Brockway View

A view towards the top of Brockway Mountain, on a hazy summer day. This was one of the photos which we used as "table cards" at our wedding reception.

Bare Bluff

The view from the top of Bare Bluff, a massive outcropping of Rhyolite (a pink mineral, hence the wacky rock colors) which is very very close to the shore of Lake Superior. It's also a Michigan Nature Association sanctuary. This bluff is amazingly remote, too, requiring a long-ish drive on rough logging roads, followed by a hike through some of the steepest and worst-maintained trails I've seen! But it's all worth it, especially for this view straight towards the tip of Keweenaw Point.

This is often misnamed "Bear Bluff" -- sure, there are bears around, but its correct name is Bare Bluff.

Winter Superior

The Lovely Sarah enjoying the view over Lake Superior, New Year's Eve, 2011. We almost stayed at a cabin right next to this spot, but the blizzard coming the next day (and my need to fly out to a conference after that) deterred us.

Split

Shadows at a Quincy Mine boiler house. Catching up on some old posts.

Michigan E Shaft

Yes, I'm alive! I've moved to Minnesota (relevant for this post) and am settling in. More posts on the way, I promise...

The Minesota Mine (yes, spelled that way) was one of the first wildly rich copper mines in the Copper Country. It closed, in the words of the copper handbook, largely due to management unwilling to invest the necessary money in keeping it going. It was reborn as the Michigan Mine, on a much grander scale.

When it began to play out (again), they expanded and drove new shafts, including the "E" shaft. Its fortress-like ruins still sit atop a short bluff, with its collapsing shaft recently re-capped. I have no clue what happened to these ruins to cause them to fall apart this way -- it's very unusual, even in the ruin-ridden Copper Country.

Birch shadow

A young tree's shadow on a long-established birch.

Conduit

Conduits entering the Quincy #8 (Mesnard)'s small modern hoist house.