Des Lacs snowshoe

Last Saturday, January 29, I went snowshoeing at the Des Lacs Wildlife Refuge near Kenmare, ND.

In the following photo you can see Upper Des Lacs Lake and the town of Kemare in the background.  Kenmare is in the trees in the middle background of the photo.

Three of the Refuge's rangers put on a snowshoe program. Many more people signed up than expected and the rangers had to add a second session.  60 to 70 people participated.  This is the first time the Des Lacs Wildlife Refuge has held snowshoeing sessions, and with the success, they plan to now make it a regular event, perhaps more often than annually.

Rod and I, having thought that few people would go snowshoeing in ND, delayed signing up.  By the time we called - a week before the event - we found the session was full and we had to go into the new session.  This worked to our advantage as the second session was held at 10 am while the original session was held at 2 pm.  A cold front had passed through ND Friday night and on Saturday the temperatures remained steady before slowly dropping throughout the afternoon.  Our six degrees Fahrenheit was not so bad after all on a sunny day with light wind.

The program was split into three groups depending on a person's ability.  My friend Rod and I went on the longest walk at 2.8 miles.  2.8 miles is what his GPS unit said though the ranger had earlier estimated the trek at three to four miles.  The route was on the hill above the lake and was quite open, this being North Dakota.  The few trees seen were mainly old shelter-belts or were growing in coulees we passed by or through.  In fact the refuge doesn't encourage trees as the ducks and geese prefer open areas and tall grasses along the lake.

The rangers had a number of wooden snowshoes for people without snowshoes of their own to use. Since my snowshoes are back in Montana I used a pair of wooden snowshoes and decided I didn't like them much.  They had a long tail, not much of a rake, and no "cleats" on the bottom to grip. While the long tail may help keep the snowshoes on track in fluffy snow, they made it harder to go uphill.  A lower rake meant that sometimes the tip of my snowshoe got hung up under the snow especially when the snowshoe sank beneath the snow crust.  The absence of cleats made it tricky when on steep terrain and hard packed snow.  More than a few people slipped.

What I did like was that the wooden snowshoes are quieter than the metal snowshoes that some people had.  I tried not to hike near one woman whose short aluminum snowshoes made loud "Clump! Clump! Clump!" sounds as she walked.

The absence of cleats made the few coulees we crossed a bit tricky on the hard snow.  Here the group is regrouping after have crossed this coulee.  This coulee was difficult because going down the snow was hard and a few people slipped.  Going up this side was hard because we all broke through the snow crust and had to struggle in the deep loose snow up the hill to this point.

A light breeze blew from the NW and we were fortunate that we walked to the east and had the breeze at our back.  We didn't stop for long when we were up on high ground in open areas.  One of the times we stopped was to see a few old wooden fence posts that remained from a fence built by the CCC.   Wow! I wish my fences posts lasted seventy plus years.

Later in our journey, across a large coulee, we saw a herd of deer and later a coyote.  The deer were on the top on the other side and the coyote was seen a few minutes later on a treeless shoulder working its way up from the bottom of the coulee.

To keep hydrated many people brought water along.  Rod had bought a larger sized bottle of water, and several times had to chase after it when it fell out of his coat pocket and slid down a snowy slope.

While the rangers supplied snowshoes to people with no snowshoes, they did not supply ski poles.  A group of women had an extra pair of poles and they lent them to me.  Rod did not want to use the poles as he brought his binoculars and camera along in a bag as he planned on birdwatching along the way.  Since we mainly kept moving Rod didn't get a chance to do much birdwatching.  And the lack of trees also reduced the number of birds nearby.


A few people other than Rod also did not have ski poles.  These people tended to lag at the end of the group when walking.  One of these people was a larger woman who was with her husband or boyfriend.  A few times he walked and talked with the main group and not with her when she fell behind, which didn't go over well with her.  One time I heard her complain bitterly.  Later Rod told me she complained and swore a lot, even when her husband/boyfriend walked with her.  Perhaps that was why her husband/boyfriend didn't always walk with her?

There were eleven people in our group and we had to be shuttled back to the start in two runs of the van.  While waiting, Rod and I, along with six other women, decided to walk up a closed snow packed road to see what was at the top of the hill.  The women wore their snowshoes while Rod and I decided to walk without snowshoes because the snow was hard.  We made the right decision as we passed the women and they never made it to the top.  The view at the top?  More prairie.

One ranger is originally from Michigan and was an expert at snowshoeing.   After our outing was over, back at the headquarters building, the rangers had a large variety of homemade cookies and bars and hot chocolate.  The Michigan ranger explained the differences in snowshoes.  Wooden vs metal.  Long tail vs short.  The reason for the rake in front.  Etc.

