dreamshark

I have visited TEN Minnesota State Parks this year, trying to find a decent swimming beach. It's been surprisingly frustrating. Sometimes you get a big, beautiful lake devoted primarily to boats with a swampy little beach as an afterthought. Or a beautiful looking sandy beach that turns out to hide a difficult rocky entry. Or a huge sandy beach that is clearly meant to be used for day trips but has no changing rooms or even flush toilets. I still haven't found one that matches up to my memories of McCarthy Beach (best beach in the park system, IMHO). But since I haven't been there in years, maybe that isn't fair, so I'm picking a winner for 2021. And it's this quirky little swimming hole in the southwest corner of the state: Camden State Park Beach. The park itself is an unexpected little gem of a river valley that appears out of nowhere in the middle of miles of soybean and cornfields. But this strange little beach is the real reason to go here. I've never seen anything quite like it.

Sure, it doesn't look like much: a shallow sand-bottom pond that appears to have been created by damming up a picturesque little creek. Way over on the far side, water spills over a pile of rocks into the Redwood River. I didn't get a picture of that side, but you can see a great view of it here, on the park's Virtual Tour Page. There is also an inflow stream over on the left side. But it turns out that the real water source for this pond is a glacially cold spring under the deep end of the pond. And I mean COLD. Lake Superior cold. So cold that you literally doubt your own senses as you wade into it. According to an old janitor that looked kinda like Sam Elliot, it's 18 feet deep over there and the water is 58 degrees down at the bottom. The pond is crystal clear, probably because it is constantly flowing. There are little fish and tadpoles in there, with kingfishers diving off the dead tree. And apparently other aquatic life; the janitor told us a funny story about the time somebody carefully placed a live crayfish in each urinal in the men's room.

Over the 85 years since swimming hole was created it has silted up a little bit, creating some shallow spots with water weeds. It could use another dredging, but it's still perfectly swimmable, and it's perfect for flotation toys (which are highly desirable, since the pond is so cold that you need some way to warm up). It is a really fun swim.

Of course this pond was created by one of those 1930's government work programs, which they topped off with this structure, the best-preserved example of a vintage bathhouse that I have found yet. Not quite as elegant as the one at Lake Shetek, but the changing rooms are in good shape in this one. It's too bad that the clothing check service is no longer in operation, but that would be expecting too much.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/574867.html

I started this summer's tour of state parks in search of a really good swimming beach, and finally found one. Lake Shetek is a surprisingly large and scenic recreational lake in the southwest corner of the state with a lovely Depression-era state park on the east side. The WPA really went nuts here, constructing not only the usual restrooms and picnic shelters but TWO entire group camps with bunkhouses and dining halls, and this spectacular bathhouse and swimming area.

The bathhouse is really beautiful, fronted with a stone terrace and two long curved staircases sweeping down from the men's and women's discreetly separated dressing areas to meet at the shore. From the outside it looks perfect. Sadly, the changing booths have been left to deteriorate pending some vague future "renovation" (according to a passing janitor). The modern restrooms are in good shape, but I'm sure the architect of this graceful structure did not expect generations of future bathers to be changing into their swim clothes while standing on one foot in the toilet stalls. I was so distressed by the situation that I brought a broom from our cabin and swept out the women's side of the changing room so I could use it without standing on a carpet of acorns. If they ever get around to fixing that up I'd give this beach an A+

The lake is shallow and sandy, and this is the very definition of "easy entry." The steps literally terminate in the sandy lake bottom. And there's even a handy place to sit on either side to take off your flip flops. The swim area is large and includes a huge lap swimming lane. The water was a little green, probably because the lake is never more than 10 feet deep. But it was plenty cold out past the first string of buoys and made for a very refreshing swim.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/574026.html

On Day 3 we checked out of our cabin in Itasca and headed for Mille Lacs, where I wanted to check out the beach at Father Hennepin State Park. Along the way we stopped to photograph this giant walleye at Garrison. There are a lot of giant fiberglass fish in Minnesota, but this one has a particularly artistic paint job.

