My Second Adventure: Part 1

Having one successful adventure under my belt and with a case of the blahs mounting, I began planning my next adventure.

I've always been a rock hound. Finding pretty rocks wherever I went as a child, I quickly had boxes and boxes and five gallon buckets of rocks under my bed and in the basement. My dad still brings home pretty rocks when he finds them and we add them to our rock edges on our gardens or place them on one of the shelves on our porch.

So where should I go on this second of (hopefully) many adventures on my journey to learn how to be alone in the world? A place that had always been a favorite of mine for finding rocks, Lake Superior of course!

My study guides, while good pictures and descriptions are nice, nothing
beats having someone hand you an agate and say this is what they look like!

This time though, I had a new destination in mind.

As a family we've always gone to Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park to see the waterfalls and play on the shore. And there are rocks a plenty to see there for sure. This time I wanted to find some of the sought after agates of Lake Superior and the one place I kept hearing about, but didn't think I'd ever been (at least in my memory which can be somewhat faulty) was Little Girl's Point.

I decided on this location because I saw an Outdoor Adventure Class offered by Nicolet Technical College for a trip to Little Girl's Point to hunt for agates and concretions. I thought 'that would be fun' but I also realized I could go up there on my own and not have to pay the class fees. Then I would also be able to go at my own pace. The only problem? I don't know what to look for when searching for agates in the raw right off the beach. I'm used to seeing polished agates in jewelry and at stores.

So what did I do? I went to the library and checked out a couple books on Lake Superior agates and studied for a day!

These books turned out to not be so helpful. The pictures and descriptions were great, but it is still really hard to convey what to look for when all you have are pictures and words. I needed someone there to explain to me what I should be looking for.

This is all the signage there is for Peterson Falls. You can see how close
to the highway change it is in the background.

A rustic bridge to get over a mucky spot on the trail

On my way north I stopped at Peterson Falls. When you get onto Hwy. 2 you almost immediately turn right onto a gravel road. I missed it because I was going around a truck that happened to be turning where I needed to go. Figures. So I pulled in the next driveway and headed back.

I climbed down to get right up next to the falls. It was a very nice fairy habitat.

There are "Private Property" postings to the right, but when you get to the end of the public roads there is a minuscule turn around, probably only big enough for two cars, and a path leading into the woods to the left. That is where you need to go. (I was confused and ended up asking for help from a man at the business at the beginning of the road.) You can hear the river as soon as you head into the woods. The whole trip was full of perfect fairy landscapes. (Read about my fancies here.)

The falls from down river.

After Peterson Falls I went to Superior Falls on the Montreal River just over the border into Michigan. Superior Falls is managed by a power company, they have to keep enough water running over the falls to keep it scenic while they divert some to make electricity. I scrambled around on the rocks to get a good view of the falls. Then I headed back out to the shoreline and looked for some rocks and agates.

A much more visible sign, probably due to the fact it is funded by Xcel Energy.

I also went beyond this point and played at being a mountain goat to get some more pictures.

On the shore at Superior Falls. All I found here were pretty rocks.

My main destination for this trip was Little Girl's Point. It is a nice piece of shoreline, and quite covered in rocks, I just didn't know what I was looking for in terms of agates and the couple I talked to were novices as well and were really just looking for pretty rocks to use in their aquarium.

I had hoped that the rock here was an agate, turns out probably not,
but I kept it and the sea glass.

A little creek running into Lake Superior at Little Girl's Point.

Plenty of rocks to choose from!

I spent some time on the shore here and then headed out for the second half of my adventure. I headed east for some more falls and another beach. But that's for next time!