Another visit to see BART

This is from an early summer trek of the Shoreline Trail North of Marquette.  The Shoreline intersects the NCT and there is a nice trail to Sugarloaf, a high rocky spur North of Marquette.

This is a short hike, but very scenic

Not too much foot traffic and well maintained

Typical NCT blaze is easy to follow

I parked off of 550 and just headed East.  There are some pretty big rocks to scale, so I wouldn't recommend that approach unless your prepared for that.

I found the remains of a young deer on a bluff near a deep ravine. Probably a winter fatality

Lots of bugs!

Nearing the top of the spur!

The trail winds around from the shore side to the West and comes out here...

The last corner on the trail, and a beautiful view of the Mulligan Plains to the West of Marquette

View to the NE from the top of  "Sugarloaf Mountain"

The main reason for the trek was to visit the BART memorial.  If you're curious about BART, just follow and download the pdf via the link.  I recommend you do, it's an inspirational story.

The BART monument

Close up of the commemoration plaques. This monument gets hit by lightning often and has been repaired many times.

 I happened upon a WW1 records database and checked for Bartlett's draft card.  Sure enough, here it is...

A Bartlett King draft registration card

I decided to find Bart's marker in the Park View Cemetery, with some help from the sexton I found the marker.

So if you've ever made the short hike up to the top of Sugarloaf and seen the obelisk now you can see Bart's other marker.

"BY THE GRACE OF GOD FAITHFUL AND APPROVED"

ALANSON BARTLETT KING MASTER ENGINEER 107TH ENGS

That's right.  Bart was an engineer with the 107th.

I looked into the deaths from the pandemic in France during WW I.  I was very surprised to see this spike in soldier fatalities.  I don't remember reading as a student, the effects of the pandemic on all of the soldiers.  Certainly, it was a significant factor.

Many soldiers developed pneumonia as a consequence of the pandemic flu. Bart died in October, the height of the scourge

Well hope you enjoyed this trip to see BART, a fellow Marquette citizen from long ago...

A trip to Ishpeming and a spin back in time...

I thought I'd see whatever happened to the old Mather A Shaft in Ishpeming this weekend.  I used to have my dry there in 1979... Gee that was a long time ago.  A dry, for those who haven't been around miners, is a locker room and shower so miners could get changed out of their work clothes and back into their street clothes when the shift ended.  It's called a dry because mining is messy, dirty damp work and what we had at the Mather A shaft was a basket for our loose gear, with hooks on it to hang your work clothes.  The basket was reeled up into the ceiling zone of the locker room where the air was hot, and overnight those wet iron ore covered jeans and work shirts would dry out - hence the locker room was always known as the dry.

The Mather A Shaft in the late 40's

This is pretty much how I remembered the place back in '79.  The Mather B was still an active operation and the A Shaft was kept as an emergency exit for the Mather B miners.  Today, things a re a bit diffrent!

The old Mather A shops, dry and warehouse

The headframe is gone and the front office is boarded up.  This got me to thinking about another place I used to work at during the summer.  The old 'Brown Stone.'

Here are a few then and now pics of the skilled trades and engineering buildings.

My father worked in the machine shop

The ivy was a part of the view back then!

The men are gone, the lathes are gone, the ivy remains...

I remember the miners and tradesmen who worked here.  What a fine group they were.

My father is probably in there somewhere...

I remember walking through this door with hardhat and safety glasses on!

The Motor Pool door

Before I left Ishpeming I thought I'd capture the 'Old Ish' statue for your viewing enjoyment

Something most don't know about Old Ish read below...

One waterfall this time...

Tioga Falls

First snow of the season...

Sunset view out my window

I'm currently reading Engineers of Victory, by Paul Kennedy, a fascinating read about how people solve the hardest problems at the hardest times and how the unexpected terrain problems really set back a lot of WW2 deployments.  Well I set out to photograph 12 very remote falls today.  I mapped them out... looked at the topo maps, printed gps points... What could go possibly wrong? 

