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Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Just Another Hike

 
dog on trail

Maggie and I hiked again today, after spotting an out-of-town hiker. We were at one of my favorite local places, Bowman Semi-Primitive Area. It's an area of small glacial hills, all nicely wooded.

tall trees

Pictures in the woods, in the sun, tend to be dappled and don't look nearly as special as our brains see them (horray for our brains), but I like this one with tall trees.

Bowman Lake

Ah! Here we are at the premier feature of this area, Bowman Lake. It's a glacial kettle hole, which means that it formed when the glaciers left a block of ice behind that melted right here. There are no streams that feed it, just runoff, and springs in the bottom. You can only walk to this lake, so it's a lovely, quiet place.

animal hole

Who do you think lives here? Notice the acorn on the right, for scale. Whoever it is, they have a lovely garden just beside the door.

spider web

I thought of my friend rainfield as I took this picture. I wonder what it would whisper to him. The spider is not at home. Maybe she had to go grocery shopping because all she could catch was old leaves, and they aren't so tasty.

blowout hole
Finally, I just wanted to show you this space in the summer. You've seen it in the winter at Snowshoe Outing with SPW. This is a "blowout hole." It's a natural depression where there is little vegetation and the wind, at some point, just blew it deeper and rounded it. If I had pointed the camera the other direction you would see bare sand. Yet this is miles and miles from Lake Michigan. Underneath almost all our hills there is sand. They are just stabilized dunes, not rock.

That's plenty for today!


See Late Winter Hike Around Bowman Lake
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5 comments:

rainfield61 said...

I am here because of the whisper. I met the spider on the way to your place.

The Oceanside Animals said...

Interesting, I never heard of a "blowout hole" before!

Ann said...

What a nice hike. I like how the sun comes shining through the trees. Bowman Lake looks very peaceful. I would love to sit on that bench and just check out the scenery for a while.

spinninglovelydays said...

You live in such a beautiful place, Sharkbytes. Love all the pics, but the fourth one has me dreaming up children's stories. :)

Sharkbytes said...

rainfield- That's one well-traveled spider. Were you grocery shopping too?

Dennis- do you live in pure sand? If not, no blowouts

Ann- it IS a wonderful place to sit. Our Chapter built that bench, just so you could do that.

Ivy- I like all the wild places nearby! Yes, stories are better than just explaining that it is probably a chipmunk den.