Porkies spring adventures, day 1!

The pack hadn't been on a Porkies adventure since before the puppy came along so we thought it was time to finally get back there. First trip with the puppy and first time going in the spring.

I knew something funny was up, when they fit me with a pack!

Then us mutts noted the Honda was being loaded
with camp gear.  What fun could be happening here?

Next stop was in the Porkies State park!

Looks like we'll be heading down to a lake shore cabin.

Ya Wally!  This will be fun.

We got a short ways down the trail and bumped into friendly
campers and their mutts, coming out.

Did find trees across the trail from this winter.

And cool water to get drinks from and cool off in.

Almost there, after a 2.5 mile hike to the lake.

At the Little Carp cabin, we found park employees cleaning it out.
It's ranger Paul!
Gromit met him nearly 10 years ago when we were staying in
Little Union yurt..

Ya, we love the Porkies park employees.  They'll rub us some.

After settling in, we headed out for a little hike along the BIG
lake heading east to the Big Carp river.

But 1st, they wanted me to swim across the Little Carp river.
Why would they want that?

They said I had rolled in something, and needed a bath.
I thought I was smelling good!
A note from his pack.  Making Wally do something like swim
across this most scary river, is part of his training.
He definitely didn't want to, but we made him go anyway. 😀

Heading east, there used to be a bridge here.

At a camp site, we bumped into another friendly camper.

We stayed at the Big Carp river for a few minutes and
 headed back west again.

This is what much of the 1+ mile hike looked like.  Wet!

Back at the cabin, the stove was lit and food prepared.   Steak!

Huuummmmmm, what a camp feast.

We found BIG stumps along the lake shore.

It's getting late and we got our kibble.

 

I went with Arly to help fetch some water.

This is what the cabin looked like as it got dark.

What a nice 1st day.

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.