Riverkeeper leads Brew City Safari tour of Milwaukee River Greenway

The sun shone brightly on Saturday afternoon as I joined a throng gathering at Caesar's Pool Park for a hike on the Milwaukee River. Sponsored by Brew City Safari, the tour was led by guest guide, Cheryl Nenn, Milwaukee's Riverkeeper. I played leap-frog with the group to the halfway point at the Locust Street bridge. At that point I lost the group due to my penchant for wandering off to shoot photos. But I forged on. It was a perfect day for a hike in one of my favorite places. Here's my photo essay:

Riverkeeper Nenn leads group across the river at Caesar's Pool, site of the former North Avenue dam.

Seedling in protective tube planted by River Revitalization Foundation volunteers to restore native species along the West Bank Trail.

We saw several spots where bank stabilization work was underway to mitigate damage done by a storm in 2010.

The group circled the "graffiti wall" that adorns the ruins of a former bathing resort, when this part of the Milwaukee River Greenway was a lake impounded by the North Avenue dam.

This mattress, embedded in the tall riparian grasses, is evidence that people other than graffiti taggers frequent the spot.

On the east side of the river I enter the Rotary Arboretum and Riverside Park.

A series of cairn-like sculptures by Nic Thompkins now graces the park.

Planting native vegetation is also being done along the East Bank Trail. Here it is organized by the Urban Ecology Center, which is located in Riverside Park.

Evidence of beavers -- well, at least one beaver anyway!

One of a series of murals on the piers of the North Avenue Bridge.

And back again to Caesar's Pool Park. The next Brew City Safari hike is this coming Saturday, Oct. 15 at Havenwoods State Park. Check it out on their website.

An urban hike along Milwaukee's lakefront with Brew City Safari

Brew City Safari was founded by Christian Matson-Alvirez three years ago. I love its tag line: "Explore. Imagine. Get lost." Its mission--to take people on hikes in Milwaukee--appears simple at first blush. Advertise a time, location and route and the people who show up take a hike.

I only just learned about it last week. Coincidentally, the next scheduled hike was the following Sunday (which was this past Sunday). I immediately decided to go, even though the time was a challenging one: 3:30 a.m. The route, however, was definitely appealing: a six-mile loop around Milwaukee's lakefront.

Followers of this blog will find it unsurprising that I was an immediate convert. Talking with Christian during the hike, hearing him wax eloquent about his love of Milwaukee and urban hiking, was like plumbing my own thought process. If you find this idea as intriguing as I did, check out the schedule of hikes on the website. There is usually one per month.

Here are a few photos from our hike.

Our meetup location at North Point Park. Official guides wore glow-in-the-dark ringlets for identification.

Poet Robert Burns in Burns Commons, at the intersection of Farwell and Prospect. Turns out Christian loves the arts as well as Milwaukee. How cool is that!

I knew there was a statue of Solomon Juneau in Juneau Park, which is only sensible, right? But we discovered Leif the Discoverer there as well. As far as I know he never made it to Wisconsin. Go figure.

Still in the dark, we looped around the Milwaukee Art Museum. By the time we reached McKinley Marina the glow of pre-dawn lit up the harbor.

Looking back over McKinley Beach towards downtown just before sunrise.

And north towards North Point and Bradford Beach.

The sun made its appearance as we hiked along Bradford Beach.

We were not the only people out to witness the dawn. At the north end of the beach we spied a group of revelers cavorting in the dawn light.

The dawn light proved fleeting as a new bank of cloud cover approached. We walked up the closed ravine road and made out way back to our starting point through Lake Park. 

The next hike is Sept. 6, a Sunday afternoon stroll through the south side with special guest tour guide Adam Carr. Details on the website.