Bradley Pazian's Outdoor Adventure Blog: 06/01/2011

After wading through the many pictures from June I think I have found the ones which can best illustrate my experience. Most of June was taken up by an 11 day work stint out in North Dakota. We were working at Sully's Hill National Wildlife Refuge.

The refuge is located in Devils Lake, North Dakota and is special in a number of ways. Devil's Lake itself is an interesting story as it is a lake with no outlet. This means that any water which gets into the lake stays in. So with wet trends over the last few decades the lake has grown enormously in size. This has created a situation where many people have had their land flood, forests end up underwater, and roads have been washed out.

Construction is really bad in this area. They are trying to keep roads open that now, because of the flooding, go right across the lake. This has involved hauling in ungodly amounts of dirt to make the roads high enough to prevent them from washing away.

Dirt road across a bay.

Devil's Lake as seen from the top of Sully's Hill

Another unique aspect of this area is that it's heavily wooded. The lake acted as a fire break from raging prairie fires over the years and have allowed woodlands to grow. The hills are thanks to glaciers depositing their soil.

The woods of Sully's Hill as seen from the hill. Note how quickly it turns back into prairie.

A prairie fringed with woodlands.

With Prairie and Woodlands comes wildflowers. We spotted a lot on our stay but here are a few of my favorites.

An unknown wildflower

Yellow Lady's Slipper (an orchid)

Coral Root (an orchid)

Phlax

Sully's Hills is also unique because of the wildlife it has. It is full of a wide variety of birds as it has very diverse habitats. It draws in woodland birds, wetland birds, and prairie birds. The park is also home to a Buffalo herd of about 20 animals.

The Buffalo loved hanging around this algae laden swamp. There often a pair of wood ducks joining them.

Christy is trying to photograph this curios Buffalo. They often hanged out near the shop where we left our tools and cooked our meals. More than once we had dinner with the Buffalo right nearby.

Though mostly sticking to the prairies, you could sometimes find the Buffalo browsing through the woods.

Sully's Hill is also home to a smaller elk herd of 15 animals and a prairie dog town.

Prairie Dog sounding the alarm

The elk were much harder to spot than the Buffalo. This female elk considered me for a while before retreating back into the woods.

The actual work we did at Sully's Hill was varied. We spent a lot of time felling trees along a fenceline, in hopes that it would prevent the trees from later falling on the fence. The logistics for this were at times hairy as we were felling on the highly inaccessible outer portion of fence.

Scaling the fence

Hung up a helmet!

Mike felling a tree

We used logs we cut out of a big deadfall to stabilize this boardwalk.

We also did a bit of trailwork here, put in some erosion control measures on hillsides, and did a bit of debris removal. Overall a very awesome trip with gorgeous scenery, engaging work, and great animal sitings.

Uncle Dan was able to come up to go fishing with me the following weekend after Sully's Hill. We had a great time and had some good luck fishing the north country.

Dan pulling in a Walleye on Cass Lake

I caught 2 perch on 1 cast on Moose Lake

My first 2 for 1!

Dan with a good sized Northern.

A merganser with it's chicks.

Blue Flag Iris

Me catching a small mouth bass. This was actually on my canoe after Dan took back off for the cities.

This past weekend was spent at a cabin relaxing and doing some canoeing. We spent the day canoeing down the Pine River which ended up being really awesome. As I was in the back of the canoe I didn't take many pictures as I was focused on driving but took this one on one of our breaks.

Beth, Sarah, John, and Bandy (the dog) our group floating down the Pine River!

Well that is what has been keeping me busy for the last month and a half. It's been a bit crazy being out of town so much and not having much time in my apartment but it's been so worth it. Next month will take this to the next level of craziness as I have been deployed for disaster relief in Joplin, Missouri. This is a bittersweet thing really. Being deployed means I miss out on the family reunion, two of my good friends return to Minnesota, and a wedding. On the other hand though this is a great opportunity to make a big impact on peoples lives, a community, and myself. I will learn a lot of new skills with this assignment as it will involve a lot of construction type activities. The work is going to be very hard but the rewards from the hard work will make it all worth it. Keep me and the people of Joplin in your thoughts this following month. If you have questions or would like to hear more about any of my projects, adventures, or see more of my pictures (I have many more) leave a comment here, via email, or give me a call! Be well and stay tuned for the next update!

Wow long time no post! It's not due to lack of exciting things but more because of having so many exciting things in such a short time. May had me out of town every week and weekend minus the first. June has been about the same but it all has been really great.

Work in May was quite the mixed bag of projects. We did our first prescribed burning at Inspiration Peak. This was a rewarding but crazy project as it ended up being 3 13 hour days rather than our normal 4 10 hour day week.

Some of our crew at the top of the peak.

The peak after getting some fire. The area is being burned to restore the natural cycle of fire to the area. Without fire the entire forest composition changes and takes on a whole new character. Since there are structures which they don't want to burn nearby a prescribed (intentional) burn is the only way to reintroduce fire safely.

Eleva running a drip torch to get the more forested areas burning.

Me at the peak.

We worked on rolling prairie in southwestern MN doing debris removal.

Jarret limbing up a tree.

A scenic area right near our worksite.

We were working in the stand of oaks pictured here. Much of the debris was created in an effort to restore oak savannah to the state park.

