As we neared the town where we would stay the
night, we saw we had just enough time to visit
the WI/MI border Montreal River to see the 90'
high Superior Falls. After we snapped pictures
from the top of the ravine of Superior Falls, I
had to go see what that big white x was.
After all the trouble of hiking down the ravine
and scaling a sharp red cliff I realized it was
not there anymore, so I stood where it was and
took this picture:
Kathy went the other direction towards a park
where the river hits Lake Superior,
and stayed there while the sun dropped like
this:
Then we headed towards our hotel to check in
before they "turned the light off", but
something about the view on the way there made
me stop abruptly, get out and snap it.
Later I realized it was because of those two
missiles in the sunset. (Kathy insists that
they were silos, but I know better)
The next morning we were on the road at 6:45am,
with our first stop at Gabbro Falls on the Black
River. It isn't part of the Black River Scenic
Byway set of falls, even though it is on the
same river. Gabbro Falls is actually next to a
small ski resort called Blackjack which is
human less in the summer. It is virtually hidden
by the forest, with just a couple of paths
leading to it marked only by the fallen weeds in
them.
After braving a treacherous wooden bridge on
the dirt road we were ready to check out this
un-advertised, little known freebie. So we waded
through the thistle and Kathy crawled out on a
ledge of death that you could fall either way
off of; she is the tiny human in shorts in this
picture:
While she was doing that I took pictures of the
three falls,
examined one more closely,
then climbed down past some obstinate boulders,
to the smooth rapids at the base,
but had to return to higher ground before the
mosquitoes sucked all my blood out while the
horseflies fought over my remains. Meanwhile,
Kathy had taken some cool shots and video
clips from her vantage point without falling to
her death even one time!
Gabbro was really fun, we had the whole place to
ourselves, but it was time to go see the mammoth
Agate and Bond Falls now...onto the second part
of the trilogy....
