Not NW/WWF-Day 21-Back to Cable!

Before I write anything about today, I have to correct an error. I mistakenly called Doug (one of our Warmshowers hosts) Scott. I do not know where I got that from! So, Doug, I apologize for getting your name wrong!

Onto today…

The reason the title of this post is”Not NW/WWF” is because we did not do any of the route (except maybe a couple of 10ths of a mile at the very beginning). No, we plotted our own route from Port Wing to Cable. It was all paved (except the last bit to our hosts’ house). It made for some fast miles…and not a lot of photos. 

The first 15ish miles were on County Rd A through farmland. 

Barns and such. 

A lot of sun. It was warming up quickly. 

At Iron River, we stopped for a cold drink and a snack (me). We had a couple of options, route wise…the car way, or the bike way. Strangely, the bike way stayed on CR A. The car Way went through a bunch of lakes to Delta, then on a quiet road to Hwy 63. We opted for the lake route. 

Just one of many lakes. 

Once we got to Hwy 63, we were on a much busier road, but with a good shoulder. It was about 6 or so miles to Cable. Near Drummond, we passed this billboard. 

The guy on the right is Doug! 

We made a stop in Cable for a drink and a snack.

 I hadn’t eaten anything since Iron River, so I was pretty hungry. Then we rode the last 5 miles back to our hosts’ lovely house. They were out kayaking, but the house was open. We got all the bags off the bikes and stowed the stuff we didn’t need for tonight in the car. Lani did all the chores she needed to do so that she will just be able to drop me off in Minneapolis tomorrow morning. I will do everything when I get to Minneapolis, and the kids’ house. 

We rode 52 miles with about 2100 feet of elevation (short ups and downs). I’m glad we didn’t have to do any of the sand on the route. The pavement was just fine!

The town of Cable is hopping this weekend. There is a big trail running event called the Birkies. Therese, Doug, Therese’s sister, Patty, and their friend, Meg are all participating tomorrow. We will get out early. 

NW/WWF-Day 20-Detours and Two Final Waterfalls!

Today we did some major detours. The area was the Bayfield Peninsula, and a chunk of the route was deep sand. We would have just been pushing. We also didn’t do the abandoned railway. Seriously, we were riding right next to it on County Rd F, and I couldn’t even see where there was a track! The road was nice. 

Shadow picture in the morning. 

We also didn’t go to the Plywood Palace (a dive bar). We had no desire, and it wouldn’t have been open anyway. 

We did do a pretty good chunk of gravel road. But it wasn’t too bad. 

This was where we were supposed to turn onto the sandy track. Nope!

We followed County Rd C all the way to Cornucopia. Just on the outskirts, we went to Siskiwit Falls. This was a really beautiful Falls. 

Falls #13. 

It looked like it would be fun to ride an inner tube down. 

Little stair steps. 

More downstream. 

The rock wall was very cool looking. 

More upstream. 

It had been privately owned. 

After the Falls, we rode the rest of the way into Cornucopia. Cornucopia is unincorporated, but it has a wonderful selection of establishments. The best being the Ehlers Store. They say if they don’t have it, you don’t need it. 

We bought delicious wraps for lunch. Mine was a chicken curry wrap. It was very filling. Then, even though we were pretty full, we got ice cream. I had an ice cream sandwich that put every other ice cream sandwich to shame. It was chocolate cake pieces for the sandwich part with chocolate fudge ice cream. 

We had to ride a little slowly to let some of our food digest. We decided to ride Hwy 13 all the way to Port Wing. It saved us about 3 miles. We thought we would be riding more along Lake Superior, but we really only got this view. 

Our final view of Superior. 

After 14 miles of full stomach riding, we pulled into Port Wing. It’s claim to fame is something about schools. There was a replica of the first school bus (it was a little covered wagon). We stopped at the store to get water, and a cold drink. Port Wing also has our last waterfall…Twin Falls. 

