Jay Cooke State Park - Back from the dead
Jay Cooke State Park is one of the most underrated public lands in northern Minnesota.
I admit, I am guilty of overlooking it myself. Most of my state park time is spent at the charismatic mega-parks of the North Shore - Tettegouche, Split Rock Lighthouse, Temperance River, etc. And even though Jay Cooke is right outside of Duluth, whenever I want a quick escape near the Twin Ports, I head to Pattison or Amnicon Falls outside of Superior.
Very rarely do I think of traveling to Jay Cooke.
Every time I do visit the park and hike along the roaring St Louis River I think, “Man, we really should spend more time here!” Then five years or so pass before I come back.
Too bad. It’s a great park.
This year, however, I did manage to visit Jay Cooke twice (so far). The first time was Mother’s Day weekend when my mom and I spent the weekend hiking the southernmost 15 miles of the Superior Hiking Trail (most of which lies within the park).
The second was just last weekend when the park reopened to the public for the first time since the devastating flood of June 20. I knew that as soon as it opened, the boys and I would have to head there to pay homage to this great piece of Minnesota. Especially after the great time my mom and I had there only weeks before the flood.
This is the second time my mom and I have visited a beautiful natural area only to have something devastating happen soon afterwards. The first was in 1987 after a family vacation to Yellowstone.
Not long after our visit, a huge forest fire raged through the park. At the time, I remember my mom saying, “I’m glad we got to see it before the fire. It will probably never be the same in our lifetime.”
In 2009, I did return with my parents, and this time with my own kids. During those t20 years, Mother Nature did her thing and although there are places where you can see evidence of the fire, for the most part you could hardly notice it. Ah, the circle of life…
That
coincidence was not far from my mind when I saw the first photos of Jay
Cooke’s iconic Swinging Bridge destroyed in the flood water. It was
just shocking to me that I was looking at the same bridge that my mother
and I had stood on just weeks before on a bright and sunny day with the
river far below us. It seemed impossible, in fact.
It was a fantastic Mother’s Day weekend. Although we camped a Pattison (for sentimental reasons) we spent the majority of our time in Jay Cooke. Wildflowers were blooming vividly along the trail as we climbed high ridgelines and descended into lush valleys filled with ferns and cedars.
Of course, the centerpiece of Jay Cooke will always be the St Louis River which rushes through an immense rocky gorge, cascading its way to Lake Superior.
And there’s hardly a better vantage point to gaze upon the river than from the swinging bridge. First built as a log and rope bridge by the Forest Service in 1927, the Civilian Conservation Corps built the familiar stone pillars we see today in 1934-35. In 1950, the bridge was destroyed in what is now the second largest flood on record. It wasn’t reopened until 1953. It hopefully won’t take as long this time as the DNR hopes to have the bridge repaired by late next summer.
So when I heard last week that the park was reopening, I just had to go and check it out for myself. With the boys and I already planning to attend the Friday night UMD hockey game and a ski swap at Spirit Mountain on Saturday, we had the perfect opportunity for a visit.
Friday night we found ourselves driving into a nearly abandoned campground. We took the first campsite we came across, number one, in fact, set-up our tent and dove into our sleeping bags. It was pretty cold and we were all tired from work and school followed by the game so we fell asleep instantly.
We got up in the morning rested, but hungry, and of course we were low on breakfast food so I looked at the map and planned a short hike - only about a mile and a half according to the map, but I was mainly wanting to check-out the bridge anyway. As we hiked to the trailhead, Nick discovered one of the coolest campsites we have ever seen in a state park drive-in campground! I won’t tell you the site number (find it yourself) but there are gorgeous cedars and a huge cliff in the back.
Very nice!
As
we hiked through the chilly morning and talked about going to the ski
swap, I realized that this might be one of our last hikes before the ski
season gets into full-swing. Even though we are excited to get back on
the hill, the change of seasons is always a little bittersweet.