The Minot newspaper had a person along to write about the snowshoeing sessions.

http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/551385/Stepping-in-snowshoes.html?nav=5010

A better description with photos can be found at the Kenmare newspaper's article:

http://www.kenmarend.com/?id=72&ncid=2&nid=312


On the way home Rod and I stopped at the Country Club golf course west of Minot in order to do more birdwatching.  Here we could have used snowshoes as the snow was deep.  A herd of deer were also at the golf course and several deer had difficulty moving through deep snow.  They moved by jumping, then landing.  Then jumping up, then landing.  Slow going.  We didn't spend too long looking for birds as there weren't too many birds and it was difficult for us to make our way through the deep snow.

Souris River skiing

Today I went skiing with my friend Rod and his dog, Buddy. Usually skiing in North Dakota isn't that good due to a lack of snow. This year is different with all the snow that has fallen.


Sunday's weather was good with high clouds, little wind, 8 degrees F, and good fresh snow.

We went skiing at the golf course west of town. Four people had just finished skiing when we arrived. Other than a couple we met at the end of our skiing, these were the only skiers we saw. A trail went around much of the golf course's perimeter and we followed it once. It ended up being a little over a mile long. The trail wasn't flat but it still had less up/down than where I ski in Montana.

On the second go around we left the trail to cross a bridge then go down to the Souris River.

Railroad bridge across the Souris River.

Buddy has a thing about bridges and wouldn't cross over the bridge until Rod and I skied over it. To avoid using the bridge Buddy would go down and up the river banks to cross the river.


The skis I used were ones I had given to my brother a few years ago along with a pair of mismatched poles.  The skis were ones that need wax - which I didn't have with me - so I found downhills to be fast and uphills an effort to not slip backwards.

The skis also were a pain to clip into so I walked sideways down the riverbank to the river while Rod un-clipped and walked down. The snow was still soft and Rod sank deep into the snow on some of his steps.

On the river we were sheltered from the light breeze and this made the skiing even better. The only thing we had to watch out for was the occasional snowmobile that came by. The snowmobiles ruined some of our ski tracks and on our return I had to make new tracks part of the time.

Buddy was in Heaven as he was able to get out and run. And run. Buddy is a yellow Lab and enjoyed the weather. He ran back and forth across the river checking out the tall grass/weeds for signs of wildlife and found none. He also 'marked' numerous trees and branches and I was surprised he could still pee at the end of our journey. Occasionally he would drop to the ground and slide and bury his head in the snow both to eat some snow for liquid and to cool off.


We came to a small coffer dam, and while the river had a thick layer of ice, we discovered some open water below the small dam. We also found the open water strongly smelled like a sewer. Buddy got too close to the water and briefly fell in the water when the snow and ice sank and he got part of his legs wet. We checked him and found him to be fine and so we continued on.

Buddy had lots of energy but a few miles from the end of our trip he was tiring and no longer ran as fast and far. Both Rod and I knew how Buddy felt as we were starting to droop also. I have skied farther in Montana so I put my being tired to my lack of exercise since I arrived in North Dakota.

We spent almost three hours out and about and skiing and had a great time. 6.2 miles total.

The loop is the golf course and the line is the river. The double line shows our return to the pickup from the river after we had done one complete circle of the golf course in a clockwise fashion.

Canoeing in ND

I went canoeing with my friend Rod on the southern section of the Souris National Wildlife Refuge.   We started our canoe trip near the Lake Darling Dam.

  

We started at Pool A on the "Beaver Lodge Canoe Trail" below the dam. To get out of Pool A one had to push their way through a small gap in the tall cattails. The following satellite photos show Pool A and the cattails. The two "dividers" in the second photo are the lines of cattails.

Photo 1: Pool A near the start of our canoe trip.
Photo 2: The first line of cattails.

The day was nice. The wind was 5 to 15 mph with most of the wind only around 5 mph. Some sun, some high clouds throughout the day which was disingenuous as both Rod and I got sunburned. Rod wore shorts so I wasn't too surprised when his legs got sunburned. Me... I wore long pants.  But it was a surprise when my head and forearms got sunburned, where I rarely get sunburned. The difference was this year, caring for mom, I have spent almost all of my time indoors out of the sun. A few days later my face swelled up from this sunburn.

I had a hat and put it on during our return trip. However we went under some low hanging tree branches shortly after I put the hat on and a branch snagged my hat and tossed it into the water. I grabbed the hat immediately before it got away but it already was soaked so I did not wear it anymore.

Rod got scratched up by a dead branch from a submerged tree. We were not the best navigators and sometimes slid too close to branches. The branch did not break so Rod was pushed backwards and down into the boat by the branch as he was caught by surprise by the branch and how fast we were moving.

The following branch is not one I have described, but one of a number in the river.



We saw plenty of ducks and birds along the way.

