LAKE SUPERIOR ESCAPE
The summer triangle of stars Deneb, Altair, and Vega quickly establish their presence overhead in the fading twilight. Three satellites cruise overhead. I don't typically see many satellites at this lat/long. The quickest will circle the planet in 90 minutes.
Horace Greeley said "Go west young man, go west . . . " Wrong; go North, escape this hothouse heat and humidity. Greeley never did go west himself so what does he know. While towns in Colorado, Texas, and PA are named after him; he lived on a farm in NY. While I was willing to travel to the arctic tundra to find coolness, I was quite certain I would find it along the Norwegian Riviera, aka Lake Superior.
I had reservations for Rocky Mountain National Park the following week and intended to hike 10 miles of the continental divide to a cirque overlooking some lakes a a couple small glaciers. The tundra above tree line will have to wait due to a new job in the offing. No more 2 hour winter commutes from 'Tonka & UHG in a snowstorm.
I left on the 230 mile drive to Lamb's Resort after a big dump of rain; 1.1" in 40 minutes. The sun came out and the dew point hit 82 degrees. It was like breathing liquid H2Ohhhh! There isn't a higher dew point in the Western Hemisphere; nothing like it except in the Amazon rain forest. The cloud tops are an a strataspheric 70,000 feet. Sherwin Schwartz would have preferred a 3 hour drive but it's a 4 hour tour up to Lambs near Tofte. It is 93 degrees just south of Duluth where powerful storms have dropped the temp 25 degrees.
I arrived and camped lakeside with a cool dry refreshing breeze blowing off the cold waters of Superior. The lake is mellow, the air calm. The sun is dropping and so is the temp and a fire feels pretty good as the night takes over. Superior stirs enveloping the land with the white background noise of waves breaking on the volcanic cliffs. A blood red bulging 3/4 moon rises out of the water just south of due east. All the humidity and rain are scattering the red spectrum similar to sunsets I viewed at the cabin in 1980 after Mt. St. Helens blew. The Pacific ocean and Great Sand Dunes in Colorado also create superior red sunsets.
The summer triangle of stars Deneb, Altair, and Vega quickly establish their presence overhead in the fading twilight. Three satellites cruise overhead. I don't typically see many satellites at this lat/long. The quickest will circle the planet in 90 minutes.
The late afternoon severe storm that moved through Duluth is now flashing lightining across the lake; just East of South which puts it in the vicinity of the Apostle Islands - 43 miles across the lake (37 nautical miles for you seafarers). Minnesota's portion of Lake Superior while lacking archipelagos (until you hit the Suzi Islands on the Canadian border) and massive cliff faces such as in Canada (the high ridgeline of the Sawtooth Mountains does parallel the lake starting north of Silver Bay as do the Misqua Hills near Grand Marais; this is where Minnesota's highest point is; the 2,301' Eagle Mountain, which is 15 miles from Minnesota's lowest point which is 607' at Lake Superior and not to be confused with another Eagle Mtn near Lutsen, whether they are true geographically defined mountains that rise 1,000' above the 'surrounding terrain is questionable); the North Shore is anything but sublime with it's waterfalls cutting through a delicious forest covering a volcanic landscape. I find it interesting that the Mississippi River in Houston County in extreme S.E. Minnesota on the border with Iowa has an elevation of only 627'. That said, I'm glad Mrs. Cook never sees the tangled structure of the proceeding prose that came straight from the butcher shoppe.
Twenty miles inland from Superior lies the Laurentian Divide; a low ridgeline that separates waters that flow north to the Arctic via Hudson Bay or southeast to Superior and the Atlantic. The Divide is the remaining roots of a massive mountain range that rivaled the present day Himalayas in height. Time and glaciers broke it down. Lake Superior owes its existence to the massive weight of 2 mile high glaciers that sank the land and filled with water when the glacier melted. With the weight of the ice gone, the lake bottom is rebounding an inch a decade. In 6,000 years or so the land will have rebounded to shore level, the water will drain away in the process and there will be no Lake Superior (as there is now no Lake Agassiz in NW Minn).
Divergent thoughts enter your mind as you sit around the fire and watch the stars spin around in a circle cut by the arc of the now white moon. Rain falls which ends the night well past midnight. The next morning breaks a cool 62 degrees and clear. The Schroeder Baking Company provides the fuel of lattes and baked goods for the morning. The fire crackles, Superior crashes, and a steady cool east 12 to 15 mph wind blows off the lake keeping things cool. A big storm rolled through the BWCA and dumped 2.2" of rain in Grand Marais; putting a portion of the Gunflint Trail under water. I'm in the band of calm sandwiched between the big storms just the north & south of me.
Lake Superior is like the mountains in that the sun is warm and the sea breeze cool, like being at altitude. Also, land warmed air rises drawing in the fresh breezes from the lake. At night as the air cools, it moves down slope toward the lake. A similar process happens in the mountains as air rises from valley to mountains with a reverse flow at night, which sometimes reverses again. The cool boreal forest starts here as well; a demarcation line in the climate. Most vacations are spent traveling through time and space. Experiences turn inward when you stay in the same space and have time travel through you. You see, hear, and feel the rhythms of nature. The seemingly random fluctuations in wind and waves and clouds blend with the mathematical precision of the sun and moon and stars arcing across the sky.
