Ham Fire May 20, 2007
More good news
The USFS has decided to re-open the lakes at the end of the Gunflint Trail on May 22nd. This is also the same day non-residents will be allowed past the roadblock at Gunflint Narrows Road. Due to campsite rehabilitation the Larch Creek and Magnetic Lake entry points into the Granite River will be closed until further notice.
This is good news for everyone who loves to spend Memorial Weekend on the Gunflint Trail. We are happy to have a confirmed date for the reopening of both the road block and the entry points into the Boundary Waters. We are excited to get the season started and welcome back our paddling and resort guests.
I had the opportunity to go on a float plane ride the other day and was pleasantly suprised by what I saw. Last year I flew over the September East Zone Complex fire area and couldn’t believe how much smoke and flames there still was after all of the fire crews went home. I thought I would see something similar this year but much to my amazement I only saw two puffs of smoke. They were both right next to each other in a completely burned area causing absolutely no threat to anything around them.
The view from the plane was similar to that of other forest fires where the landscape resembles a mosaic. Some of the valleys are green, the hillsides light brown and other places are black. It isn’t just all black scorched earth like one may imagine. There are varying degrees of burn intensity depending upon how hot the fire was and how fast the fire went through the area. It’s comforting to see it from the sky and know there is still so much green on the Gunflint Trail and the surrounding area.
We are so grateful and thankful to everyone who has offered us their love and support over the past couple of weeks. I know we will not remember to thank each and every one of you personally and we apologize. The kind gestures, words of encouragement, acts of kindness and reassuring smiles on faces have made life much easier for us and we really appreciate it. The support of our family, friends, guests, neighbors, community members, blog readers and everyone else has been incredible and we are lucky to have you all behind us. Many of you have offered your help and we may just take you up on it now that we are home. We thank you all from the bottom of our hearts and knowing we have all of you caring for us is the best news ever.
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