Our next project brought us to far Northwestern MN for various things like planting, chainsawing, sign installation, etc.

We were able to borrow Kayaks from the campground we were staying at so we were able to explore the local river at the end of the day.

We removed a bunch of logs which had plugged up a culvert. Flooding earlier in the year had swept all these logs down the river and now the plugged culvert was acting as a big catchers mitt for anything flowing down the river. Christy is bucking up one of the bigger logs here we fished out of a culvert.

Gosslings near the beach at the campground.

View of our planting site. The foreground is native prairie and the background is mostly natural wetland. The river is just behind the line of cattails.

And finally we had a project close to home on Leech Lake searching and destroying Garlic Mustard.

At the end of the day we find ways to unwind... like Hula Hooping!

We attempted to access a remote strip of National Forest Land on the shores of Leech Lake via boat. The land was hemmed in by water and impassable swamp so boat was the only way in. Unfortunately high water levels washed out any clear landing place so we had to come back in and continue working on more accessible land.

Our crew is walking along the shoreline of Leech Lake on a windy day trying to access a section where we are looking for Garlic Mustard.

For fun in May canoeing and camping (often combining both) were my go to activities. I went canoeing at Itasca State Park the 1st weekend.

A couple of Trumpeter Swans were cruising along Lake Itasca. These beautiful creatures are fairly regularly seen on the lakes of Northern Minnesota. Their slow movements across the water are graceful and their resounding trumpet is nothing short of incredible. This is especially true on a very quiet lake where the echo reverberates off the lake.

A view of the Schoolcraft Island on Lake Itasca.

A couple of loons.

Me taking a rest at the connection of Elk Lake and Itasca.

A Beaver here is slapping the water with its tail to let me know I'm on his/her turf.

The day ended with waters of pure glass and a beautiful sunset.

The second weekend of May I was actually back in NY to attend my sister Amanda's graduation. This was awesome as I really didn't think I'd be able to go but with the help of family we were able to make it happen. The graduation itself was really nice and it was amazing to be able to see my sisters and mom for the second time this year! I wasn't able to get many good pictures from the actual graduation, you'll have to talk to my mom about that, but I did get some good shots from our day at Niagara Falls National Park..

My mom posing in front of one of the many blooming trees in the park.

A view of the falls.

The rapids of the Niagara River, looking away from the falls.

Mist rising over the trees on the Niagara River.

Tulips in full bloom!

The weekend following I took part in a volunteer effort to clear out a section of the Border Route Trail. This is a 65 mile long hiking trail which traverses the Minnesota/Ontario border. This region, in my opinion, is some of the most scenic country I have ever seen and this trail means a lot to me so I love being able to get involved to keep it open.

Our campsite was in the stand of pine on the right hand side of the picture.

A view of several lakes and wilderness forest from high above on the Border Route Trail.

My tent

The majority of our crew hunkered down for dinner under a tarp after an all day rain on our second day of trail work.

We were greeted to a misty morning on Pine Lake.

View of Pine Lake looking east from our camp.

Our crew on our final day of trail work heading back to the landing site.

NMy canoeing partner, Michael, on our last day.

A couple of Conservation Corps folks who joined on this volunteering opportunity.

Our BRT volunteer crew back in one piece!

The following weekend I took a recreational trip up to the Boundary Waters. This was a 6 day trip with myself and five of my friends. The trip started off just awesome as we saw a moose on the road on the way in. As far as I know no one was able to get a picture but the memory will remain!

Our group ready to set sail on the Stuart River.

A Beaver Dam crossing on the Stuart River. We ran into three beaver dams on the trip and this one was the easiest to traverse as there were channels to go through.

A view of the Stuart River from a portage path.

A sunset on Loon Lake.

Brock helping coordinate our second beaver dam crossing. This one we were able to pull our canoes over.

The boundary waters has tons of exposed rocks. Some form cliffs like this one. We had fun paddling into the overhang of the rock!

We found a huge boulder submerged in this lake. It gave the illusion of walking on water.

A rocky, mossy, lichen covered portage path. These are some of my favorite as they are so unique looking!

A view of Gun Lake from some cliffs near our campsite. A couple of others from our party are down canoeing far below.

Our last beaver dam crossing involved actually bushwacking through the woods with the canoes. This wasn't so bad though as it was through a stand of old growth pine. Walking through the thick layer of pine needle duff was just a treat!

A view of the moody Lac La Croix. This day consisted of intermittent showers. When the rain gave us respite on rare occasions it made room for some beautiful views.

Alex and I attempting to catch some fish.

A large rock cliff on Lac La Croix.

Me portaging over Beatty Portage. This is an odd portage as it literally goes through someones yard (as the portage leads us to just outside the wilderness).

Our canoes ready to be loaded up on Loon Lake.

Overall this trip was just awesome. I can't wait to get up again! Hopefully sometime in August I will be able to do a serious trip. June was just about as eventful as May. Work has still been a pleasure in June. We had a week long project at Big Bog State Recreation Area. This is a large tract of black spruce/tamarack bog just to the northeast of Red Lake. It is one of larger (virtually) untouched wildernesses in the state. At the site we were erecting tree cages around cedar saplings to protect the trees.