Hiking in Gooseberry Falls State Park

We are staying in Gooseberry Falls State Park on the North Shore. I love this park since it had lots to do though no electricity for the campground, which can be a pain. We ended up staying two days.  We enjoyed an afternoon hike to the beach area.

My morning hike had several excellent views.

On the second day I decided to add a hike from my morning hike and my afternoon hike with John. I wanted to see the only CCC-built Outhouse that still exists (currently non-functional).  For some reason John felt he needed to work on the RV versus looking for an outhouse! Anyhow, the information I had was pretty sketchy. I hiked a trail above the one I needed.

I finally realized I needed to be on the Gitchi Gummi Trail. Who wouldn’t want to hike a trail called Gitchi Gummi? BTW, the Ojibwe name for Lake Superior is gitchi-gami. The views were gorgeous from this trail.

I finally found the outhouse. However, when coming back I got a bit lost and wound up at the visitor center. Finally I got back to the RV. With my morning hike, this hike, and the afternoon hike with John to the falls, I ended up hiking 5 hours. I was tired at the end of the day!

As you are hiking, you constantly hear noises along the path. The park has lots of ground squirrels. Actually, I didn’t know the difference between ground squirrels vs tree squirrels. This ground squirrel was visiting with a rabbit.

The ground squirrels have smaller ears and look more like prairie dogs than tree squirrels (Gooseberry had tree squirrels too). This tree squirrel was right by his nest in the tree.

We’re hoping they didn’t do anything to our RV since we saw ground squirrels under our RV too. They also seem to get upset easily. A young girl camping next to us was confused by the sounds of the squirrel chirping away at her.