The Turtle Rock Segment of the Ice Age Trail has quickly become our favorite trail for September hiking. Typically this trail is extremely vegetated and full of mosquitoes and deer flies in the summer... don't get me wrong, it's beautiful that time of year, but it's challenging as well! Fall weather thins out the vegetation a bit making for nice views and the bugs are nowhere to be found.
We haven't been back here since last September (almost a year ago to be exact) and I was curious to see whether the beavers and their beautiful beaver dam would still be there. Unfortunately it looks like they are gone. The water level of the little pond was very low and looked more like the marsh that it was 2 years ago.
It's pretty cool to see how this trail and the landscape surrounding it change from year to year depending on weather and other conditions, but the glacial features remain the same.
I let Charlie off-leash briefly for some photo-ops in the beautiful "Hall of Birch" that I photograph every year.
And off-leash once again to allow her to explore the little creek that runs into the Wisconsin River.
The fall colors weren't as beautiful as they were last year, but it was a great day for a hike and we had an awesome time!