Soon we heard the roar of whitewater and made it to the bank of the St Louis. It was much, MUCH lower than in June but we could see how high the water had been. We made our way downstream slowly, enjoying the rocks and the river when Nick, who was up ahead yelled, “Woah! Look at the bridge!!!”
Even
though I had seen photos of the bridge earlier in the summer, it was
different seeing that once proud icon of our parks hanging there right
in front of me. The pillars were chipped away, the metal twisted and
bent. There was even river debris still hanging from the frame. I
almost felt angry that park staff hadn’t cleaned it off, like having the
debris still hanging there was somehow robbing the bridge of some of
its dignity.
But it’s just a bridge. And it will be replaced. And people like me will continue to hike the trails and camp with their kids and their parents. The river will rise again and it will fall again. There will be storms and droughts and nature will continue to follow its course and we will have to adapt. Just like in Yellowstone, Mother Nature always knows what she’s doing.
Just ask MY mother.
For more information about the park, including a fantastic historic photo gallery of the swinging bridge, visit http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/jay_cooke/index.html
In : Hiking
Tags: "jay cooke state park" hiking duluth "st. louis river" north shore "lake superior" "spirit mountain" umd
Zach Johns is an alpine skier, backpacker, paddler and all-around nature lover who lives on Minnesota‘s Iron Range. Originally from Osceola, Wis., Johns attended the University of Minnesota-Duluth so he could ski every day and be close to the trails of his beloved North Shore. There, he earned a degree in Communication and was editor of the student newspaper. However, the real education he gained at UMD was in honing his outdoor skills. He took courses in subjects such as backpacking, winter camping, rock climbing and canoe tripping. By the time he graduated, that was all he wanted to do. In January of 1997, he moved to the Range where he met a group of die-hard skiers dedicated to making turns at Giants Ridge every single day of the winter (when they weren’t out skiing the big mountains of the west.) Throughout the late nineties he built a very impressive ski resume, taking several trips to Utah, Montana, Wyoming, California, British Columbia and Alaska. During the off-season, he took to the hiking trails. In 1997, he hiked the entire Superior Hiking Trail during the single season (what had been completed until that time) and in following years, took trips to Yosemite, Glacier and the Grand Canyon. He also made two attempts to climb King’s Peak, the highest mountain in Utah, but failed to summit both times. In 1999, he attempted the infamous 43-mile Kekekabic Trail through the heart of the BWCA and limped out after only ten miles with a hernia. He did finally complete the Kek in 2005, during one of the hottest weeks on record. Besides hiking, he also continued dabbling with paddling, making several canoe trips to the BWCA and became an enthusiastic (yet very novice) whitewater kayaker. He is now a father of two sons, Nick and Jackson, who accompany their father on nearly all his adventures. Both were skiing fairly soon after they could stand and from 2006-2011, the three hiked in every state park in Minnesota, 195 miles of hiking in 65 parks. Since becoming a dad, Johns has suddenly realized that you can’t just be out there skiing, hiking, paddling, etc. without also working to protect the very things you love. With that in mind, he founded an adventure club at work to get co-workers outside who might not otherwise be inspired to go. The club has gone on hiking, paddling, winter camping and cycling trips and annually go on a trash pick-up hike to celebrate Earth Day. He believes that once you get people out into beautiful wild places, the more likely they will be to protect them. He has also done a lot of volunteer work for the Superior Hiking Trail Association including adopting a backcountry campsite which he and the boys maintain twice a year. It is of extreme importance, he believes, to introduce children to the outdoors early. Not only is it good for them, but they will be the ones protecting these places once we are gone. Future plans? There are a few local goals to check-off including hiking the Border Route Trail in the BWCA and Isle Royale. Mostly, it’s just to take the boys hiking and camping in more of our national parks, skiing the big western mountains, and more of their usual seasonal cycle: Giants Ridge in the winter, Superior’s North Shore in the spring, South Shore in the summer and back to the North Shore in the fall.
