Winter Camping in the Refuge, Goose Island

My husband and I like to do a lot of outdoor activities together.  Winter camping isn't one of them. Along came Larry. Larry, Mike's sidekick, is game for just about anything.  I generally show up at some point to hang out, take some photographs and then escape to a warmer, safer place. Let the high jinx ensue. So when the temperatures were dipping down into the single digits, they were in their zero degree bags, happy as can be.  I was at home in bed, happy as can be.

The sun was just starting to dip when I arrived.

Goose Island is on the Mississippi River, in the middle of the Upper Mississippi National Wildlife Refuge.  All you can see are woods, a bluffline and the river stretching out in front of you.

Here's my White Fang shot.

The refuge is 261 miles long.

It begins at the Chippewa River near Wabasha, Minnesota and ends near Rock Island, Illinois, spanning four states.

At the campsite with Larry and another recruit, Tripp.

Hey, they're multiplying. Larry met Joe, on the left, in the parking lot and invited him out to the campsite. True story. Joe was wearing a lightweight wool coat and Puma tennis shoes. He might not have had socks on. He did not camp overnite.

There are over 400 camp sites at Goose Island.  There isn't much competition in early March.

Mike staked out this hovel where they ended up building a campfire and hanging out.

They lived through the night. My husband told me the next day that Tripp fell through the ice. They had gone for a walk the next morning. The sun was shining, warming up the ice and there was a crack in the ice from a tree. As they were noticing this, crack, and Tripp is thigh deep in water. I'm gasping as he's relaying this to me. 

Me: "So he went straight home, I assume?"  

Mike: "No. We walked back to the camp site and he dried everything in front of the fire."

Winter camping is not for wussies.

A Winter Playground on the Marsh

We marched onto the ice, fanning out in every direction.  Large bluffs loomed over us on one side as we looked out onto one large white expanse of ice. A train rumbled by and a few people walked along the marsh trail.  The dogs ran and ran and ran. There was an eagle's nest high up on a tree. My husband dropped down for a snow angel.  The kids played hide and seek in the dried cattail grass. 1,077 acres of natural wetland. The summer and spring are great for hiking and biking. In the winter, the marsh turns into an ice-rink and an all-ages playground. It is one of La Crosse's best-kept wintertime secrets.

Winter Landscape This is like a place we used to know, but stranger and filled with the cold imagination of a frozen four o'clock daylight eaten by clouds, blackened like slate horizons. In this coulee, there is a sensual bond with earth, wilderness, and solitude in the starkness of snow, the randomness of woods. Allow the moment as daylight is swallowed in a meandering , thawing river, the connective life blood carrying us along with hope that winter is not static but a gradual metamorphosis of our longings. Silence evaporates in the dusk of a March thaw: exacting harmony as a hawk circles a tree. --Gayle M. King, St. Paul, MN  And we came back later in the day with our ice skates.

                     Skating

And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and visible for many a mile
The cottage windows through the twilight blazed,
I heeded not their summons. Clear and loud
The village clock tolled six; I wheeled about
Proud and exulting, like an untired horse
That cares not for his home. All shod with steel
We hissed along the polisshed ice in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn,
The pack loud bellowing, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle. With the din,
Meanwhile, the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while the distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars,
Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.

Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the shadow of a star
That gleamed upon the ice. And oftentimes
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,

Stopped short — yet still the solitary cliffs

Wheeled by me, even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round.
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched
Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep.

--William Wordsworth

And a week later just the two of us.

And when we left with numb fingers and red noses, I said a quiet thank you to the nature gods  and the Eco Park for helping maintain this beautiful, natural wetland in our town.

Winter Rec Fest: Our Way

I watched Owen, 7 years old, trying to get his snow pants on.  He was dragging them up his body, hopping from foot to foot.  I started to step in to help.  And then I remembered putting on my own snow pants the same way when I was that age.  Not necessarily the quickest or most efficient way, but it works.  I looked back over to Owen.  The snow pants were on.  He found a way.  Emma was using all of her lung capacity to blow into one of the inflatable sleds.  Did she need help?  She looked pretty determined.  We no sooner walked up to the sledding hill at Winter Rec Fest and she was coming over to us looking so disappointed.  The inflatable sled was deflating.  The sled was studied for a moment.  Another sturdier sled surfaced.  She was soon zooming down the hill on the new sled.  She found a way.  Ian, the oldest, was the most excited of all of the kids.  He claimed he was "staying until midnight" on the sledding hill.  He wasn't going home.  He didn't stay until midnight.  But he managed to hit the jump and get more air than I thought possible.  He found a way.