Father Hennepin State Park, on the southwest shore of Mille Lacs, has a huge and showy beach but not much else. We stayed in a nearby fishing motel and just day-tripped to the nearby parks. Day tripping is where the appalling lack of changing facilities becomes an issue, and this otherwise lovely beach was seriously downgraded for that. Not only were there no changing rooms, there really weren't even rest rooms - just a rather nasty pit toilet located quite a ways from the beach. Ugh. How is that even legal? I realized much later that the solution to that problem would have been to stop at one of the park campgrounds on the way in to put on our suits. But until we got to the beach we didn't realize it would be a problem. The beach isn't quite as nice as it looks anyway because there is a moderately rocky entry hidden under that pretty blue water. I was able to pick my way around the rocks and find a sandy path in, but Richard found it daunting and retired to the nearest bench with a book. However, just the sheer size of the beach meant there was a lot of room for lap swimming, so I give it a B or B+.

Da Boathouse, a fun local watering hole near McQuoid's Inn where we were staying. Those are dollar bills stuck to the ceiling with large tacks. There's a story behind that, although not a really compelling one.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/573086.html

Part of this year's State Park Odyssey is my ongoing search for the perfect swimming beach. This isn't it, but it's closer than the rest of this year's contenders. Starting with extra points for the existence of something you would think would be standard at any developed public beach but shockingly is not: changing rooms. Itasca, with its solid historic park infrastructure, offers this handsome toilet/changing room combination. There is even one shower among the plain changing cubicles for extra points! And if this is not another example of CCC-era construction it is a very good facsimile.

The beach itself is no better than B+. On the plus side, the water is clear and cold, swimming area is decent size with enough room for lap swimming, and there aren't a lot of water weeds. If you wanted to swim outside the buoyed area it would be pretty easy, due to the lack of water weeds and a surprising dearth of motor boats. I'm sure there are boats somewhere, but they don't seem to be buzzing the beach area. On the downside, that beautiful sandy beach is deceiving. From the waterline on, it is the worst kind of rocky entry, almost impossible to walk on without extreme discomfort. It was enough to dissuade Richard from even entering the water, which is sad. It looks like the perfect beach for wading into on a hot day, but it is not.

Like most State Park beaches, it's located in a lovely picnic area with lots of shade and a few tables overlooking the water. And (as always) NO LIFEGUARD, which is a huge plus from my point of view.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/572207.html

For the second part of our 2-day smoke-hazed State Park expedition we drove southwest 3 hours from McGregor to the Alexandria lakes district. Have you ever heard of this park? I hadn't, which is a bit surprising considering that it is located in a popular resort district of the state and has been there since 1937.

I picked it because the eponymous lake is supposedly deep and clear and "great for jumping into" according to the DNR staff picks. It's a nice park with great Camper Cabins, but as a swimming destination it was kind of a fail. Lake Carlos is the largest and deepest lake in the Alexandria chain of lakes, as deep as 167 feet (which is a LOT). But not HERE, where the swimming beach is located. As I am finding is typically the case in Minnesota state parks, the beach is just a toddler play area close to a beautiful and well-developed picnic area, but is not intended for adults to swim in. This one is a narrow strip of sand sandwiched between two stands of cattails, 3-4 feet deep at the max, and completely hemmed in by impenetrable water weeds. GRADE: C-. An easy sandy entry and the quality of the water earns it a passing grade, but such a disappointing beach on a beautiful lake.

I had some fun anyway, since I had fortunately thrown a pair of swim goggles in with my swimsuit. Although they were just ordinary goggles of the type you wear to keep chlorine out of your eyes, they fit surprisingly well and I was able to use them like a snorkel mask to swim along the edge of the wall of water weeds and chase the schools of little bluegills hanging around by the weeds. The water in this lovely lake is clear as a bell, so that was actually a lot of fun. Not a great place for actually stretching out and swimming, however.

Okay, HERE is where the swimming beach should have been located: next to the Lower Campground. Which is, incidentally, a very attractive campground for those of you with RVs. Or boats. Because that is what this beautiful strip of clear, sandy, weed-free beach is dedicated to. At this point I had an Aha! moment, realizing that when that reviewer said "a great lake to jump into" they meant FROM A BOAT. Because if you poke the average outdoorsy Minnesotan and say the word "lake" the default image that leaps into their mind is a motor boat.

An artistically deformed tree to the side of the boat mooring area at the Lower Campground. If there hadn't been a hella wind blowing off the lake and stirring up whitecaps I might have changed into a swimsuit and jumped in right here. But it's always dangerous trying to swim around motorboats, and particularly dangerous when the water is rough, so no.

