Mouth of the Gooseberry River

Looking out towards Lake Superior at Gooseberry Falls state park in Minnesota, on a windy, chilly, and sunny spring day.

Beaver Lodge

A beaver lodge at William O'Brien state park.

Wheel

Detail of a drive wheel at the old White Pine mine's ball mill.

Baker's Oven

The Lovely Sarah in the "Baker's Oven" at Minnesota's winner of worst-name-for-a-state-park, Interstate State Park. The Baker's Oven is a huge kettle formed in bedrock by the action of the St. Croix river, spinning around stones and gravel over many years.

Between Silos

Hey, look -- wide angles!

Another view between the "United Crushers" abandoned grain elevators in Minneapolis.

Winter Biking

A self-portrait showing what I did every day this winter: gear up for honorable battle against the elements!

(Now that spring is finally here, I instead use a nice light roadbike with a light shirt. Oh, how nice it is!)

Snowy bikes

Snow and a great culture of biking collide during the first big snowstorm of the year (don't worry, we had many more afterwards!).

Sarah's Giant Snowshoes

In honor of the ridiculously prolonged winter we've been having...

Advantages: They practically float on air, much less snow.

Disadvantages: How does she stand in those things?!

Sky Lines

Looking up through the long-gone roof of the Quincy #5 boiler house.

Incidentally, the same place as this shot.

Tamarack

One from the deep archives.

This is a photo from one arm of the Tamarack #3's gigantic rock pile, looking towards another arm of this massive rockpile. My friend Mike, better known as the Copper Country Explorer, is taking a photo looking out over the Tamarack swamps.

We did this exploration in July of 2009. This rockpile is still one of the most impressive ones I've seen.

Birds

Some pretty birds, apparently also acting as paintball targets, on the cement ruins at the Champion Mill in Freda, Michigan.

I've always wondered about the uses of ruins in the Keweenaw. The graffiti seems to be a "just for fun" sort of thing, as compared to the way that graffiti is used for communication purposes in more urban areas.

Similarly, paintball and airsoft are common uses. This makes sense, despite the fact that I really dislike the results.

The main thing which bothers me is that I'm interested in these ruins for their own sake -- and graffiti, paintball, airsoft, and people wandering around and kicking bits over don't help make it any easier to visit and enjoy these wonderful sites!

Miner's Castle

One from the back catalog: Miner's Castle, along Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan's beautiful Upper Peninsula.

Looking towards rocky ridge

A friend standing on the edge of mount Brockway, looking south into the interior of the Keweenaw.

Hidden Falls

Hidden Falls, a small but lovely waterfall at Nerstrand Big Woods state park. Sadly, the rest of the state park is fairly dull (and the camping spots... shudder!). But this pretty little waterfall is worth it!

Silos

Silos at the "United Crushers" grain elevator in Minneapolis. This was once a massive ADM grainery, but is now in the process of being revamped into, of all things, a wildlife sanctuary! -- at least in the green space between the buildings.

Wild Daisy

A wild daisy on the high rocky ridge at Copper Falls -- on my last visit before moving away.

Ball Mill

Catching up...

A ball mill at the old White Pine mine. This was one of many attempts to make mining the Nonesuch Shale pay -- a bed of sandstone with extremely fine copper embedded in it. The Nonesuch mine (in the Porcupine Mountains) was the first attempt, with the old White Pine coming again later. It took quite a long time -- until the 1950's! -- for the Copper Range Company to solve the problem (at which point the White Pine became a real bonanza).

The ball mills were an early attempt at the White Pine, but they benefitted from the many many many attempts made at the Nonesuch -- but as it turned out, these rotating containers didn't work all that well either. The ruins are spectacular, but never made any money.

This photo was taken after my overnight solo backpacking trip into the Porkies -- my last real adventure while living in the UP.

Between Silos

Hey, look -- wide angles!

This is another view of the "United Crushers" abandoned grain elevators in Minneapolis. A rail line runs between these, and it's not fully abandoned -- but currently only used for construction traffic on the new light rail branch.