After our drinks, we rode to Twin Falls Park (maybe a quarter mile from the store). We parked the bikes and made our way down to the creek. At first we could hear nothing. Was this going to be another dud falls? We walked the trail through the ravine, and finally came to the Falls. 

The creek has carved out a rock cave. 

Ahhh…Twin Falls. 

Falls #14.

It was very peaceful and grotto-like. Would have been a nice swimming spot. We went back downstream after being unsuccessful in finding a way to the other side of the creek. We could see a platform, but couldn’t get to it except by going back the way we came, then taking a different trail. We took the bikes up the trail in hopes of finding a spot to camp (Lani took her bike the whole way. I parked Billy until we determined if there was a spot). At the platform, there was plenty of space for the tents. I went back and retrieved Billy. Lani decided to set up on the platform. 

No rainfly needed. 

I’m on the ground in a pretty flat spot. At one point, a couple from Central Wisconsin came by. Lani invited them onto her platform so they could see the Falls. They had already been down below. The view from above is not nearly as good as from below. 

Tomorrow we will make it back to Cable. Once again we will avoid another sandy section. We should be able to ride County Rd A to bypass it. Lani texted Therese, telling them we will arrive tomorrow (that’s where the car is parked). She asked if we wanted to stay the night. We said we would love to! So, tonight is our last night camping. 

NW/WWF-Day 19-Much Better Falls Today!

We started our day with a hike to Copper Falls, Brownstone Falls, and the Tyler Fork Cascades (which made up for not finding the Tyler Fork Falls). Brownstone Falls is part of the Tyler Fork River. Copper Falls is on the Bad River. The Falls meet at the confluence of the two rivers. 

Copper Falls from one side. 

Falls #9

Interesting info. 

Brownstone Falls #10. 

There were two of these giant benches on the trail. 

The Bad River (no idea why they think it should be called Bad).

Tyler Fork Cascades. 

We decided to give the Cascades a number…#11. 

This is Copper Falls from the other side of the gorge. 

We started riding about 9:00 after our visit to the Falls. Today was going to be mostly just riding. Yes, there were a few waterfall options, but two of them seemed iffy (the word small was in the description). Having been burned yesterday by non-existent small Falls, we opted to skip those. 

One “feature” we would see right on the route, was the “Pine Stump Corner”. In the triangle of the intersection there was supposed to be the stump of a big pine tree. 

There was a sign and everything. 

I’m standing where the stump was supposed to be. It’s no more, but there is a baby pine tree growing. We thought maybe it was the great grandson of the big pine stump. 

We came flying down the gravel road. We came to a big parking lot for Morgan Falls and St. Peter’s Dome. We figured we could confidently find this waterfall. It was a great trail to the Falls. Lani rode, but I left my bike in the parking lot. There were quite a few cars, so I thought there would be a lot of people on the trail. I should have ridden too. It would have been fine. But, the walk was okay.

Nice bridges and boardwalks. 

Very nice wide trail. 

Morgan Falls. 

Falls #12!

Nice wildflowers on my walk back. 

We really liked Morgan Falls. If it had been later in the day, we might have camped there. It was just 2:30. We continued on. 

Part of the ride after Morgan Falls was on terrible washboard. When we got to County Road E, we decided we’d had enough of the washboard and dust. We took CR E to Hwy 63, which took us back to the route at Mason. In Mason, we stopped at The Thirsty Trout for something cold to drink. We both had Ginger Ale, and felt we could have each drank two. Instead, we filled our water bladders, and got back on the road. We continued on CR E to bypass a section of the route that was on an abandoned railway. It was getting about time to find a place to camp. I saw a small double track. I asked Lani if she thought no one owned it. There were no private property signs. We decided to call it a day. We followed the road in until we each found good spots for our tents. 

Today was 36 miles with a lot of rolling ups and downs. It was cold this morning, but ended up getting up to 78. Even more warm weather is on the way. I think we are down to 125ish miles to go. If we were to go straight to Cable, it would be 24 miles! But, of course, we aren’t doing that. 

