall.

There are layers of fall color in the fall garden, from the yellowing leaves of the Asiatic Lilies to the colorful leaves in the forest beyond the garden gate.

Both my husband and I were stunned the way our bushes produced so much fall color this year.  We usually only expect trees to give us fall foliage, but bushes can also provide fall color.

The bright orange bush below is one of my garden favorites.  It provides interest all season long.  In the spring it has yellow flowers, in the summer it has green foliage, in the fall it looks like this, and in the winter it is covered in red berries.  Just don't ask me the name.  I have no idea. 😉

These yellow leaves are from a lilac bush.

And this yellow bush is a Viburnum.

The photo below is what the garden looks like when everything but the bushes have been cut down to the ground.  I'm so happy to have my work done for the year.  It leaves me with such a great sense of satisfaction knowing I won't be overwhelmed with extra work come spring.

I had a little feral friend come to visit me while I was gardening.  He wouldn't come close enough to me to let me pet him, but he was sure interested in my water bottle.

This little guy I almost stepped on while walking back to the house.  We have so many frogs in our yard!  Good! Eat those snails and slugs boys!

I was harvesting broccoli right up unto frost.  The plants would not stop producing!  I finally just got tired of picking broccoli everyday and processing it, so I ripped up the plants.  I know, it seems wasteful, but I have a chest freezer full of broccoli now, I have no idea if we will even be able to eat it all.  

And now, I want to share some favorite summer recipes I loved!  

In the spring, we went Blueberry picking and we gathered enough blueberries to fill four gallon freezer bags.  I made several desserts and muffins, and put blueberries in all my smoothies, and I still have three gallon freezer bags left over.  These blueberries should be enough to last me the rest of the winter for sure!

Blueberry Peach Crisp

I have never made a Blueberry Peach Crisp before so I decided to give it a try.  

I love the way peaches and blueberries look together.  So pretty.  I liked this recipe, but honestly, it was a bit too sweet for my taste.  I think I will either stick to Apple Crisp or try and find a recipe with less sugar. If you're interested in making this recipe, you can find it HERE.

                       Zucchini "Apple" Crisp

Like most gardeners, I always have a surplus of zucchini, and, I always manage to find some gigantic zucchini that I somehow missed that has grown into the size of a caveman club.  Most people just feed those extra-large zucchini to the chickens or toss them in the compost bin, but I actually found a recipe that uses those club-size zucchini:  "Mock Apple Crisp"

I had my doubts when making this recipe.  Everyone said it tasted "just like apple crisp".  So I decided to give it a try, and you know what?  It does taste just like apple crisp.  My husband loved it and said, "Why ever make apple crisp again, if you can make it out of zucchini?  It's a lot cheaper!"

The trick is slicing the zucchini to look like apple slices and cooking the zucchini in lemon juice.  The zucchini absorbs the lemony flavor giving it a tart like taste you'd find in apples.  It truly is amazing!  And the best part is, the recipe uses 8 CUPS of Zucchini!  It's a great dish to make if you have a lot of zucchini.

You can find this recipe HERE!

       Chocolate Chip Zucchini Banana Muffins

This next recipe also uses zucchini and I found it on Instagram HERE, from Half Baked Harvest.  That lady can cook!  How she stays so skinny eating all this delicious food I have no idea. 

I thought these muffins were quite tasty and nutritious since they are low sugar, and use both zucchini and bananas, but I didn't think they were sweet enough, which is funny since I usually think most baked goods are too sweet.  She uses honey instead of sugar in her recipe, so maybe that is why.  I even added the extra honey she recommended if you like a sweeter taste, plus I made the honey butter, and it still wasn't very sweet.  BUT, I still liked them, it was the chocolate chips that sold me!

                   Blueberry Oatmeal Cookies

During blueberry picking season, I found this recipe in my electric coop magazine and they looked so scrumptious I decided to make them.  Wow! Were these good!  Both my hubby and I loved them, and I think as far as cookies go, they are pretty healthy too!  Unfortunately, because the recipe was in a magazine, I lost it 😢 but I found THIS ONE on Pinterest that looks pretty similar.

