I last rode the MN River Bottoms back in mid-July, a week or so after the flooding (see my post here.) My photos then focused on huge amounts of silt that the flooding had deposited on the segment of the trail north of the Bloomington Ferry Bridge. What a change since then.
I rode the same segment twice this week and found it interesting that in those places where the silt muck had been piled deep on the trail, it had hardened into a fast smooth track. No repairs necessary. Cool.
Of course, there was plenty of destruction from the flooding, including bridges north of 35W and the raft for crossing Nine-Mile Creek.
Fortunately, a large cottonwood tree has recently fallen across the creek and someone has used some material from a washed out bridge to create a walkway on the trunk to make it easier to walk your bike across. It looks like a rideable skinny to me but if you didn’t make it, you’d pay a price by either landing in the water/deep muck or on one of the many large branches underneath.
Fellow Northfielder Nate Nelson, a counselor/instructor at the School of Environmental Studies (SES) in Apple Valley, joined me on an early morning ride from 35W to the Bloomington Ferry Bridge and back. It was heaven: just warm enough (70), low humidity, no wind, crystal clear skies, wildflowers everywhere, and quiet, as all air traffic was routed to the west of the airport.