It was hard to watch the next few days pass by without being able to capture the color that was disappearing rapidly in the north. By the time Friday rolled around I had really done some deep internet research. We were going to add to our list of waterfalls the very best our neighbor Wisconsin had to offer on the south side of Lake Superior, and we were going to the North Shore (Minnesota) to get whatever we had missed or were short on.

 

With a pile of maps from both states and some specific maps I had made on the internet we were ready to rock! We had found another Day's Inn in Superior that would serve as a halfway point between the two sides. Since the weather had been so unpredictable we waited until the last minute to decide which of the two sides to explore first. As it turned out, it would rain on both shores the first day and neither the second.

 

The reason we chose Wisconsin first is because even though we were going to see Wisconsin's Finest, I was slow to believe anything could compare to Minnesota's awesome North Shore waterfalls, and wanted to ensure blue sky for those shots. We chose a path through a National Forest in Wisconsin that I still can't pronounce but will not soon forget about. For three hours we saw one amazing sight after another. This was by no means a drive through a pine forest. This was every color, shape and variety arranged in a new combination at every turn. I was still exclaiming after three hours, which even I found strange.

 

We found our way through the maze of country roads without a hitch, thanks to our detailed maps and ended up at our first destination right on schedule, in the early afternoon. We had picked Copper Falls State Park, as it had waterfalls all viewable from a 1.2 mile trail. We had no idea how great a pick it was, until we hit that trail.

 

The entire park was in full color, huge red ravines spotted heavily with an assortment of sumac, pines and maples at their fall color peak. The trail was wooden for most of the way, with plenty of overlooks to see several angles of each of the falls. There were three of them, with the large Brownstone Falls thundering into one river, the high-powered Copper Falls squeezing into another by a very interesting confluence and the Taylor Fork Cascades that you can get close to.

 

We left that park knowing that we had just scored big-time. The overcast and mist had actually caused the fall colors to appear evenly, no shadows or white-outs at all and breath-taking views. We were feeling good as we headed towards our next stop, Potato Falls. It is located in a town by the same name, just south of Lake Superior near the Michigan border.

 

Down a gravel road, in a little town park with a couple picnic tables and a bathroom we found the short trail to the waterfalls that was picked as the "Prettiest Falls in the Midwest" by more than one website. We didn't have to go far before we were overlooking  a wide ravine, filled with fall colors with a very symmetrical Lower Falls peeking out. That alone was a beautiful sight, so we snapped away for a while before venturing further. Just behind the picture perfect red-lava face of the lower falls we discovered cascading falls wrapped in multi-colored trees.

 

As we headed back towards the City of Superior and the hot-tub at Day's Inn we couldn't believe what we had seen and captured in the last eight hours. We had seen some of Wisconsin's Finest on their most colorful weekend of the year. And this was just Day 1.

 

When we woke up the second day we were happy to see sunlight pouring into our room. We got ready, had a Continental Breakfast and packed up, very excited about the blue sky with small white clouds. We had really counted heavily on capturing the scenic falls at Crosby-Manitou State Park on a sunny day We had been to the park once before but couldn't find the falls and ran out of time, leaving with only a few funny pictures of a new porcelain toilet strangely positioned up on a cement slab with no walls around it.

Another trip we had also run out of time, so we weren't going home without Crosby-Manitou Falls pictures this time. On the way there we were treated to a handful of small lakes in the Finland State Forest. One had an island with the fall colors on it, surrounded by cobalt-blue water with a colorful shore behind it. Some streams from the foothills wound through the tall golden grasses so we got some bonus fall color shots in this area on the way to Crosby.

We arrived at the park and headed down the trail to the Cascades. The MN DNR had decided to designate the falls as such, which is why we didn't find them the first time. The trail was not a beginner's path, narrow and plenty of elevation up and down. We laughed at how this would have outdone us before as we zoomed through the maple-leaved trail like it was a sidewalk. We had really gotten to like this whole hiking thing. We found the Overlook and took a couple beautiful shots of a golden-treed valley that spanned for miles to Lake Superior, which can be seen in the picture's horizon.

We pressed on, finally hearing that familiar tell-tale sound of rushing water and found our third attempt at this park to be worth the wait. A smooth blue lake bursts into a powerful set of gushing cascades, and you can climb all around to get many angles of this backwoods paradise. We took many pictures with many settings, leaving only after we were satisfied that we had gotten the gold here.

As we were heading back down to Highway 61 we thought we would try to find the more remote waterfall that we had seen in a corner of the Tettegouche park trail map. We had hoped we could find a side street that went near it to avoid the three-mile hike that one could take from the park's trailhead. As we were looking we spotted a little sign right on the highway that said "Illgen Falls". We parked and went down a short trail by a cabin to find what would become one of my most favorite waterfalls. The scenery around the powerful Illgen was beautiful, there was no-one in sight and you could climb all around the boulders to get breath-taking shots.

We had stopped at Gooseberry Falls again on the way up Highway 61 to get a few more Lower and Middle Falls shots, and the fall color there was prime too. We took some pictures and film clips and left quickly as the park began rapidly filling up and headed out to another elusive waterfalls, the Split Rock River Falls near the lighthouse of the same name. We had missed it before as we didn't realize it was down the highway from the lighthouse at a MN DNR rest stop that the half-mile trail to the falls started.

We parked at the rest stop and found the trail very easy to hike, leading to a small but pretty falls. The Split Rock River looked more like a stream, but the falls trickled down that black lava-rock into a pool surrounded by small trees and then continued under a little foot bridge, giving this moderate ravine a very romantic feel.

With that done, we had finished up the North Shore and were ready to begin the four-hour drive back home. We had had two very successful days of hiking and snapping, it had been a lot of fun and our senses (and cameras) were full. But as we passed the exit going in Wisconsin we found ourselves veering off onto it instead. It was getting dark, but if we hurried we could get a peek at Wisconsin's highest waterfalls at Pattison State Park, known as Big Manitou Falls. We found the park and made a beeline to the falls. We just barely made it to the first overlook when the sun deserted us.

But we had tasted it, and would be back soon. Very soon, indeed!

I hope that you have enjoyed reading my Fall Colors Trilogy part 2. Part 3 is soon to come.

 

Sincerely

AAALynx

 

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