Mud, big rocks and fallen trees to start with!  That wouldn't normally have stopped me but daylight is getting shorter and the first mystery falls would have been a 10 mile hike.  5 in and 5 out.  Not that that would have been a bad thing, but it would have been the only fall to photograph today.  So reluctantly I hit reverse and pondered the topo some more.  I tried three other remote falls, pretty much impassible roads (these are the two trackers and foot paths off of the Forest Highways). Excellent adventure touring on a motorcycle if it wasn't 37 degrees out.

So what I did manage to catch this weekend was Canyon Falls, always a beautiful short hike.

Lower Canyon Falls

The Canyon Falls gets its name from the rock walls the river flows through.

Then it was off to some of the more remote falls. If you read the top part of the post you'll know that turned into a bit of a disappointment this weekend.  But here's a couple of the locals I bumped int along the way...

Bald Eagle surveying it's hunting ground atop a perch

Then there were three of these guys...

Their pal was a little skiddish and hopped out of frame

Last fall for this weekend was Bond Falls

Bond Falls

Lets see if this works...      A little bit of Canyon Falls...

WoooHoo,  I think I figured out how to get my movies working!   I'll have to get my singing tree movie up! 

Have a great week all - I hope you enjoy the travels!

Copper Peak Largest Ski Flying Ramp in the Western Hemisphere

Well another beautiful day here in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan!  I tried to get out and get  some fall colors, but I think last weekend was peak - and it was rainy!  So I made a trek out to Copper Peak to revisit a place I hadn't been to in many years.  The post that follows starts off in Wakefield, enjoy!

Nee-Gaw-Nee-Gaw-Bow "Leading Man" A Peter Toth carving

In my NCT post of 8 September you can see the view of the Copper Peak ramp looking SW from the NCT Trailhead.  This is the approach from the chairlift ride to the structure.

Taken from a chairlift near the TV camera hut.

Walking up to the ramp. It's hard to get the sense of size from a picture... it's a loooong way to the top!

Bounce the elevator? Well the guy who resets the safety alarms and can get you down lives three hours away... so don't bounce the elevator!

There is an elevator at the base of the structure to take you up the first 18 floors, the next 6 floors are walking on steps made of perforated plate steel.  Yup, you see through all the way to the ground below... with the added effect of the whole structure swaying when the winds pick up!

Some say it has an Eiffel Tower shape...

The top of this structure actually sways in the wind!

See what I mean?

View down ramp from the top chute... that circle down range is what your trying to land in... this is the view from the very top and it shows the lower gates. I think exit velocity is around 70 mph.

Good ole' US Steel!

The top gate. Those are aircraft warning lights!

Me looking at missing knot in planking and HOLDING rails... how does any one ever develop the courage to ski down this thing!?

Looking North from the top!

One last pic for today's post.  This is sunset on Lake Roland...

End of another weekend!

Another North Country Trail explore.  This is a two part hike over a very rainy weekend.
Apart from being soaked most of the time... it was a really nice hike.  I tried to get some more waterfall pics. More about that later in the post!

Red Granite Falls

Yup, Red Granite Falls is a really nice little fall on the Bad River in Northern Wisconsin. This weekend was really rainy.  So granite being smooth and rain making smooth turn to slippery... well trying to get this shot, you have to hop a few rocks and work your way to the middle of the river.  On the way back I jumped onto a large granite rock and skidded right down to the water line.  I think going down on my knee was the only thing that kept me from going swimming.

Around 7AM still pretty dry... around 7PM I was soaked!

I hiked the Heritage Chapter of the NCT and diverted to explore a few more falls, hope you enjoy!

Morning fog on Loon Lake

Typical trail terrain

Fall colors are maybe 75%

This is Copper Falls

The Bad River meets the Tyler Forks River in this beautiful gorge.

Looking down on Brownstone Falls off of the Dough boy Trail. WW I Vets put this trail in during the 1920's.

Potato River Falls

Sign along a the Peter Wolfe Chapter of the NCT.

O Kun de Kun Falls