The Hidden Lake Group Camp is beautiful. It was vacant, so we drove up the hill from the picnic grounds to take a look at it. This scenic trail runs next to it, "through mature hardwood forest" in the words of the park map notes.

A nice shot from the Hidden Lake Trail. Is that wild rice down there? Or just very spiky reeds? Well, for sure there is a good-sized painted turtle basking on a log, although you probably can't see it in this small-sized photo. Anyway, a nice little hike. It's actually a fairly long hike if you continue all the way around Hidden Lake, but after the first set of gratuitous ups and downs we gave up and headed back to the group campsite to admire the WPA buildings.

What do you think this historic building is? I guessed an old cookhouse, but I was wrong. It's a water tower, which is still in use to provide water to the group campsite and the picnic area below. Cool.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/569587.html

Now that I have a State Park Passport, I am in "Gotta catch 'em all" mode. Note that a Park Passport is the opposite of a real passport, which allows you to visit places. This type of "passport" COMPELS you to visit them.

This two-day trip was mostly a lodging reconnaissance expedition. It turns out that a very small number of Minnesota State Parks have actual full-service cabins for rent (i.e., little houses with indoor plumbing), and an even smaller number have cabins sized for 2 people. Savanna Portage is one of them. Garni Guesthouse used to belong to the Garni family until the park got it away from them in 1992 and decided to keep it around to rent to tourists. At $120 it's an amazing deal: a fully functional small house with full kitchen and bath, heat, and a nicely furnished great room. It's completely isolated on a peninsula on Lake Savanna with its own boat dock, complete with rowboat.

Savanna Portage is, unfortunately, neither the most interesting nor the most scenic park in the Minnesota Park System, but it sure has a great 4-season guest house. I'll bet it's a great place for stargazing when the air isn't full of smoke.

Here's the boat dock, complete with rowboat. Richard really wanted to try it out, but his mobility is limited and he decided it just looked too hard to get in and out of the thing. If the weather had been more agreeable we might have worked harder at it.

Strictly speaking, there was nothing wrong with the weather, which should have been a lovely sunny summer's day. Unfortunately, we chose to drive 150 miles due north into the most severe Air Quality Alert ever recorded in Minnesota, due to Canadian wildfires. Did you know there was a Level Purple? Apparently that's the level beyond Red. So instead of a cheery blue, this is what the sky looked like over the Garni boat dock. And that was during one of the better moments when you could actually see where the sun was and I briefly believed that it was starting to clear up.

The other objective of this trip was extending my mostly futile quest to find good swimming lakes at Minnesota State Parks. This one wasn't too bad. I'd give it a B or B+. The beachside picnic area is lovely, with large pines, shady benches, and a handsome WPA-built restroom building. No changing rooms, but changing in the restroom isn't too bad. But the official swim area is the usual toddler wading pool: small, sandy, and shallow. On the plus side, Loon Lake is a small lake with no motor boats (just loons), so you can venture out of the pathetic little swim area into deeper water without fear of being decapitated. The small sandy beach extends into the water for an easy entry. The water was brown, but actually very clean. I think the brown color was from the pine needles. I splashed around on my inflatable alligator for a while, then beached it and went out past the buoys to swim some laps. And the loons put on a bit of a show, hooting and laughing maniacally and then doing that dramatic water takeoff that makes them seem about 3 times bigger than they are. Richard sat on that pretty shady bench and read while I played in the water. It was a nice afternoon expedition.

Back in the cabin, Richard found something really fun to peruse, and entertained me with juicy historical tidbits while I played solitaire on my phone.

This is exactly the sort of reading matter I love to find in a vacation house: a meticulously researched self-published book about a local historical topic that almost nobody cares about except the author. This one starts with the melting of the glaciers, works its way forward into the Voyageur era, and lingers lovingly on the horrors of portaging for days through a muskeg swamp. I love that Mr. Greer started his research back in the 1940's by interviewing all the old-timers in the area, one of whom recalled the location of the old original portage path, which had by that time largely disappeared into the bog. If I remember correctly, it was unearthed by volunteers, who then proceeded to reenact the portage. Just once, I think. It was apparently far too miserable an experience to lead to a whole reenactment tradition.