Winter Scenes

The other day Wendy and I snowshoed from the Sable Visitors' Center down the trail toward Sable Falls, and then into the dunes. Once in the dunes we headed straight north, following along side the river. The trees were dense, so for much of the way we could not even see the river. Once we neared Lake Superior, there was no easy way down to the river.



We were a little scared, but we decided to slide down the very steep slope on our butts. It is hard to see in this photo, but the brown sandy streak is the path down that we slid. Then we had to hug the steepness and basically crawl across the contour of the dune, until we reached a spot that we could descend to the river. Finally, we very carefully crossed an ice bridge to reach the path-side of the river.



Here is a close up of the ice jam in the mouth of Sable River. I took this shot from the top of the dune, before we slid down.



Here are a couple of shots of the river and ice jam from beach level.




The icebergs are still up on shore. So at least for now, it is still possible to agate hunt, at least if there are no waves. As you can see, the ice is a few feet thick, so you would have to pick your spots to get up and down to reach the high water mark. These photos were taken at sunset. We couldn't stay long even though it was beautiful, since we still had to snowshoe back to our vehicles before darkness.