MEA and the return of da “North Stars”

The last two busy weekends of autumn have come to an end. On the 16th-18th of this month lots of visitors came to the shore for the big MEA holiday. Since MEA is the last three day weekend until the holidays, many families made one more visit up to the northland. They were treated to some last minute fall colors along the lakeshore, great hiking, and some decent weather too! This past weekend the North Star Ski Group invaded several area resorts to get their hands dirty. For many years here at Cascade Lodge and Solbakken Resort this weekend has been a long standing tradition. The ski group comes up from the Twin Cities and volunteers their time and effort helping us clear ski trails before the snow falls. In return we provide them with room and board, equipment, and direction. The Cascade group went out to Deeryard Lake Ski Area on Saturday and cleared the main loop of downed trees, windfall, boulders, and cut back branches to widen the trail. The annual potluck dinner was held Saturday night at Solbakken for everyone to gather and have a nice dinner, talk about the day out in the woods, and about the upcoming ski season too of course! The second day was spent clearing the Pioneer Trail and Ridge Runs that start from the resort trailhead. The trails are looking awesome and ready to be packed, tracked, and skied. We haven’t seen any snow this month yet, but we are more than ready for it now! Happy Halloween to all you ghosts and goblins out there from the Cascade Staff!!

Fall Colors

Well the Fall Color Season has reached its mid point and the leaf enthusiasts did not go home disappointed! Just a short drive away, the Caribou Trail and Honeymoon Trail provided a brilliant array maples, birch and poplar contrasted with the forest green pines. What a stunning display of mother nature hard at work painting the forests! The salmon are still running in the Cascade River, but recent rains have the river full so they are much harder to sight fish. Michael Sr. took his boat out on the big lake for the last time and had some great luck highlighted by a 15lb. Lake Trout reeled in by the good owner himself. Several other Chinook salmon were caught that day too making for some great table fare. Matt and Michael Jr. are hoping the weather holds out for about 3 more weeks so they can get some late fall fishing in before they put their boats away. Matt ventured down to Leech Lake about a week ago and had excellent fishing for walleyes and definitely expects to parlay that into some good luck up here in the Northland. In sports, our local Cook County Vikings football team is 5-0 and ranked first in the state. With a balanced air and run attack led by quarterback Miles Drake, the Vikes are poised to make their second consecutive trip to State! Maybe their bigger brother name sake down in the cities can find similar success this season! Savor what you can for the rest of autumn because the snow will probably fly at some point this month.