Just back from Minnesota

[Burnham]

The annual USFS Tree Climbing program's technical advisory group was held last week on the Superior NF hq campus near Duluth. We were blessed with wonderful weather, way nicer than at home here in rainy western Oregon.

This is the first time I've had call to travel to this part of the country, and may the gods forgive me...I liked it!

Pretty fall colors beginning to show, lovely lakes every way you turn, and the coast of Lake Superior is, well...superior!

We had a productive meeting, getting down to picking the gnat s..t out of the sugar (as one of our members pointed out in the midst of a particularly detailed discussion of some tiny point of word usage ) on the re-write of the USFS Tree Climbing Guide. Illustrations...good ones, anyway...are a challenge for us to get produced with next to no budget. That's the biggest hurdle now.

Here's a couple of shots of the Duluth harbor area...cool part of downtown.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Sounds like you hashed out some good things at the meeting. Not much budget, so I guess the expense account was somewhat limited.

Interesting pics.

 

[MasterBlaster]

So, what was the total tonnage of gnat shit?

Cool bridge!

 

[sotc]

I liked it there too, but not even a good woman could make me stay there!

 

[Burnham]

Me neither, Willie...but I could see spending some time poking around in the woods some fall of the year times, after the black flies, mosquitos, and gnats die down, and before the sub-sub-zero temps and arctic winds begin to rule.

 

[woodworkingboy]

The Arapahos and other tribes up in that area must have been tough. Bob Underwor isn't far away.

 

[Jed]

Glad you had a good trip Burnham. I grew-up in White Bear Lake, and miss it there something fierce. Too bad I don't have the guts to live there anymore! Plus we got bigger trees out our way.

 

[Underwor]

The Turtle Mt. area of ND is very similar to Northern MN. It is only about 50 miles by 20 miles however. Just a high spot in the prairie. Bottineau sets the west end at the bottom of the hill. So far no snow here, but it could come anytime, even though we had 86F last week. Never boring. If you ever drive out Burnham, we are right on the way.

 

[Che]

I'd like to get that far north again, but I can never get out of the twin cities area. The drive North of Duluth along Superior is beautiful! I hitchhiked from Duluth up to Grand Marais once....many years ago.

 

[flushcut]

Me neither, Willie...but I could see spending some time poking around in the woods some fall of the year times, after the black flies, mosquitos, and gnats die down, and before the sub-sub-zero temps and arctic winds begin to rule.

Hello you forgot about ticks and dress in layers to deal with the cold and keep moving.

 

[Old Monkey]

I travelled there working for the Forest Service too. We didn't stay long in Duluth but we had R&R in Grand Marais. Fresh water waves crashing on the shore was a weird thing to see. Folks up there were really nice and the women grew old naturally without a ton of makeup and hair dye.