NW/WWF-Day 18-50% Disappointed

Out of 4 waterfalls we actually went to, we only managed to find 2. Of those two, we  only really saw one. A bit of a disappointment. However, there were other things that were great today. 

Our first waterfall sighting attempt for the day was Willard Falls. It wasn’t far from the campsite. 

#7-Willard Falls…yes, that was a cliff that the tree horsey was hanging over. 

You can just barely see it. 

The holes in the rocks were cool though. 

Our next adventure was riding through the gravel pit. Turns out, it was pretty easy. Then we followed the route to Wren Falls. This was the mud adventure. 

First they had recently graded this, what was probably an ATV trail. It was mostly okay. 

Then we turned onto a “rough double track”(even though the gps POI said it was later…well, it was, but this was also pretty bad). A mud double track was more like it! We could see Hogan and Calvin’s tire tracks. They had done it in the dark. It didn’t look like it went well for them. 

The route turned onto the real “rough double track”, but being very wise at this point, Lani noticed we could stay on the current good double track, and avoid that section. So we did. 

We finally made it to Wren Falls. Who should we see? Our new friends Hogan and Calvin! They were still hanging out after their traumatic adventure getting there in the dark last night. It was great to see them again, and for Lani to meet them. There was another guy camping there. He took a photo for us. 

Wren Falls

#8

Lani, me, Calvin, and Hogan…really great guys!

We hiked to the Bill Thomas bridge over Tyler Fork Creek. 

Tyler Fork

The guys needed to get packed up, and we needed to get going. I gave Hogan my phone number, and told him if he had any bikepacking questions, he could contact me. 

We returned to the route (Wren Falls was a 6 mile out and back), and headed to Rouse Falls. Rouse was supposed to be “easy to get to by bike”. That was debatable, especially if you followed the route exactly, which we attempted to do. 

We encountered more mud, so we just parked the bikes and walked. Even walking, it was tricky getting around the mud. 

This was not where the “accurate POI” was, but it was the only thing that roughly resembled a waterfall. We decided this didn’t merit Waterfall #9. We decided it was #8.5 at best. The semblance of a trail was very overgrown. 

We came out to the dirt road, and looped back to our bikes without backtracking/bushwhacking through the mud. In the photo above, you can see Billy in the distance. 

So Rouse was a dud. We came back out, and as we turned back onto the gravel road, I could see the boys ahead. We caught up to them when they stopped at the Hwy. The route actually went on an abandoned railway, but we’d had enough of that rough overgrown crap. We rode the Hwy. 

Ah…smooth pavement!

The next waterfall was supposed to be two, Upper and Lower Tyler Fork Falls. The guys had miles to get in, so they headed on. Lani and I decided to check them out. Once again…we could not find any waterfalls. 

End of the road at the creek, but no trail to any waterfall. 

We rode back up the hill, and saw a road going off I what should have been the direction of the waterfalls. We gave it a shot and walked up for awhile. Nope, it did not go to the Falls. Another dud. 

All we saw was this sinkhole. 

By this time we were getting pretty disappointed. What’s up with this route? When was the last time the Route creator rode it?

We returned to the Hwy, and rode the rest of the way into Mellen. We stopped at the grocery store. All day I had only had a Pro Bar and some Macadamia nuts. Same with Lani. We got food and sat down at a table in the grocery store, and ate. Per the usual, Lani had a healthy salad, and I had chocolate milk and three (yes, three…don’t judge it’s not like i could carry them) maple bars (known as Longjohns here). 

After filling our bellies, we proceeded to Copper Falls State Park. It was too late to see the Falls. We’ll do them in the morning. 

We snagged a power site so we could charge our power banks. Lani noticed they had showers in the other loop. We walked there and had good showers. 

Tomorrow morning we will head out of here early as we couldn’t figure out how to pay (nothing listed for bicycles, only vehicle license plates, and not enough service to do it online).

We decided, even though we only did about 37 miles, it was a tough day. It almost felt like we did more hiking than riding.