There were many yellow-headed blackbirds, which I don't ever remember seeing before. The refuge has lots of duck nesting structures attached to trees along the river bank. A number of beavers swam in the water and we saw a number of tree chewed on by the beavers. The beavers may explain why there were less old and large trees than I expected.

We also saw quite a few turtles sunning themselves on logs. They would drop in the water before we got close so I had to use my camera's telephoto lens to get a decent photo of them.

Three miles down the twisting and winding river we came to dam 87. This is a small dam to create a pool of water. We had lunch here. As you can see on the marker, the river elevation was about 1578 feet.

Under part of the dam's structure were a number of swallow nests. The swallows would whirl around and around in the air before disappearing. After a while they would come back and many would enter the holes in their small mud nests to feed their young. Then the group would be gone again.

North of the dam were green areas that appeared to have been burned last Fall. Other areas had piles of trees drying for a later burning. The refugee is not that wide, and with the fencing it appeared the private land was not far from the river.

After our one hour lunch Rod and I decided to portage around the dam and continue down the river.

We went quite a distance before turning around. Later when I read the refuge material we picked up after our canoe trip, it appears the Beaver Lodge Canoe Trail only goes to dam 87.

A few times along the river, or down short side channels, were the following structures. Rod and I had no idea what they were. The part on top had wheels and it looked as the frame work could be used to lower stuff into the river. And the government is worried about molesters again. If you remember my blog post about the sign in Yellowstone National Park warning people not to 'molest' the animals, well, signs on these structures warned against 'molesting' government property.

We also saw an old abandoned windmill on the river bank. One could see the old lettering on the vane that had not completely faded.

Even though we were on a river, we later checked and found the cubic feet per second flow during our trip was almost 2 CFS. No wonder when we were not paddling we floated upstream as that was the direction the breeze was blowing our canoe.

We were running out of energy by the time our canoe trip ended.

After we finished canoeing Rod and I walked on the nearby Oxbow nature trail. Along the river a number of people were fishing. I didn't see anyone with fish.

Rod is an avid birder and he was looking for birds he hadn't seen before. I don't believe there were as many birds out and about as Rod had expected.

Here are few photos from the nature trail (purple path shown in the GPS image at the end). I expected that being on a refuge and near water there would be more and bigger trees. As I mentioned earlier, perhaps the beavers had something to do with the lack of trees.

A major pest when we were on land were ticks. I have never had so many ticks on me in my life. I picked dozens of them off me as we walked. As we drove home I still felt ticks crawling on my body and I threw them out of Rod's pickup window. After I got home I removed most of my clothes outside and found a few more ticks. In the shower I found three or four more ticks. Thankfully since the shower I have not found any more ticks.

Here is a panoramic view of Pools B and C in the refuge taken from the south shore.


Lastly, here are our canoe and hiking routes. According to Rod's GPS unit we canoed 12.8 miles at an average speed of 2 mph. We hiked (the purple path) for 1.4 miles at an average speed of 1.4 mph. It felt strange walking on land after canoeing for hours.

Bison Plant

On the drive back to Minot from our Winter Trails Day adventure in Harvey, N.D., Rod and I visited the old Bison Plant location SE of Minot.

The Bison Plant was an old coal fired electrical generating plant. Rod remembered it being active in the late 1970s. There is no sign of the building now.

There is a single lane gravel road that winds around the property but a gate prevents access by vehicles to all except a few organizations. Each organization has their own lock on a chain around the gate. The chain is designed so that you only need to remove one of the chain's locks to unlock the gate.

One of the few signs of the former use of the property was a spur railroad track by which coal was delivered to the plant. Trees now grew between the railroad tracks.

The city of Minot owns the property now and has a few wells scattered about the property quietly humming as they pump water.

A group built a sweat lodge for their ceremonies. The lodge is a jerrybuilt structure with many heavy blankets and quilts covering the structure. Even though it looks round, the lodge has seven sides as the main organizer/builder is spiritually fond of 7.

In front of the lodge is a pit for a large fire to heat 28 rocks. Then the people bring seven rocks into the lodge at a time for different stages of their ceremony. This is what Ed, the trivia host, told me the other night.

Around the outside of the lodge here and there were tools to cut and split wood for the fire, ladles to spoon water on the hot rocks inside the lodge, and other miscellaneous items. Odd to find items like these out in a public place available for anyone to take. I guess they don't get many visitors, else those who do visit are honest.


The Souris River ran near, but not close, to the sweat lodge. When I asked Ed, he said they don't jump in the river after exiting the sweat lodge. Well, between the ice and low river levels much of the year, there probably isn't much of the river available to jump in to cool off.

As you can see from Rod's GPS map of our wanderings we walked much of the property's perimeter. The "bump" on the lower right side of our route is our walk over to the sweat lodge.


As we walked back to Rod's pickup a Canadian Pacific freight train roared by on the main track.

It was dusk when we got back to Rod's pickup.