Snow adventures this winter!

Here are some snow-fun photos taken this winter.  Some were taken a month ago when we still had good cover.   Me and my pack just returned from a 4 day yurt-n-ski vacation in the Porkies and had a GRAND time there.  Hunting is always good in the Porkies.   Photos of that will be posted shortly.

This was a ski trail bench at Montreal Trails near Hurley WI.
 Me and my pack visited here to look at grooming machines so we
went for a quick romp while there.
This was one of my pack's favorite trails when they lived in the area.

I smelled a mouse! 
This was in my favorite Swedetown Creek gorge.

OK, a few more taken in the Swedetown Creek gorge.   Can it get any prettier than this?

This is the creek.  I can hear it!  Creeks don't freeze over here.

Now we headed to Mud Lake to see old
 trails we hope to reopen this fall.

Off trail adventures are my specialty!

The Middle Bridge. Hope you got down to see it this winter!

Porkies Mirror Lake adventures!

You got that right.  On Wednesday morning we headed west to the Porkies state park to hike in to a cabin on Mirror Lake.   We've done this many times over the years, but this time we'll stay at the 8 bunk cabin for the whole adventure.

We arrived to the trail head during a winter storm warning
....it wasn't so bad.

 

We loaded up and.....we're off!  The young buck had to haul
the kibble in.   It did not slow him down!

Ya, we go that way.

Good thing for the snow, it covered up the mud.
 It really was a muddy trek in.

Oh we love these hemlock forests.

Few inches of snow, but getting deeper as we neared the cabin.

Mirror Lake is the head waters of the Little Carp which starts here.

Made it!
Sandy perused the journal as we waited for the cabin
to warm up.

Us mutts ventured outside to find some adventure.

Oh ya, it's starting to snow more.

The lake is cooling down. We saw a skim of ice at the shore.

Lucky for us, the cabin had been stocked with lots
of very good fire wood.

It took several hours to warm up the cabin with the stove burning
 full blast burning lots of wood.

No way we could have stayed without that wood...
thanks to who-ever saved our vacation!

Tomorrow, we'll need to find, cut, and haul in more wood.
All part of the adventure...

Thursday morning -
with sun peeking through some lake-effect clouds.

Us mutts of course needed to check for adventure outdoors right away.

Ahh....did you know, I love the winter weather?

Yes, I recommend it.  It snowed really, really hard.

Now we headed out into the hemlocks to hunt for fire wood.

 

Behind the bluff we were able to find a good number of
down trees to harvest.

We'd bring a load in, then come in to warm up.
After a while, puppies need to nap.

Arly got lotsa practice with the crummy park issue bow saw.

Hey! I spied a chipmunk while she hauled another load in.

Lunch! You know we like cheese n bagels too right?

Never mind, we'll find something fresher.

After all the wood was in, we finally got to have some kibble.
I'm starve-n!

Pretty lame for hours of toil, eh? If only we'd brought a sled....

After looking through the journal, Sandy made an entry too.

More porkies adventures to follow.

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.