Superior Hiking Trail Day 12: Saturday, September 5

Tenting at the South Carlson Pond campsite (SHT mile 280.7), walked 24.6 miles today

Indulgently slept in and did not start hiking until 8am, at which point the sun was shining bright and the air felt almost ... warm? What a funny concept. The trail rolled cheerfully through the woods and passed a plethora of creeks and rivers and adjacent campsites in the first five miles or so. After six miles, it arrived at the heralded 1.4-mile-long “lake walk” along the shore of Lake Superior, which no fewer than three sobos had told me, animatedly, to skip because of how frustrating it is to walk in loose pebbly sand for any distance, let alone a mile and a half. Once I got to the lake, I sat for a break in the sunshine and to purify my feet in the waters, but even in the 20-yard stroll across the beach down to the water I could see exactly what those people had meant about it being tough sledding. With my break complete, I elected to return to the road paralleling the shore, MN 61, and walk along that instead. Not the greatest alternative, especially not with holiday weekend traffic, but I felt at peace with my decision to skip the lake walk, however appealing its symbolism is.

The southern end of the lake walk, which i passed on in an affront to trail pUrists everywhere. As a teenage anakin skywalker once said, “i don’t like sand.“

Once back in the woods, I could barely think and I felt my physical fitness lagging—I ultimately chalked it up to an especially intense midday lull but other explanations did cross my mind, like: I have covid and this is its first salvo. I have giardia again and ditto. I lactosed myself somewhere in the past 12 hours (what did I eat?? Was it the Grape Nuts?). The sun and brightness on the beach made my body think it was nighttime once I was back in the forest. I shouldn’t actually be walking 24 miles on back to back days. All nonsense of course, except maybe that last one. The point is that I walked most of the afternoon in a mental and physical fog at odds with the sunshine around me, and barely remember a thing about it. I do recall an absolute shock to the system when I got to the parking lot of C.R. Magney State Park, after hours alone in the woods, and suddenly there were about 10,000 people around. I donned my mask and endured hordes of oblivious disease vectors on a trail I’d never heard of til today, the half-mile or so to Devil’s Kettle Falls on the Brule River.

Devil’s Kettle Falls on the Brule River in Magney State Park. Cool spot, way too crowded on a saturday for this lone sheep’s liking.

Once that crowd thinned out and I could release my breath, the last nine miles or so were made manageable by there being three miles of unpaved roadwalks interspersed among them (roadwalks always being faster than trail walks, especially on the SHT, and dirt roads being easier on the feet than paved). Arriving at this campsite at the golden hour, it initially seemed like it might be too crowded, but I found a space for my tent wedged in near some hammocks, and after getting to conversing it turned out that everyone around was great company. There were ... a lot of names that I didn’t catch, but they might be reading this blog. Drew! I remember Drew. Sorry about the rest though. At any rate, it was nice to have my last full day on the trail be a sunny warm one, and my last night to be spent in good society. Tomorrow it’s only 17.1 miles to the terminus, but there’s plenty of rain and storms in the forecast ...