Lake Itasca State Park Minnesota

It appears my lot in life is to arrive one week before peak colors on my fall color tours. This year I had no choice but to pick the week to head into the woods. As this post is being published, we are on our way south to our winter home, a bit earlier than usual because we are doing some extra traveling in October. For the first time, we decided to overnight at Itasca State Park so I could get some sunset and early morning photos. We had a great time in the park as we met some friends there who were staying in one of the campgrounds. They had been in the park nearly a month and they knew all the places to take us. I captured over a hundred images, and will share a bunch of them in future posts. For now, I’ve got an even dozen to share.

Lake Itasca is the headwaters of the Mississippi River. It is from this lake that the mighty Mississippi starts its 2552 mile (4104 km) trek to the Gulf of Mexico. The above image features sunset on Lake Itasca.

I rose early to get into position to capture morning light just prior to sunrise. Lake Mary is just a short hike from our cabin. The view of the lake gave me my first real views that indicated the colors were not yet at their peak.

I wasn’t alone that morning. I looked down the road from where I was taking photos to capture an otter just finished crossing the road on his way to a morning swim. I didn’t have enough time to get any more than this single shot.

 As the sun climbed higher, it started to illuminate the trees on the western bank of the lake giving them a surreal glow. The morning was calm and a slight mist rose from the lake surface. By this time, the mist was barely discernable along the shoreline.

Lake Itasca is on the left of the rocks, on the right is the Mississippi River. During the more popular times of the year, many park visitors cross the Mississippi using those rocks as stepping stones.

Later that morning, we took the scenic Wilderness Drive. Fall colors were more prevalent along this road around the park. I will have more photos from the Wilderness Road in the gallery and in a future post. Click on any image in the gallery below to enlarge it and to scroll through the gallery.

John Steiner

Coffee Break Lake as viewed from Deer Lake Trail

Park Rapids, MN

In late July, my wife, Lynn and I met friends at Park Rapids and went to visit Itasca State Park. You can read about that trip here. Itasca, most famously known as the location of the headwaters of the Mississippi River, has miles of hiking trails. The trails are open for hiking in the summer and cross-country skiing in the winter. As we left the park on that beautiful summer day, we vowed to return in the fall when autumn leaves turn to red and gold, and there is a distinct chill in the air.

Lately our local news started showing the fall color maps on the evening weather program, and a friend who was visiting northern Minnesota called, indicating timing might be good for this upcoming weekend. Another friend on Facebook posted a photo taken at Maplewood State Park, trees showing their best fall finery. As it would happen, this week we would have two windows of opportunity, Thursday or Sunday. Though we thought Sunday might be the better choice for fall colors, the weather didn’t look good. Thursday’s forecast was mostly cloudy with a 30 percent chance of rain. Sunday wasn’t much different, except a strong storm with 40-plus mph (60-plus km/h) winds and heavy rain on Friday and Saturday might just do their best to strip the trees of their leaves.

Ozawindib Trail winds through the forest at Itasca…

… and meanders along the west shore of Mary Lake.

We opted for Thursday, cloudy and cool as it was. As it turned out, our fall color trip was a bit premature. Probably only 25 percent of the trees were showing their fall colors. No matter, we were ready for a nice leisurely hike through the woods. The state park ranger at the information booth recommended Ozawindib Trail with three options, 2.8 miles one way with a return on the same trail, or Ozawindib to Deer Trail via either of two crossover trails making a nice loop back to our car. We opted for the more lengthy of the two crossovers giving us about a 3.8 mile (6.1 km) hike.

All in all, I shot about 75 photos and we took our time, a little over two hours, or about 35 minutes per mile. Our normal hiking pace on an easy trail such as this would be better than 20 minutes per mile. Though there were small hills and valleys, the overall elevation change on the walk amounted to only 177 feet according to Map My Walk, my GPS-enabled smart phone app.

It is interesting to see the color change pattern on this small tree’s leaves.

As the afternoon wore on, the few patches of blue sky were replaced by overcast. Our plan to stay in the park until sunset changed when we realized that there would be no visible sunset this evening. Traversing the crossover, we eventually intersected Deer Lake Trail. Several small lakes lie on either side of Deer Lake Trail and we generally found it more picturesque than Ozawindib Trail.

The crossover trail is a short hike linking Deer Lake and Ozawindib Trails.

Myrtle Lake photo taken somewhere along Deer Lake Trail.

Though the fall colors were not optimal, we enjoyed beautiful scenery none the less, and the hike provided a nice and easy introduction to our hiking season beginning for us in a few weeks in Arizona. Have a great Autumn!

John Steiner

Backus on Dwellable

Itasca State Park, Minnesota

Summer vacation is a time to take the family away from the humdrum of daily life and put the weight of the world on hold. These families are enjoying a carefree day in Itasca State Park at the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Minnesota.

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

These four individuals (one barely visible under water), were part of a pod of ten or so dolphins that were playfully swimming in the wake of our boat as we headed back to port at Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

My entries in this week’s challenge are being posted a bit late. It’s been a busy week, I got a late start on some other projects, and my new copy of Lightroom 5 just arrived. Having never before used Lightroom, I am now embarking on a new learning curve. If you have a recommendation for a book or online reference on getting started with Lightroom, I’d appreciate it very much if you would leave a comment for me.

John Steiner

Weekly Photo Challenge: Carefree