Island Crawl

 This was a day of many short hikes in the Islands. One of them I had never done before. The weather wasn't great but it was nice enough and kept most people indoors. We didn't run into anyone on the trails the whole day.

The first stop was Camp Ingalls (Butternut Hill Natural Area). I had been to Camp Ingalls before but they added a trail that goes through an interesting open swamp area into a dense cedar forest and then down to the lake. Nice walk and lots to see in what was a 1 mile walk. Great to have lake access preserved like this.

And now we are off to Sand Dunes SP which is in Alberg? Nice beach walk with return on a trail. Two possibilities here for the future: Mountain biking and x-country skiing. The park is 600 acres and there were trails for skiing, that would also work for mountain biking, that we didn't explore. Visiting the beach in November is the way to go!

Now we are at the Goodsell Ridge Preserve. Some nice trails around some exposed rock containing 480 million year old fossils. Hard to comprehend that number. 

Then to Fisk Quarry:

Remains of house from Fisk Quarry

A "bench" hike from the day before. Icy and winter like.