Manganese Falls

Manganese falls in the middle of summer.


There's not much to Manganese falls, which is just south of Copper Harbor. It does drop through a relatively deep cut -- perhaps it's better in the spring, when there's more runoff.

For the moment, I'm posting this from the dorms at the University of Wisconsin, where I'm attending the MAA Mathfest. Yes, math camp, again!

Uff da!

Uff da! You betcha, eh?
A blaze on the red ski trail at Lake Manganese. Later along the trail, we came to a branch with signs: Keweenaw Mountain Lodge one way, and "Berries!" the other. Down that path were a whole bunch of thimbleberry plants -- no ripe berries just yet, sadly. But we sure are in da Keweenaw, eh?

Rant: Missing out on a Keweenaw summer

Alright folks, it's time for me to enlighten my lovely horde of readers with a minor rant.

As some of you know, I make my living teaching math at Michigan Tech. Due to insufficient reluctance, I tend to be assigned to teach 8 am classes. That's the case this summer, when I've been getting up nice and unreasonably early to teach Differential Equations four days a week. I'm actually getting pretty good at getting up at those evil hours, and the advantage is that I have afternoons mostly free.

On another, seemingly unrelated topic: the golden hours. This is the name photographers use for the hour or so right around sunrise and sunset. The sun is low in the sky, the light is golden and soft, clouds are hilighted in brilliant colors, and basically everything takes on a beautiful glow. I've played around in the golden hours myself a bit, such as these up from Quincy. Which one was taken at sunset?



Mmmm, golden glowy goodness!

And finally: lenses. I just bought a new lens (the awesomely awesome Nikon 18-200mm VR general-purpose zoom of the gods). I really, really, REALLY want to get out to try it. But my only option is to go out in the harsh light of day, instead of the beautiful golden glow of evening of early morning, or even the weirdly colored night.

So the upshot of all this is: I feel like I'm really missing out on my favorite times and awesome opportunities for photos. That will get fixed eventually, of course. Perhaps things will improve once the semester is over in mid August! Until then, I'm hiking on the weekends in the bright, harsh sunlight.

Mossy Tree

A mossy tree on Silver Creek during the spring runoff.

Silver creek runs along the back of the cliffs, then turns and makes a lovely little unnamed waterfall just before it crosses Five Mile Point road. Back in early spring during the runoff, Kyle, Squiggly and I headed out on a lovely day to follow the creek. It eventually started snowing -- it was amazingly beautiful to be in the middle of the woods when it started snowing.

I had fun playing around with a long exposure on this tree, to get the smooth water effect. The moss was so green on the tree -- I'd like to go back to clean things up a bit (move that annoying brush in the bottom left...) and take another photo.

I haven't been out taking many photos lately, but I should be this weekend. Until then, I'm digging into the archives!

Quincy Overlook

Houghton at night from the Quincy #7 rockpile.

The Quincy #7 rockpile is one of my favorite hidden spots in the Keweenaw -- and it's almost in the middle of Hancock! The rockpile is at [location redacted because I want to keep it to myself, suckers!] -- ok, ok, it's located just at the top of Quincy Hill, just where US-41 meets Kowsit Lats road. The rockpile is hidden by Quincy Hill itself, and has an amazing view of the Portage and Houghton.

Someone has built a makeshift seat out of big, flat chunks of poor rock at the top of the rockpile. It's a perfect place to go to after a stressful day.

Cliff Cemetery

Joseph Schick, 1884, at the Cliff Catholic Cemetery

Turns out there are two Cliff cemeteries -- a Catholic one and a Protestant one. I've been to the Protestant one many times, which is just off Cliff Drive, in the shadow of the cliffs, near the rest of the mine ruins.

However, on US-41 about a mile from the north intersection with Cliff Drive, there is a small sign on the side of the road which say "Cliff Cemetery". For years, I'd drive past it and think, "Boy, that sign sure is a long way away from the cemetery, it's not even on this road!" Then one day I actually stopped to look, and sure enough, just down from the sign there is a tiny little path going into the woods. It passes a tiny stream, past some huge old trees, and through a patch of thimbleberries. All of a sudden, the ground becomes covered entirely by some very low-growing dark green leafy shrub, through which very old headstones poke up. There's also a very old poor rock foundation, maybe from a small chapel, and a small stand of pines.

Edit (2/18/2009): Recently I had an email conversation with Mary Drew over at pasty.com. She had looked through my blog, found this post, and passed along this story about the grave in my photo:

I have an Adult Foster Care Home where I care for 6 residents, some elderly, others not so elderly, but just needing assistance to get through each day. One of our elderly residents up until she passed away at 96, was a sweet little lady named Irene. [The grave in this photo] is her Grandfather's grave and her Father and she, planted the flowering ground cover you see in the photo there around his grave, then it spread and started covering everywhere. I think it's called phlox. Up until the last couple years Irene lived with us, her nephew (who is 78) would take her up there to the Cliff Cemetery each summer and they would take the short hike in to visit her Grandfather's grave. My husband and I have been there several times since she passed away, just to pay our respects to Joseph and the others buried there.

What a wonderful story! (And now we know where that nifty ground cover came from.) I wish that I'd had a chance to talk to Irene about her memories. Mary also mentioned that, a few years back, some group of people was doing interviews with people who remembered the Italian hall disaster, for the purpose of making a documentary. Neither of us knows anything about that documentary though -- anyone out there have an idea?

Doors

Looking through a series of identical doors at the old Ahmeek Stamp Mill in Tamarack CityLike it? Prints of this photo are available!
The Ahmeek Mill was a copper processing mill. Copper-bearing rock from the Ahmeek mine would be sent down to the mill (on the shores of Torch Lake) in trains. At the mill, the rock was pounded into tiny particles by giant steam-driven hammers. One of those hammers is actually still standing today -- I may show it in a later post.

However, this part of the mill isn't the part with the hammers. This is a long line of identical poured-cement rooms, all with these doors leading through them. The rooms are empty nowadays, and a handful have heavy metal doors attached to them. I have no clue what part of the milling process went on in them. At least they gave a cool photo!