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| Trails at Maplewood State Park head through a maple forest. |
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| Cow Lake Trail map. Trail outlined in purple. Click for larger version. |
The 4.6-mile unnamed lollipop trail – called here the Cow Lake Trail for the major waterbody it circles – sits in Maplewood State Park. The route is a combination of mowed grass and a wide dirt path, and leashed dogs are allowed.
To reach the trail, from Pelican Rapids, take U.S. Hwy. 59 north. Turn right/east on Minn. Hwy. 108. The park entrance is in 7 miles. When the entry road, splits, go left/south. Just after the RV sanitation station, turn left/east. Follow the road toward Knoll Campground. At the turnaround for drinking water, park on the road’s side, and walk east uphill. The trailhead is in about 100 feet on the right/south.
Kames and kettles
The mowed grass trail heads uphill into an oak savanna with sumac alongside the path. At 0.2 miles, the trail enters the woods.
The park sits in a boundary zone between the hardwood forest of the east and the great prairie of the west. Located near the Red River Valley, the Alexandria Moraine runs through the park, dotting it with kames and kettles.
Kames – large piles of sand and gravel deposited by melting glaciers during the last ice age, can rise up to 1500 feet here. In contrast, kettles formed when blocks of ice broke off from retreating glaciers and their weight depressed the surface; as the ice melted, the basin filled with water, forming a lake.
At 0.3 miles, the trail leaves the woods. Bass Lake is on the left/east. Any children hiking with you will be delighted to find that the trail here includes walking across a beaver dam.
Mesic forest
After the dam, the trail re-enters the woods. Sugar maple, basswood, American elm, and oak – known as a mesic forest – dominates. Ironwood, aspen, tamarack, and red cedar also can be found in the park and along the trail.
If visiting in spring or summer, the forest floor is a wonderful spot to look for wildflowers. Trillium, bloodroot and liverwort all thrive here. Scattered among the colorful blooms are boulders carried and left by glaciers during the last ice age.
The trail soon joins an old dirt road and crosses a series of small hills. At 1.1 miles, it reaches a four-way intersection; the crossing trail is for horses. Continue straight/south and head on to the loop.
You’ll be able to spot Cow Lake through the trees at about 1.4 miles. The hills turn steeper as entering a maple and paper birch woods.
Sugar maple and paper birch
The sugar maple is among the few plants whose leaves turn different colors from tree to tree. Sugar maples contain three different pigments in their leaves. Each autumn when trees stop making food from chlorophyll, the leaves’ greenness disappears and those pigments stand out. Which pigment appears depends on how much sunlight they receive and genetics.
If a sugar maple is in the shade, it’ll turn yellow. If it’s in the full sun, expect red. The proportion of sun of shade, as well as the leaves’ DNA, affects how they change throughout the day from yellow to red to orange. Usually the top of the tree and its sides turn red first with the inlaid portion of the tree yellow.
Set against the maple is the striking white bark of paper birch with its yellow autumn leaves. The vaguely heart-shaped leaves have a leathery feel to them.
Native Americans used the paper-like bark to make everything from canoes and wigwams to baskets and cups. Today, the birch still is useful in making a variety of products, whether it be spools and toothpicks, snowshoe frames or flooring, paper pulp or interior finish.
Paper birch doesn’t much like shade, so it must grow fast to outcompete other trees for canopy space. They typically rise 66 feet high, but some have reached double that height. The sugar maple still beats it out, though, usually growing between 80-115 feet high, so birch often will stick to wetter soil, which maples don’t like.
Quaking aspen
At 1.7 miles, the trail enters a small grass and thistle meadow. The exposure to the sun is short-lived, though, as in a tenth-mile the trail re-enters the woods.
You’re now on the bottom side of loop. A small kettle pond on the right is visible through the trees, as you head downhill through large quaking aspen and elm.
The quaking aspen’s flat, spade-like leaves flap at the slightest breeze. In autumn when the leaves turn amber, that makes for quite a show, especially so on trees that grow at least six stories tall and under ideal conditions can reach 10 stories.
Quaking aspen is the most abundant and widespread tree in Minnesota and the most common of the 35 populus tree species – which includes poplar, aspen, and cottonwood – across North America. A pioneer species, it quickly replaced northern Minnesota’s great pineries and the continent’s many forests when they were logged off in the 1800s. Prevention of forest fires has allowed the quaking aspen to maintain its hold.
American elm
A rare find in most mesic forests these days is the American elm, which was almost wiped out when Dutch elm disease spread through its populations in the early 20th century. The tree is large – usually 50 to 70 feet high with a diameter of 24-48 inches.
Its wide-spreading branches droop at the ends, making for a showy display of yellow leaves in autumn. Though somewhat shade tolerant and fast growing to outpace other tall tree species, the elm is common on rich bottom lands, and in Minnesota that usually means the southern portion of the state.
Back on the trail, look for a beaver sign at 2.1 miles and as coming to the loop’s east side, a small kettle pond on the right at 2.4 miles.
A tenth of the mile from the pond, a path diverges right/northeast. This is part of the equestrian trail crossed earlier. Stay on the main trail by going straight/north. The hiking trail is shared with horse riders from there to the four-way intersection where the loop began.
At 2.8 miles, you’ll reach an open meadow on the loop’s north side. Cow Lake is on the trail’s left in the distance to the west, and Beer Lake is on the right/north.
Prairie flowers
A variety of common prairie wildflowers grow in the meadow. Among them are beardtongue, prairie rose, showy milkweed, and wild onion.
The trail runs along Beer Lake’s southern shore at 2.9 miles and then leaves the waterbody behind 0.4 miles later and re-enters the woods and its brilliant autumn leaves.
Next up are two spurs, neither of which leads to anything not already seen on the trail. One spur at 3.4 miles heads north through the woods to a hike-in campsite and then another spur goes south to Cow Lake and a campsite along it.
At 3.5 miles, you’ll reach the four-way intersection where the loop began. Go right/north on the stem trail, and retrace your steps past Bass Lake back to your vehicle.