I didn't really want to go to Rec Fest.  My chilly office left me feeling cold from the inside out by the time I got home.  No time for the hot bath I often take to thaw out.  I put on long wool socks, envisioning us standing at the top of the sledding hill for hour after cold hour.  Not sounding fun.  We made our way to Rec Fest and the snow began to fall in pretty little flurries.  The hill was packed with excited kids and a lot of very game parents jumping on sleds as well.  There was a lighted ski/walking trail at the base of the hill.  My husband and I made our way down there through the screaming, zooming sleds.  We walked and crunched over the snow, passing torch after fiery torch along the way.  Making our way around the trail, we came back to the base of the sledding hill.  Very cool view from below.  The snow continued to fall.  The Forest Hills clubhouse was all lit up with diners and cocktailers.   My husband stepped in for a drink.  The fireworks started. We found our way.

And at the request of Mike and the kiddos, I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas was our theme song for the night.


Winter Rec Fest from Polly Scott on Vimeo.

An Afternoon with the Goose Island Birds

I took the afternoon off and planned a special photo shoot with my husband. Soon we would be ice skating in the beautiful frosty marsh under a setting sun. One problem. There were big puddles, bumpy patches and lumpy gray slush where there had been a glossy, smooth perfect ice skating rink.  
January 6th and 50 degrees. Sigh. We switched gears. This isn't hard to do in La Crosse. As part of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, there are a number of scenic places to
spend an afternoon. We drove along the Great River Road on Highway 35 and landed at Goose Island, a county park that is also an island in the Mississippi River. It is located in the heart of the La Crosse District of the Upper Mississippi River Refuge. Considered one of many birding hot spots in La Crosse County, it could be a nice place to spend an afternoon.

Black-capped Chickadees everywhere (North American songbird)

The Wisconsin Great River Road runs through the center of the Mississippi River Flyway, a superhighway for migrating birds, such as songbirds, waterfowl, shorebirds and raptors.  

Mike is a bird nerd and has this down to a science.  I just like to follow him around with my camera and breathe it all in.  We didn't see any real unusual birds but it's pretty cool to have a variety to look at and watch them come in so close.  

Bird whisperer

Downy Woodpecker

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Tufted Titmouse

White-breasted Nuthatch, a small North American songbird of the nuthatch family



Northern Cardinal













I did finally tire of the birds for the moment.  Mike had long since gone.  I stood around watching 
the sky.

I thought I'd stalked the sky long enough so I got in my car and drove home through La Crosse.

And then I saw this.  Maybe I didn't need to head home so fast.  
That sky wasn't done with me yet.























Sigh.  And now I can say goodnight.

The Christmas Farm

Remember when we had snow a couple of weeks ago, for like five minutes?  That was fun.  That also just happened to be the weekend we went to get our Christmas tree.  We cut it down ourselves.  So very Little House on the Prairie.  This farm was beautiful and the drive out there was just Driftless gorgeous, rolling hills, blufflines, cruising through rural scenery with our urbanite eyes.  I loved it.  And I think the kiddos liked it too.  You'll see.

Shaking the snow off.  This thing is coming in our house.

Emma looking for the best one.

Ian contemplating.

Let the snowball fights begin.

Could it look any more like Christmas at this farm?  I feel like I should preserve these photos for posterity...see we did have snow in December!

But back to the snowball fight.

And off we go to drag this heaping, wet somewhat lopsided beauty into our home.

..The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep

--Robert Frost (Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening)

And I loved it.  A mess of needles and snow all over the floor, the fresh smell of pine, covered in lights and a mix of homemade decorations, colored balls and Packers ornaments.  Bring on the snow flurries and the Christmas cookies.