Spring Porkies hike in white.

Sandy looked at NOAA's snow map which showed the Porkies 100% free of white stuff.  With that thought, we headed west for our inaugural spring hike at the Porkies State Park.

We planned to park at the Government Peak trail parking area.
 But we found a barrier across the road which we drove around
 like others had.

Oh dear, this is why the park had the road blocked.

I spied just a tad of snow remaining on the road.

It was about 3/4 mile hike in to here.  Now we really start!

What a perfect day for a spring hike!
But we didn't expect to see any friendly hikers on the trails.
I don't get to socialize much you know.

But we did very shortly!
They petted me some. They had camped last night.

Best thing about spring or fall hikes is the unobstructed view.

Then we caught up with more friendly hikers!
They were from Rhinelander WI.

No leaves, no bugs and cooler temps.

This is near the Carp Lake Mine.

More snow! I didn't expect to see any today.

I love Carp Lake (aka Lake of the Clouds).

We spied pulk sled skag marks.
Speaking of pulks, I wish we were camping tonight,
 like we did earlier this spring.

The friendly Rhinelander hikers where going the same way as us.

This was our lunch stop.
I hope we see them again, they scratched me some.

Now we descend off the escarpment.

The bridge across the Carp Lake outlet. Water was high!

Hunting is always good here in the Porkies.

I took the water route.  I love water.

I was getting hungry, so I had to resort to having some lame kibble.

As we ascended the North Mirror Lake trail, we found more and more snow.
NOAA said there was none!  The 2 legged ones said it was tough going.

The wettest place in the woods is the trail.

Lotsa trees came down over the winter.

We could have had a ski adventure!

The maples are still bent over from snow load.

Trap Falls. I was so glad, I didn't get washed away in the torrent! It was very scary just sitting here for the photo!

Good thing we don't need to cross the river today...the log bridge is gone.

Imagine the crack when this one went over.

Hey! I found a perfect camp spot. Can't we stay?

Water's high, but down from what it was.

Back! The 2-leggeds did 2 miles on the road and 13 on the trail.
 I covered at least 5 times that. We had such a grand adventure.