2023 – Hungry Mike https://hungrymike.com A Peek Through Dirty Lenses Sun, 26 Mar 2023 14:08:05 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 https://i0.wp.com/hungrymike.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/logo.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 2023 – Hungry Mike https://hungrymike.com 32 32 213908921 Great River Bluffs State Park https://hungrymike.com/2023/02/11/great-river-bluffs-state-park-2/ Sat, 11 Feb 2023 06:00:00 +0000 https://hungrymike.com/?p=5430 We continued with our once-a-week hiking goal. This time, Great River Bluffs State Park was our pick — a park we have hiked many times in different seasons. We decided on a longer trail route that would bring us to the summit of King’s Bluff. Unfortunately, the supposedly warmer weather fooled us, causing us to […]

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]]> We continued with our once-a-week hiking goal. This time, Great River Bluffs State Park was our pick — a park we have hiked many times in different seasons. We decided on a longer trail route that would bring us to the summit of King’s Bluff. Unfortunately, the supposedly warmer weather fooled us, causing us to be slightly underdressed for the occasion. The day was super sunny, but the constantly blowing wind lowered the temperature to the low 20s. Hence, we kept moving to warm ourselves up. Most roads and trails were very icy and slippery, but we never had to slow down as our new micro spikes provided excellent traction. Overall, we hiked for 4.1 miles in just over 2 hours. We pondered whether to have tacos or burgers for lunch in Winona throughout the hike. Ultimately, we changed our minds at the last minute and headed to a Hmong restaurant in La Crosse instead.

A super icy parking lot at the trailhead.
Overlooking Queen’s Bluff from King’s Bluff.
The flat icy trail to King’s Bluff.
The brown lines represent our hiking paths in Great River Bluffs State Park.

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]]> 5430 Carley State Park https://hungrymike.com/2023/02/05/carley-state-park-2/ Sun, 05 Feb 2023 06:00:00 +0000 https://hungrymike.com/?p=5423 As Punxsutawney Phil the Groundhog woke up to make its artificial unintelligence prediction on the arrival of spring, we also came out of hibernation to do our first hike of the year in Carley State Park — one of the smallest state parks in Minnesota. Surprisingly, this was our only second hike in that state […]

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]]> As Punxsutawney Phil the Groundhog woke up to make its artificial unintelligence prediction on the arrival of spring, we also came out of hibernation to do our first hike of the year in Carley State Park — one of the smallest state parks in Minnesota. Surprisingly, this was our only second hike in that state park. The first hike was in the late fall of 2015. The temperature was in the mid-20s, but we bundled ourselves up before heading out. We were excited to test our new micro spikes with more aggressive traction than our 9-year-old steel-coil ice cleats. Our 2.5-mile hike took less than 2 hours, looping around the entire state park. However, our aging bodies suffered soreness the next day.

River crossing in Carley State Park.
Partially frozen North Fork Whitewater River.
The brown lines represent our hiking paths in Carley State Park.

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