 I hope you enjoyed my last garden post for the year!  Now it's time to relax by the fire and dream of next years garden.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

Enjoying the Views at Palisade Head and Shovel Point in Tettegouche State Park, Minnesota

This is a continuation of a travel series to Wisconsin and Minnesota's North Shore.  To start at the beginning, go HERE.   The rest of the posts in consecutive order are HERE,  HERE, and HERE.

Palisade Head

On our last day of exploring Minnesota's North Shore on Scenic Highway 61 we went to Tettegouche State Park.  This is a beautiful park filled with lots of fun trails where you can get amazing views of Lake Superior and lots of waterfalls!

We had actually visited this park before, around thirty years ago, so this was our second time back.  Because we had been here before, we decided to hit some trails we missed on our first visit.  The first place we went to was Palisade Head to see the sun rise.  Now, this can either be a hike where you park in a small parking lot right off of Highway 61 and hike a half mile up, OR, you can drive up the road, park in the lot at the top and enjoy the gorgeous view.  We chose the latter. Why walk when you can drive?  However, I have heard during super busy times you may not have a choice and will have to walk up.  The road is super narrow, and I can't even imagine having to share it with other vehicles or hikers.  When we were there, we never saw a single soul:  we had the whole place to ourselves!  So I suggest, get there early and watch the beautiful sun rise like we did!

Palisade Head is a large rock formation that is nearly 350 tall.  On a good day, you can see everything from the Sawtooth Mountains in the Northeast, Split Rock Lighthouse to the Southwest,  and even the Apostle Islands over 30 miles away.

Here's an interesting fact about its name:  A "palisade" is an English word for a defensive wall.  A "head" in geology describes deposits of minerals often resulting in flat hilltops.  I think knowing this information, the rock formation is aptly named.

Shovel Point Trail

After soaking up the views at Palisade Head it was back in the car to the entrance of Tettegouche State Park.  The first trail we took was on a whim.  I just saw a beautiful scenic photo on a display wall at the Visitor's Center  and said "I want to go there!" so off we went!

This is a 1.2 mile out-and-back trail considered easy, but I was surprised at the number of people who couldn't complete the whole trail while I was there, and turned around at some point.  It was such a shame, because the view at the very end of the trail, was worth every step.

Almost all of the trail is a series of steps and boardwalks, and I think it's all the steps that turn a few people off.  But there are always plenty of spots just to stop and rest and soak in all the views!

See that point at back right center in the photo below?  That is Shovel Point and where we are headed on our hike.

The trail through the forest is absolutely beautiful.  The boardwalk not only keeps the forest floor safe from erosion but it's easy on the feet and limbs too.

Yes, there's a lot of stairs, but they do their best to make the incline as gentle as possible.  I do recommend walking sticks, because they work well as a "handrail" when coming down a steep stair case like this one.

 I read that there is a total of 300 stairs on the trail.

Did I mention the incredible view of this trail?  The cliff way in the back center of the photo below is Palisade Head, where we stood on top of just that morning to watch the sun rise.  And a little closer, you can see some sea caves.

But it is at the very end of the travel, when you are standing on the very edge of Shovel Point that you can see this!  Wow!  What an experience! Hubby and I kept saying it reminded us of an upper east coast line.  So gorgeous!

Shovel Point is 656 feet tall, so you are way up there once you reach the top.

The park made a nice, safe staircase leading down to the very point so you can look out at both the water and back at the coast line. 

We hiked three trails in the park on this day, but this one was our absolute favorite.  It's not a long hike at all, they say you can complete it in thirty minutes, but we found that laughable.  The joy in hiking is to soak everything in:  the views, the forests, the sounds, the animals, the wildflowers...it takes a lot longer than thirty minutes to do all that.

Finally, here is a short video of me standing out on Shovel Point expressing all the "feels" I had at the moment.  Unfortunately, it's hard to hear what I'm saying because of the wind, and especially when hubby pans the camera away from me.  I almost didn't post it for that reason, but I felt it still gives a great representation of what the view is like that a photograph could never do.

 

Next week, I will share two more hikes we did in this park.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!