Christmas Eve 2021 was very quiet and low key for us. So I decided to go out to Miller Woods for an afternoon hike. This time I took a little detour from the usual trail through the sand dunes and instead followed an old abandoned rail line right up to the edge of the U.S. Steel Gary Works.
My usual route takes me north all the way to the beach at lake Michigan via the dotted yellow line on the map. This time when I reached the old railroad embankment I turned west and figured I would see how close I could get to the steel mill. I never did see any fence or sign and I went all the way up to the X.
Interdunal wetland near the Miller Woods trail head.
At about the halfway point there was a large tree down across the path. It was probably from a couple weeks ago when we had heavy winds blow through the area. The freshly fallen tree gave me an opportunity to checkout the variety of Lichens which reside way up off the ground.
This is the very east edge of the Gary Works. It was real quite, at first I thought it was because of the fact that it was the day before Christmas. But closer inspection let me to suspect that these facilities had not been used for sometime.
One of the fun things about photographing industrial areas is that you can find lots of interesting geometrical patterns. Here we have numerous horizontal lines at different heights, depths and with different colors and textures.
When I zoomed in on this structure I began to suspect that these buildings had been decommissioned. A little research in google after I got home showed that indeed this used to be the Coke Plant for the mill, which was decommissioned in 2014 I think.
Further beyond the Coke Plant were the active parts of the mill.
The pale green block building with the red safety sign contrasts nicely with the structures around it.
On the way back I caught sight of this deer taking it easy. Not surprisingly she had seen me long before I noticed her, and was keeping a close eye on me.
I quickly realized that there were in fact three deer lounging about. Shortly after I took this picture they all got up and ran off deeper into the woods.
In another post I describe some of the effects of an early spring wildfire on the woods. Here we see more of the aftermath of that fire.
Not too much further down the trail I came across this young buck. He stood there quite still as I approached, stopping occasionally to take a photo. I was beginning to wonder just how close he was going to let me get and then suddenly off he went into the woods.
Here he gives me one last look before literally turning tail and bounding off into the trees.
A closeup of a tree stump which was burnt in the spring wildfire. I love how the wood cracks and splits in patterns which are at the same time random and highly structured.
Finally, at the end of the afternoons journey a simple image of the autumn grasses waiting to be matted down by winters snows. Assuming it snows this year that is. We have set a new record for latest measurable snow, and we are still waiting. No white Christmas this year.