Black’s Cliff Resort’s Birch Bark Blog

Happy Halloween from the Cliff.  Enjoy the Pumpkins

Compliments of the Black and Gibson Boys

Had to make a quick stop at the Bearskin trail in Minocqua.  We have set 6 geocaches along the trail and one of them had gone missing.  So I chose this cold foggy morning to stop to replace it and shoot some fun pics of a different lake for a change for the blog.  The tressel bridge is always fun to take pictures of and the fog added to it.  Very Halloween feeling.  The trail lady was not there to take money it was eerily quiet

Frost on the bridge from the fog rolling across it

Just passed the bridge I found a spot to leave the cache.  If you are in the area and want to find this one and the other 6 between Minocqua and Hazelhurst along the trail go to www.geocaching.com and look for Going on a Bear Hunt 1 – 6 they all give clues to the final cache at the Bear’s Pot of Gold.  Enter Minocqua’s zipcode 54548 we have 20 caches hidden through out the Minocqua and Hazelhurst Area

View down the trail in the fog and late fall leaves.  I know most folks love to walk or bike the trail in the summer, but to me this is the best time to be on the trail, quiet and great views

On the way back I shot this pic of The Thirsty Whale in the mist.  Looking off the otherside of the bridge the fog was too thick for a good pic.

Grab your cup of coffee and enjoy Lower Kaubashine in the fog this morning.  The lighting was amazing as the sun was peaking through.  I was racing home from the grocery store looking at Lake Minocqua in the fog to get to my camera and Lower Kaubashine.  I took some with the raft in the pic and some with it out.  Enjoy

Who says we don’t get into our work.  It is fall cleaning time now that it is slowing down a bit.  You can’t say Olga does not get the corners.  I came in the cabin looking for her and heard a voice from the back of the kitchen

Amazing how much stuff is really in the cupboards

Marcy the queen of the Firbie.  I found a special ceiling fan cleaner we are trying out.  From the amount of sneezing from Marcy I think it was working

No dust ball escape’s Marcy’s eye

Taking out the blue dock for the winter.  The last of the docks to head out

Do the guys ever take out or put in a dock without a winter hat on?

For those that are wondering what the old wood snag looks like in late fall.  Peaceful and reflecting

The raft looking a bit lonely without the docks.  Rumor has it, the raft will be coming into winter shore tormorrow

The sun came out and the Northwoods started melting this afternoon.  Internet as lost Friday afternoon along with all cell phone coverage in Hazelhurst from a tower being down.  11pm Friday night we lost electric due to ice on the lines.  Between the 2 events the only communication to Black’s Cliff was through the cord phone in the kitchen.  Even the answering machine was out due to electricity.  Thankfully by 2pm all was back in operation and we were connected to the outside world again

Just about all the snow that came down last night melted by 2.  We did head out last night in the storm to get a movie and pizza. The little video store on Blue Lake Road across from Life Spring Coffee shop choose this weekend to close its doors and shut down.  Minocqua Pizza Company was warm and good food as usual one of the only things working in the Northwoods last night and this morning

I hear we are in for a rainy week.  It will be interesting to see where the lake levels are at the end of the week

It was a beautiful fall day.   The Packers were playing Detroit and the first half was enough of a game to see, so off down the road we went on the hunt of a geo cache.  We headed to the notorious Camp 9 road that connects to an even more infamous Manhardt Road.

No power lines, no houses, dirt road and lots of nothing.  Manhardt is a scary road to be on in the winter.  If you miss the 90 degree turn that Camp 9 does on the way to Winter Park to ski, you end up on Manhardt where there are no plowed turn arounds for 10 miles.  Only lots of snow, snowmobiles and large animals, not a place to be during a snow storm.  Today it was much safer to wander down.  Firelanes had trucks parked in them from folks bow hunting.  Some of the land is private and others is paper company land, all of it is deserted and only really used for hunting and hiding dead bodies from the days of the Chicago Mafia

After much driving we were out in the north and western end of the Willow Flowage, by Willow Lake which flows into the Willow through a river.  The drive out was beautiful.  This picnic area is about a 25 minute drive from the resort

Really neat area.  We walked across the rocks and through rocks in the pool.  This area will be neat to return to in the spring for fish spawning like we do at Cedar Falls

There is a picnic area and benches to sit at to watch the river go by

Geo Cache spotted and signed.  This is the reason we go caching in the Minocqua area as it brings us to some amazing new spots we never knew about www.geocaching.com will led you on your own adventure in your hometown enter your zip code and see what pops up

My favorite sign of the day.  Not sure where the barrel was

A very well intentioned family cleaned out their fireplace before leaving Kaubashine this morning.  I walked past the bucket seeing they had also cleaned out unburned logs and they were in the bucket and did not doing anything with the bucket.  It did not get my attention as I saw the bucket was not next to the cabin.  We have had fires start from ashe buckets left near cabins smoldering and starting the side of the cabin on fire.  Today the bucket smoldered all day and restarted the logs on fire.  When I happened upon the bucket on of the logs had burned through and dropped to the ground startign the leaves and needles around it on fire.  Never take unburned logs out of the fireplace and leave them in a bucket with hot ashes.

We had been hiking all afternoon and away from the resort.  We were lucky it did not set the cabin on fire.  ALL ASH BUCKETS MUST BE LEFT AWAY FROM THE CABINS AND BY THE GARBAGE CANS!  Better yet please do not clean out the ashes, honestly I would rather see the ashes left in the fireplace for us to deal with.  The only reason we leave ash buckets around the resort is because if we do not people us brown paper garbage bags  (as with Norway Pines this spring where ashes were put in a bag and put on the wood porch where they smoldered through the wood and into the jouices before being caught just in time) or the plastic mop bucket (and put under the kitchen sink where it melts to the linoleum)  and that causes even more problems.  Ashes have caused more almost fires than I care to think about.  Please, please, please be careful, if you must take out your ashes put them in the bucket AWAY from the cabin

Better yet if you must take them out and they are hot in pour a bucket of water on them.  Many times folks think the ashes are cold or just a few coals in them.  It is amazing what happens when they are given time to smolder and a little fuel.

See this truck come in the driveway be ready to enjoy that fresh country air.

Nothing like coming to the resort on septic tank day.  15 tanks, 1 truck and a lot of digging.  They were supposed to be here Wednesday mid week when we only had 3 cabins, instead Friday was the day, a full house of folks to enjoy that fresh crisp Wisconsin air

Troy would like to report no strange items found in the septics this year but lots of frozen air bubbles…..

The fall colors are holding on.  We are just past the peak in my opinion but the woods are still hanging on to the fall colors.  Pic taken where the road meets the lake

Colors keeping things bright on the playground

Shamrock

Creepy, crawlies hanging around to be careful of

More pics from Wade in the 40 acres of woods across from the resort.  He is bow hunting at the back end of our 40 and has caught some great pics of our neighbors in the woods.  The camera has a sensor that makes it snap when animals come into its view.  Take a close look at the young buck above.  It is an Ash buck, part albino.  Look at the coloring.  It will be interesting to see if he makes it through hunting season and we will be able to see him next summer

Another good pic of a nice sized buck.

The best pic yet of the mama bear and her baby.  These 2 can stay on their side of the road and not in the resort.  Can’t wait to see what Wade finds in the woods this weekend