Friday, July 08, 2005

The long of the short....

Well it's time to elaborate on yesterday's blog. This past weekend was a much needed Grand Forks relief session. The north shore of Lake Superior is indeed superior. And I have to say that the many folks who put together the Superior Hiking Trail did an amazing job. What a sweet trail! It's currently somewhere around 220 miles stretching from just north of Duluth, MN to the Canadian border. The through-hike would take approximately two weeks at a decent but not overzealous pace. If there was some way to swing a trip like that and still have enough money to survive I'd totally be there. I can't afford to miss that much work though in my current stage of life. But just getting out there and backpacking the 10 mile stretch that we did this weekend was great (and it's a start at completing the whole thing). We (me, Alison, and our friend Jess who many of you know), hiked from Castle Danger township to Gooseberry Falls State Park. One mile into the trail section, we met a hiker walking quickly the other direction, just folding his pocket knife after keeping it out for his previous few miles. He told us that he'd just run into two adult bears sitting in the middle of the trail, and he'd quickly retreated back in the direction of Castle Danger rather than going around them. So, we needed to decide whether or not to continue. I'm going to have to give the credit of pressing on to Jes, as Al and I probably would have turned around without her. She pointed out that we came out there to backpack, so we'd better do it, and I agreed. Good job Jess. :) We made lots of noise along the trail, and saw no bears ourselves, although the mud of the trail was littered with fresh bear prints. Cool. Since there were so many prints, we decided to press on past the backcountry campsite we planned on spending the night at and went all the way to the state park campground. Being the fourth of July, it was full, but the rangers have a little secret stored away for tired backpackers at the end of the day. It's called the Davis Area, consisting of the best three campsites in the park, which lay right on the shore of Lake Superior itself. Ultra sweet. And we had hot showers. Not bad for roughing it. And I have to say that that lake tastes mighty fine after it passes through my filter. MMM. Not all full of chlorine and other city crap.
The day after I rode my singlespeed back to the van (I had stashed it in some bushes nearby the park the day before our hike) and picked up the girls. We headed up to Palisade Head, where they humored me for a bit while I did a local favorite climb, Danger High Voltage (5.8). It's a nice combo of face and crack climbing, exposed over the lake. I'm gonna have to go back and lead it next time. Much fun. The rest of the day was pretty low key, as we were all super sore from the backpacking, not to mentioned bit up by bugs and itching. I apparently was bitten my a spider or something, as my leg is still swollen pretty good. All part of the game. We hike in the critters homes and become there food sometimes.
That night we camped at Eckbeck campground north of Tetegouchi State Park, and got to watch thunderheads light up the north sky while mowing down smores. Did I mention trips are flippin' great! In the morning we played in the Baptism river after filtering some water out of it, and then went to check out the waterfalls of the nearby Temperance River. All of these places fall somewhere along sections of the Superior Hiking Trail, making it one of the top ten hiking trails in the country.
Oh yeah, the police. I had a fierce case of the hiccups on the drive out to the north shore, so I was trying to kill them off by taking consecutive short sips of water from my Nalgene, and consequently wasn't paying attention to the speed change through Grand Rapids (Hwy 2 changes speed limits about every 10 feet all the way out there). I got pulled over, but apparently I looked embarrassed enough that the officer let me go with a warning.
Overall, the trip was absolutely wonderful, and I'm very impressed with the Superior Hiking Trail. I'm going back. Anyone want to come with?

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