Voyageurs National Park and Gunflint Trail Byway

Thursday morning found me breaking camp and heading way up north to Voyageurs National Park. 

 

My first stop was the Kabetogama Lake Visitor Center but I was there about 8am and it wasn’t open yet so I just checked out the lake.  

There wasn’t much else to do there (if you didn’t have a boat) so I drove down to the Ash River Visitor Center. On the road to the VC, there are some overlooks you can stop and check out.

 Voyageurs Forest Overlook: This is a short goat path through the woods. I got soaked thanks to all the dew so I recommend hiking it in the afternoon if you can.

Beaver Pond Overlook: This is a short walk leads to a rocky terrace high above a beaver pond. I didn’t see any wildlife but it was still a cool place to check out.

 

 The Ash River Visitor Center is the most beautiful visitor center I’ve been to. It’s in an old cabin and it’s so quiet and inviting.

  

The day was so gorgeous that I wish I’d had the time to get out on the water as that’s really the only way to see the majority of this park. I was very reluctant to leave but knew I had to carry on.

I made my way back to the North Shore Scenic Drive and pulled over at Temperance River State Park. The highlight of this park is cliff jumping. Not sure if this is sanctioned or not but it was what most people seemed to be doing.

The cliff on the right is where people were jumping

I was really hot but decided to wait for the next park as this one seemed a bit raucous. Cascade River State Park has a short trail where I checked out some of the “Cascades”.

 

It was close to 90  degrees at this point so I put on my bathing suit and headed for the beach with the full intent of diving in. However, the water was quite cold (in the 60’s at best) so I contented myself with dipping my feet in.

I next dove off of Route 61 and headed up the Gunflint Trail Scenic Byway, a 57 mile long journey from the shores of Lake Superior to the banks of the Boundary Waters at Saganaga Lake. It kicks off with a bang with a painted water tower of the signature Gunflint Trail “moose” used on all scenic byway signs. 

  

I skeptically pulled over at the “moose viewing area”. These places are for suckers but I couldn’t resist. I cracked up laughing when I saw this sign because it summed up the experience perfectly.

 

The Laurentian Divide at Birch Lake was pretty cool because I had never heard of it. Living in CO, the Continental Divide is the famous East/West barrier but at this divide, waters from North to South. Waters flow north to Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean or south and east to Lake Superior and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

  

The last stop was at Seagull Lake which I thought was pretty cool because a lot of it is in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. It is 1,090,000-acres and is the most visited wilderness in the United States.

I really liked the Gunflint Trail. I had the sunroof open, my music blaring and a nice cool breeze was blowing and there was little traffic so it was a great scenic byway. I had to make my way over to Grand Portage, MN to camp for the night as I had to be up bright and early the next day for my trip to Isle Royale.