Taking a Hike

 After our Korean lunch on Sunday, we had the afternoon free.  It was a beautiful day so we decided to take a hike in the Cleveland Metroparks (and burn a few calories after all the eating we have done on this trip).  We drove to Lake Isaac in Middleburgh Heights, the beginning of the "Lake to Lake Trail"... a 5 mile round trip hike.  We had done this trail quite a few years ago, but we decided to walk it again.

Lake Isaac is a glacier pothole lake that was created thousands of year ago.  It is now a waterfowl sanctuary.

From Lake Isaac, the paved trail heads northward.

A boardwalk crosses an area of wetlands.  There is an observation area looking out over the marshes.

There were swallows that had made their nests in the roof of the wooden pavilion.  The birds were flying back and forth to feed their babies.

Nearby a deer was standing like a statue as if it were posing for our photos.

There were quite of few of these flowering trees with very attractive blossoms.

The trail crosses a busy road and commercial area before entering another forested area.

A honeysuckle vine

The other end of the trail is Lake Abram which is now a marsh filled in with wetland plants.  (I can vaguely remember as a boy seeing the lake.)  It was the largest pothole lake in the county, formed by an enormous chunk of ice left behind by a glacier 12,000 years ago.  

After the glaciers receded, the lake attracted mastodons, mammoths, ancient horses, camels, bison, and saber-toothed cats.  When humans arrived on the scene, it was an excellent hunting ground.  Fossils of mastodons and giant beaver have been found in the peat bogs that once surrounded the lake.  In the 1800s, the black muck around Lake Abram was ideal for the cultivation of onions, and Middleburg Heights was known as "the onion capital of the world".  The onion farms are gone now, and the area has returned to its natural state. 

After hiking the entire length of the trail, we then returned to Lake Isaac where the car was parked.

A Lake and a Pond

 One small silver lining of the dreadful pandemic through which we are living is that I have explored some places close to home that I did not even know existed.  When I have the need to get out of the house I will look at Google Maps and discover someplace for a bit of local sightseeing.  Last Friday was one such day.

We are very fortunate here to have the Cleveland Metroparks system, the "Emerald Necklace" of more than 23,000 acres of nature preserves that encircle Cleveland.  On Friday I drove a short distance to the neighboring suburb of Middleburg Height to the Lake Isaac Reservation.  

Lake Isaac is what geologists refer to as a "kettle lake", a lake that was scooped out by glaciers during the Ice Age.  It is a sanctuary for waterfowl, although on this particular day I only saw one aquatic bird... some type of crane I would assume.

I have stopped at Lake Isaac a number of times.  In fact I wrote about it some time ago on this blog.  Several years ago when Alejandro was up here visiting we hiked the Lake to Lake Trail which extends more than two miles from Lake Isaac to Lake Abram, another kettle lake.  However, this time I was going to walk a trail that I had never taken before, the Lake Isaac Trail, which forms a 1.2 mile loop behind the lake.

Although the trail does not offer any views of the lake, it is a pleasant walk through woodlands and meadows.

At one point the trail passes a murky, algae-covered wetland, a reminder that, when the first settlers came here in the early 1800s, much of the region was an unhealthy, malarial swamp.  Although I did not see any, I heard plenty of frogs croaking their love songs as I passed by.

After completing the loop trail, I got in the car and drove a very short distance to another tract of land that belongs to the park system.   I did not know that this preserve, Beyer's Pond, even existed.

A short walk along a trail led me to a tiny pond encircled with cattails.

"This is it?" I thought.  "It looked bigger on the map."  But then I continued just a few feet beyond, and I came to Beyer's Pond.  Actually I would call it a small lake, rather than a pond.

The shallow edges of the pond are covered with water lilies.  Some of them were in bloom.

It was a tranquil, relaxing escape on a beautiful summer day.