Nature Journal: Spillway

5 December


Still fine biking weather, so rode down the Onalaska slope off Main Street to old Sias Isles Black River.  The old fishing shack still down there.  A boy of about fourteen fishing off the shore with a spinning lure.  A narrow trail leads south along the shore and through a thickset marsh.  An old timber lean-to held up against a shoreline oak.  Gradually the trail turns to thick soggy leaves, so we set down the bikes and walk as far as we can without getting wet.  This area completely undevelopable, so one of those throwback to a bygone era landscapes that are hard to find within the city area.  Ducks mostly gone, some still confused of season, and splash off at our approach.  One downy woodpecker skips across the dead wood of another oak.  We pile the bikes back up and ride along the bay at Sias, approaching the old Lake Onalaska spillway, the dam of sorts that allows a steady flow from the impoundment to the final miles of the Black before it meets at the La Crosse and Mississippi.  The spillway, at peak season in summer, might hold five, six fisherman, who walk down along the railroad tracks and up onto the concrete shore platform.  The water right now hovers at about half an inch over the spillway.  Very slippery on the surface, a thin layer of moss washing to the ripples that wash over the top.  A northerly wind picks up and scuffles the water flowing down over the edge into cascades.  Water is gulped at drains at the entrance head of the spillway, which we assume then spits out below, evening out the flow of the structure itself.  No fish.  No birds here.  The rip rap below enormous.  One man, dressed out in cool weather camo walks over the irregular rock to a little spot before the spillway and sits on his bucket with pole set in between rocks.  We set back for the tracks and carry our bikes over our shoulders and head north along the trail towards Midway.