Fire In The Woods! - Photo Essay of our hike through Steinke Basin

Imagine our surprise when we went to go on a nice, quiet nature hike to see fire trucks soaring past us through the trees and going into the very woods we were hiking in!

So, what happened to even get us to this point anyway? Well, we were enjoying a nice day at Devil's Lake and decided we'd hike - which we do fairly often. I (and later Gideon) wanted to do something new - but still easy enough that Gideon could go along in the stroller, since he can't walk too far without getting tired.

So, we chose the Steinke Basin Loop a 2.4 mile long grassy/woodsy easy trail. It goes around what was a glacial lake bed with several bridges along the trail. We sold Gideon on the word bridges. He gets excited thinking of the stroller riding over the bumps on them and insists we go on that trail.

So in the car we go to drive the short way from the lake to the trail. We get out get the stroller and get set to start out. We head up the right side of the trail and like what we see. Nice, easy and grassy.

We even see a bird in the tree not far away. We stop for photos and to view it in the binoculars. (and gripe how I need another camera because the photos came out horrible, LOL)

On we go. We go up a slight hill and see a beautiful, large weeping willow tree.

The powerful and lovely willow.

Looking down from whence we came. You can see the road in this shot here.

I looked down and there was a little moth on the ground.

Sadly, it appeared hurt. It couldn't fly well and I presumed that it had been stepped on by a previous hiker.

I picked it up and let Gideon hold it and took three more shots. (One was with Gideon in it, so it's not posted here.)

I took another photo looking back at the willow tree.

And a photo of this odd, fuzzy bud. As we soon found out, that was not the only thing we saw and heard up at this point!

There were sirens in the air and they were coming toward us. At this point we were along the road - inside the woods, so we saw several fire trucks whiz by us.

As we watched ahead of us through the piece of road we could see... they turned in to the parking areas of where we were and darted down a gravel path that was blocked off.

At this point Gideon was getting concerned. Wanted to go back because he thought they would come in where we were. We told him no they aren't coming in here they are on the other road and we are just fine.

We went on because they were headed we surmized to the end of the trail and that was well over an hour's hike from the beginning where we were. Remember, this is a 2.4 mile trail, so it was long enough that we were safe continuing on.

So on we went, however you won't see any more photos for a while. This middle part was very muddy and I was busy carrying the stroller - with Gideon in it - through the mess. (I gots muscles, LOL!)

Once we got at a pretty grassy area - just about at the first bridge I stopped for a photo. I bet it's beautiful here in the fall. We'll never know since they allow hunting here in the fall we can never hike here. :-(

Looking off of the first bridge.

A tree near the first bridge.

Evidence of beavers is seen as well.

The other side of the bridge.

And back into the woods we go.

The middle part, once again no photos due to the carrying and mud issues.

We hit the road where the trucks had gone down inside the woods. The fire apparently was somewhere down the Uplands trail which is accessed via the Steinke Basin Loop. We saw more trucks going down, and bikers going into that trail, but nothing else.

Here we are at the end of the trail. 2.4 miles later we are greeted with another pretty willow tree.

A closer look.

More views of the prairie on the end of the trail.

Where we came from in the woods.

A sparrow. I have several shots of him... again cursing at my camera for the quality...

And at the end, the fire truck was in the parking area... but only two were. There were still multiple trucks in there.

There were no news trucks around and just a few cars. I guess that means I just reported a bit of an inside scoop, lol.

I hope you have all enjoyed your journey and hike with us. I know we did enjoy it - except it is much too muddy... insanely muddy. DEEP mud and the area where this trail is has not had rain recently!

All photos here taken with a Canon Powershot A 560 Camera. All have not been edited - save for copyrights - with the exception of the first shot (I combined two other shots of the same bird in that one photo) the 2nd and 3rd moth shots (only cropped to show details) and the Swallow which has simply been cropped down.