Superior Hiking Trail Day 8: Tuesday, September 1

Classic Minnesota snake pit. A loooott of the sht looks something like this.

Tenting at the Fredenburg Creek campsite (SHT mile 193.0), walked 22.5 miles today

Blazed through my alarm because it was just too chilly outside my down cocoon, and even with a relatively late on-the-road time of 7:30am I could see my breath as I started walking. Had really been hoping for a loon call across the lake to get the day off on the ideal foot (for a time in the early 2010s I had a loon wail as my text-message alert, which drove everyone around me insane and I reveled in it)—but alas it seems no loon has made Sonju Lake his or her home yet. Today my goal was to take sit-down breaks more often, that I might hike longer miles without literally staggering by the end, and in this I succeeded. There was, erm, not much to slow me down. The trail wasn’t difficult, except for a brief, steep plummet into the Manitou River gorge and back out again. I only talked to one person all day, a friendly sobo named Matt in the afternoon who gave me the dish on the last 100 miles of trail (it’s easy, then it’s hard. The Hovland area is “thick with bears.” The Lake Walk after Grand Marais is overrated and hell on your feet. Etc.). Otherwise, I passed maybe five pairs of people headed the other way; all my breaks were alone, and I’m alone now at this campsite which could probably fit two dozen tents. I knew this wouldn’t be a social trail, but I’m really not running into anyone out here outside the state parks. When I do talk to people, they tend to treat me, the thru-hiker with the “tiny” backpack (all relative ... it’d be a normal-looking pack on the CDT for instance), as the object of curiosity—but on long trails I always get the most enjoyment out of meeting people who are all weirder than me, and *I’m* the square one with the boring backstory.

Whipped up a fat pot of Idahoans and washed my feet in the ice-cold crick upon reaching camp. Then it was dark. Now I’m in my tent. Tomorrow: the only real town foray of the trip, when I go into bustling Tofte, MN to pick up my last resupply.

From the bridge over THe troubled waters of the Caribou River.