Jeff and the Turks: From the Trail

Last week was long, last weekend went by in a blur. I had been up the Minneapolis area for work Monday through Thursday. When I booked the trip last month I felt cabin fever creeping up on me. I needed to get out. To add to that pressure, I had started watching people on YouTube who were vlogging their 2107 through hikes of the Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail. Inspiring and maddening at the same time. Must be nice to be able to trip for 6 to 8 months and not have the rest of life get in the way. Someday.

Which brings me back to work. Since I was already in Minnesota, why not add a little time and scratch an itch. Back to the Superior Hiking Trail on the North Shore. Had to be quick, I would only have a half day on Friday and half day on Sunday.

I selected an 18-19 mile segment from Silver Bay to County Road 6 trail head and parking. Coincidentally, Silver Bay is where Mike and I stopped on our 3 nighter last time up here. Perfect! I will then have completed over 50 miles of continuous trail.

I made arrangements to leave the hotel by work and meet the shuttle at 1:00. Mind you its still a 3 1/2 hour drive to the trail from the hotel, but that's better than 8 coming from home.

The week of work was fine, lots of good interaction and after work activities. I have been part of this team for almost 15 years so its always good to catch up occasionally. As the week wore on I constantly obsessed about the weather. Rain and cold, not the optimum for a backpack trip. Strangely in the back of my head, I actually welcomed it. It had been a long time since I had to deal with any weather adversity while being outdoors. Helps keep you sharp, makes you appreciate things just a little more and is often an added test of my already large repertoire of skillz.

Thursday night we had a team dinner, I said goodbyes and was on the road early Friday. When I got to the trailhead I met Susie, my shuttle driver. A sweet old lady with some good stories. I tipped well, and Mike if you are reading this I made up for us not having cash to tip last time. Told her to share it with the other drivers, only if she wanted to, she smiled and left me on my way.

Most of my weather worry was for nothing. It was overcast, but low 50's no rain. Quite comfortable actually.

The biggest issue is that it had pretty much rained all week, the trail was more than just wet, it was soggy. Within the first mile my boots were covered in mud.

It took me awhile to warm up. I had not hiked any distance since January and it would be last year since I had a pack of any significant weight on. It was only 25 pounds, but that was heavy due to extra clothes, warmer, bigger quilts, bigger tarp just to be safe.

This trail segment I chose is listed as one of the more difficult segments of the entire trail. Of course it is. I seem to gravitate to this it seems. It didn't feel much more different than last time I was up here. Up and Down, lots of good views and lots of water crossings.

After about 2 and 1/2 hours I made it a little over 5 miles to the East Palisade creek campsite. It was a nice site with lots of trees and the creek rushing could be heard from camp.

I set up camp, had dinner (Tortilla soup, Fritos I snagged from a box lunch and a kit- kat bar) I even had a campfire. The sun came out for awhile too, just to taunt me.

When it started to get dark I went to bed.

I finally got out of bed around 6, had breakfast, packed up and hit the trail. There was about 9 miles to get in today and supposedly the rain was going to start around 3. Today was a lot of the same, up and down, muddy swap areas and nice views. It was a bit windier which helped to keep me cool.

The trail was poorly marked at one point and I followed what I thought was the more obvious path. Only to see that I was on some feeder trail. Pulled out the gps, took a bearing and said I can either backtrack or bushwhack. Bushwhacking was a straight line and so seemed obvious. OFF TRAIL young man. I eventually got back on the trail but second guessed that I saved any distance or time by the time I crawled over every downed tree in my way.

Today the trail went into Tettegouche State Park and had two cool things. The first I ran across was the 'drainpipe' a very vertical piece of trail. I was coming down it, which may have been harder than going up.

These pictures do not give the scale or the steepness of this section.

The second cool thing happened maybe a half mile after this. High Falls, at this time I thought it was the highest falls on the trail, but come to find out that it is the highest waterfall in all of Minnesota.

There also was this suspension bridge over the Baptism River that was very bouncy and swaying. FUN! but the sign did say only 4 people at a time and NO JUMPING.

After spending some time here I got back into the trail and around 11:15 made it to camp. Made lunch, filtered some water, set up camp and waited for the rain.

Well not really, I washed my pants to get the mud off them and did a few other camp chores and side explorations.

The precipitation started around 5 in the form of hail. I was all cozy in my hammock, so I really didn't care. I had my Kindle and read for several hours. I didn't bother with dinner at this point.

I got up around 5 or so when it started getting light. It had rained all night and everything was wet and foggy. I had breakfast sitting in my hammock then I packed up everything while under my tarp. Everything stayed dry, except for the tarp, obviously. That was saturated. So I stuffed it in the bag and stuck it on the outside of my pack. That would have to wait until I got home to dry out.

As I prepared to leave, my pack cover decided to give out. So much for keeping any rain off the pack.

I headed out into the wet and fog. In a few minutes I warmed up and it wasn't too bad, I had rain pants and jacket to keep me dry.

The trail today was less than 5 miles and since I left at around 6:15 I figured I would be done by 9 at the latest. Plenty of time to make my 3pm flight.

The trail was quiet, foggy and I found it very different than the other 5-6 days I had hiked this trail. The views were gone, but at the same time left to the imagination it made for a interesting change of pace. I rather enjoyed it.

Well I made it to the car and swapped wet clothes for dry and since I was so early, I decided to have second breakfast at the Vanilla Bean in Two Harbors. Fresh made, warm, cinnamon rolls? Yes please.