Black’s Cliff Resort’s Birch Bark Blog

This has to be my favorite day of spring when the fish are running at Cedar Falls.  We saw one Muskie but the day belonged to the Suckers.  The suckers are actually more fun than the Muskie’s and Northerns as the kids can pick them up

Kids could be found on either side of the river having the time of their life trying to catch suckers and help them up the water fall

Someone fell in but don’t tell him you saw this picture on the blog

Look what I got!!

Releasing the sucker above the waterfall.  Giving Mother Nature a hand and having fun doing it

Getting ready to grab another one.  The river was so thick with them you could have walked across

Close to falling in but did not

How much better a Spring afternoon can get I do not know.

Our 2nd cache adventure took our new family mini van down roads(snowmobile trails) that it was not ment for.  We carefully took negotiated the ruts over a mile into the woods to our destination.  I knew this one was going to be neat due to the history involved.  Below is a picture of where we were headed

Originally from Ionia Michigan, Arthur Stevenson purchased this land to grow cranberries in the Bolder Junction area. Construction of the house began in 1912 on the site of a lumber camp. A small saw mill was in operation on the creek which was used to saw the wood needed for the house. The mill workers stayed at the old bunk houses while construction of the house was in progress.

Local rumor had it that one of the Stevenson’s daughters became pregnant by a local worker at the CCC camp. The family was so ashamed that they left the area and abandoned the house around 1915. The house was never finished when they left.

There are different views as to what happened to the home after they left. One is that it burned down, another is that it was sold for it’s tamarack logs which were then used as shoring in the mines in Upper Michigan. A third is that it was sold for the fine cedar lumber used in it’s construction.

We came around the corner and found this tower of stone that was all that was left of the Stevenson House.  This is why I love Geo Caching, only through this sport would we find these unique places that everyone else passes up as they cruise by on the snowmobile trail.  This was about 200 feet off the trail hidden in the woods

Towards the top of the chimney you can see the outline of the old roof line

Trees growing up in the middle of the old house.  Anyone seen Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian where the children come back to find their old castle falling apart.  It reminds me of this scene

This was the fanciest house in Boulder and what stories does this wall have to tell.  I love old remains like these

Time to head back down the road in the family roadster, really have to make that first payment on the van before taking it on an adventure like this.  Where is this place for you to find www.geocaching.com join it and find your own adventure to go on.  This one can be found on Hwy M on the way to Boulder Junction called Arthur Stevenson’s Homestead Cache

Stay tuned for awesome loon pics and Sucker Jumping at Cedar Falls

We headed over to Boulder Junction for some Geo Caching.  Boulder along with St Germaine, and Rhinelander each put out 5 new caches each year for cachers to go find.  If you find 12 out of 15 of them you are entered in a drawing for prizes.  After doing this contest for 3 years the 3 towns really have lots of fun and challenging caches for everyone from easy drive ups to ones like this that require some hiking.  We had heard of the Lumberjack trail but never been down it.  It connects to the Escanaba trail for hiking and skiing for folks who are more ambitious than we are

After saying a few foul words to our new Magellan Triton 300 GPS that would not cooperate we broke out the old stand by Magellan 200 with the menu button that does not like to work.  Troy figuring out if we are going right or left

Definitely not a straight tree

Found our way to the cache by the river.

I get asked many times what does a cache look like.  This one was a typical amo box hidden by a stump a favorite way in Northern Wisconsin of hiding boxes.  I have found that different areas of the country have different ways of hidding caches, Arizona usually they are hidden in a pile of rocks (kind in interesting to unearth due to the prevelance of rattle snakes in Arizona) Tennesse folks love small micro caches hidden in parking lots of businesses, not many hiking caches in Tennessee.  Northern Wisconsin tree stumps and logs seem to be the spots to look

Feeling like we had hiked quite aways to the cache we looked at the map and were shocked to see we really had just scratched the surface of the trail.  The screw head shows the pathetic amount of hiking we did, as it was looking like rain and we had found the cache back to the car we happily went

On the way back I had always heard about people watching the bears at the Boulder Junction Dump so we decided to take a turn in.  Old time resort guests will remember the Hazelhurst Dump that we used to take our garbage to.  There were many stories of those trips to the dump between animals seen and the dump attendents.  The story goes that one of our dump guys was over come with smoke or had a heart attack and was found in the pit after wolves or coyotes had a snack.  Our last dump attendent was a crusty old lady and to stay on her good side you always brought along a beer to soften her up.  I am sure Paul has some dump stories to share

No bears that we could see but it was burning day.  We headed out before we got to meet any of the locals

We headed off with our new GPS on a caching adventure in Boulder.  Boulder every year is part of a Geo Caching contest The Great Northwoods Treasuer Hunt.  3 towns, Boulder, St Germaine and Rhinelander all set out 5 new caches for folks to find.  You have to find 12 out of 15 of the new caches to qualify for their contest.  After doing this for 3 years the 3 towns have some great caches to go see.  Our first stop was at a trail I have heard about but never been on.  The Lumberjack trail is not far from The Escanaba trail and I believe the 2 of them connect if you are adventuresome and have a lot of time and energy for skiing or hiking

I have golfing coupons I sometimes forget to pass out.  If you are going golfing make sure to ask for any of these coupons from me

Timber Ridge 20% off

Pinewood 20% off

Trout Lake 10 dollars off 18 holes or 5 dollars off 9 holes

I have a few neighbors who check out the blog and if you want any golfing certificates feel free to stop in I have plenty and are given more whenever I ask