A view from the top.

We had a great adventure this weekend! Our friends Mike and Xanthi asked us to go climbing with them, so we packed up gear and headed to Interstate Park on the St. Croix River.

This park is a wonderland of cliffs and geologic formations. It also happens to be where Rebecca and I got married! This time, however, we were looking for a good place to tie in anchors to support our belay. Soon we were all scrambling over the cliffs. This wasn't an easy task for Rebecca, who is quite afraid of heights. But her fear didn't stop her. After watching for a short while, she hooked up to rappel, leaned out over the cliff, and descended to the ground.

                           Mike finding a challenging route.

   Many of the potholes have collected
          small ponds full of life.
On our return walk, we explored the many potholes that make Interstate Park so famous. This is the world's largest density of these fascinating features, formed 10,000 years ago when the last glacial period flooded this valley. Gravel would get caught in whirlpools and swirl down against the rock, shaving holes in the living stone. Some of the potholes are so small that you can barely put your fist in them, while others are a bit larger . . .

                                                                  From the bottom, looking up.
On another note, when we were looking at last year's Adventure Journal entries for September, they have proven (in the last couple of weeks, at least), to be eerily similar. This time last year we were preparing Hen of the Woods mushrooms, and although we wrote about our climbing adventure this week, we could have easily written about a Hen of the Woods that we've been scouting for the last few days. Tomorrow or the next day we plan on harvesting it. Yum!

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