Evening blends into twilight with what appears to be more of a quarter moon rising big and orange over the lake 17 minutes later than the previous evening. I see 4 meteors and 5 satellites; 2 of which are paired up and tracking on the exact same path, 1 just seconds behind the other; never seen that. A thin band of alto stratus clouds drifts over the lake heading for WI.
The next day brings 90 degree heat onshore but cool and contemplative sitting on the basalt cliffs next to a lapping tranquil Superior. My perch above the lake is occasionally sprinkled with cold water as a larger than average wave hits the cliff face. The lake has a pulse with waves hitting shore every 1 1/2 to 2 seconds or 37 wpm (waves per minute.) The Pacific Ocean has a much slower pulse. The waves roll in with 6 to 8 second intervals (9 wpm). The sound of the waves is of a lower frequency as well. The Pacific can see rogue waves that can be 100 feet tall and detectable by satellites.
While rogue waves refer to an ocean phenomenon, the Great Lakes are known to also spawn rogue waves. Lake Superior has a phenomenon known as the "3 sisters" which is a series of 3 waves much taller than the average wave on the lake at that time. Some theororize that is was 3 Sisters waves that took down the Edmound Fitzgerald. A 3 Sisters set of waves rolled through the Arthur Anderson and was heading for the Fitz. Folklore says every 7th wave is much larger than normal. On Lake Superior one year I was walking at the edge line where the bare rock met the grass, some 35 feet from the water and had a wave break over my head.
My photography this day is simple elements of rock, water, and sky. Nature photography is best when it is simple, nature broken down to its building blocks of line, pattern, texture, and color. It is the basis of nature and of art. Darkness replaces the light. Looking due east from here is an open expanse of 330 miles of water to a point just north of the Soo Locks. But how far across the lake can I actually see. I can see the harbor light at Grand Marais some 30 road miles up coast. I see two 1,000 foot ore ships following each other on the horizon. I can see the lighthouse light on Sand Island in the Apostles about 40 miles away. How far can I see, where is the actual horizon line.
Not far away at all it turns out. The answer my friend is not only not blowing in the non-existent winds but defies expectation. A 6 foot person standing on the shore can see only 3.1 miles until the curvature of the earth takes over and you can't see beyond it; this is the horizon line. If you get higher over the lake you can see further and objects rising above the lake can be seen; hence I can see the distant lighthouse. Precision requires a dive into Euclidian geometry; a Greek fellow who figured all this out a couple hundred years before year zero; no doubt taught by Jack Ullrich. Ironically present day Greeks could use a refresher course in math in general and 'how to balance a checkbook' in particular. Euclid had his formulas, I have Excel; as the 5 Man Electrical Band says, it's all about sines, sines everywhere co-sines.
The formula for figuring the horizon line is:
DISTANCE TO HORIZON = Square Root of Height above surface in feet divided by .5736.
If you are in a 330 foot tower the horizon is 24 miles away. Standing on 14,400' Longs Peak in Colorado you can see 170 miles to the horizon. Flying in a plane at 33,000 feet the horizon is 214 miles away. You could spot the top of that 70,000 foot cumulo-nimbus cloud stack from 461 miles away. The space shuttle can see 1,543 miles or roughly the entire U.S. landmass. If you are on the moon the horizon line is 220,000 miles away. On the sun your horizon is near limitless though the 10,000 degree temp may hinder your observations (do it at night#!).
How far can the physical light gathering device we call eyes see? Depends on air quality, depends on what you mean by "see". Resolution is another matter. We can see a sign from 2 blocks away but not be able to read it. Yet we can see the Adromeda Galaxy nearly 2.5 light years away (light travels 6 trillion miles a year so Adromeda is abut 15 trillion miles away). But we don't really see it or any object; we see the light reflected from the object. And all of this assumes the earth is perfectly round which it is not; a rapidly rotating sphere bulges at the middle; the Earth's orbit is elliptical, and rotation has a bit of a wobble. All of these pose problems in making a sun dial I can assure you (a visit to our friend Mr. Euclid is in order for this endeavor).
This night is busy with flames from my fire, stars circling the North Star, ore carriers passing by, meteorites, satellites, a quarter moon arcing low in the south over the lake and the constant rhythm of a mellow surf AND it's not 95 degrees with 82 degree dew points. The final morning is sitting on the cliffs, sipping a latte, and experiencing the jump start of Mother Earth. The cool and calm of early morning heats up as late morning takes over. Now it is launch time, from the peace and beauty of nature down the I-state to Metro millions. I stop at Lou's in Two Harbors for some $19 a pound smoked wild salmon and some lake trout. Could probably head down the old highway to Duluth and stop at Russ Kendalls and save a few bucks. But I have a new gig going Monday and the tundra walk along the continental divide will fuel my imagination and anticipation of cool alpine retreats and treats ahead. mef
