Monday, June 1, 2009

It was a good night and we didn’t get up particularly early. At this point I was planning my end game for the hike. I had asked Eric and Matt when they were planning to go back to the Twin Cities. They said they wanted to backpack until Sunday. That was too late for me, I really wanted to start heading for home sometime in the mid-week. At any rate, while I was in Grand Marais, I had posted an ad in the rideshare section of the Duluth Craigslist for a ride from the North Shore to Duluth or the Twin Cities. I was hoping someone would call me because I posted my phone number in the ad. It said in the ad that the best way to contact me was my phone, and that I had no access to a computer because I was backpacking. I had called the Forest Service before my trip, and they said that for the most part, my cell phone would work on the Superior Hiking Trail. I figured that when I got down near Lutsen, my phone would definitely work because it is a ski resort community.

Eric, Matt and I decided we were going to hike together today. I figured I could keep up with them because they had much heavier backpacks. We ate breakfast and got our gear together. I managed to get my gear together pretty fast compared to them, so I waited around, I was in no hurry. They finally got ready and off we went. We walked down across Bally Creek, passed the spur trail to the South Bally Creek Campsite and we soon came to Bally Road. At the road there was another nice sign with the distances to future landmarks. Highway 45 would be in 5.6 miles and Cascade State Park would be in 9 miles. I assumed that meant the main campground of the Cascade State Park is in 9 miles because the park boundary is actually near Highway 45.

We kept going and were soon treated to some nice views through the woods of some hills off in the distance. After a mile or so, it became apparent that Eric and Matt were too fast for me. They kept pulling away from me. At one flat easy place in the trail, I ran to catch up with them. So finally I told them to stop. I told them that I wouldn’t be able to keep up so we should just split up. I said I was planning to take the east side of the river route when I got to Cascade State Park and there is a State park Campground down near Highway 61. I said that when I got to the Campground I would check to see if they were camping there. At any rate, we went on, and soon they pulled ahead of me again. I took one last photo of them way ahead of me and that was it. They were gone.

Again, the trail was really nice. You could see some hills off in the distance through the woods, but there wasn’t any place that was an overlook spot where I could take a photo without having the woods in the photo. I kept hiking at my leisurely pace, soon I came across a ski trail junction. They even had a map of the ski trails posted at that spot. So I checked it out, because I’m a map person. I always try to keep track of where I am on the map. Eric and Matt didn’t keep track of themselves on the map. The night before, I had to show them where they were. They thought they were much farther along on the map.

Soon I came across a forest boundary sign with a geographical marker and a bearing tree. I suppose that’s for people with gps units. I continued on and eventually came to the North Cascade Multigroup Campsite. I had caught up with Eric and Matt. They were talking to two guys from Des Moines, Iowa named Tyler and Aiden. Eric and Matt had taken off a layer of clothes and were all set to go again.

So they took off. There is a nice bench at the entrance of the Campsite, so I set my stuff down and talked to Tyler and Aiden. They said they were hiking up to the Devil’s Track, just north of Grand Marais. I asked them why they came up here to hike, all the way from Des Moines. Aiden said he heard about the trail when he lived in the Twin Cities, and always wanted to hike it. I gave them my card, took their photo, and they were off. Tyler and Aiden had the look of experienced backpackers. They had trekking poles and appeared to be packing fairly light. At any rate, they looked as though they knew what they were doing.

After they left I hiked around the North Cascade Multigroup Campsite. I needed to use the facilities, anyway. The Multigroup Campsite was the biggest campsite I had seen yet. It must have had 3 or 4 fire rings with the L shaped benches around them. The sites were nice and flat, but you have to go down the hill to the Cascade River to get water. I looked down the hill and I didn’t see the river. I really didn’t want to go down that far, so I just went back to the entrance of the Campsite. At the Entrance, there is a little wooden box hanging on a post. I went over and opened it and saw a spiral notebook and a pen. This is the Journal for the campsite. People would write about their experiences and where they were from. Matt had written a rather cursing note on how bad the weather was. He said it rained and was really cold. I thought the rain we had the day before wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the day I hiked out to the Gunflint Trail on the Kekekabic Trail. And I wasn’t cold at all during the night because of my new sleeping bag. I put a little note in the journal about my backpacking trip and my website.

I continued on, soon I could here the rapids in the river down the hill from me. But there was no spot along the trail that had a very good view of the river. The river kept getting louder and louder, but I still wasn’t able to see it very well. Then I came across a creek that was making some noise, too. It was a fairly big creek as creeks go and it had a fairly substantial bridge across it. It was called Minnow Trap Creek. I kept hiking and soon I came up to Highway 45. There is a big bridge crossing the river on Highway 45. Before the bridge there is a trailhead parking lot. I went down into the parking lot and suddenly had some great views of the river. I set my stuff down in the parking lot and went down by the river. There were lots of rapids there so I decided to take a bunch of photos there including some self shots. Then I decided to get going.

There are two ways you can hike from the parking lot. If you go across the Highway 45 bridge you can take the West of the River Trail. In the parking lot there is the East of the River Trail that starts under the bridge. I told Eric and Matt that I was taking the east route, so that’s the way I went. There is another nice sign in the parking lot with future landmarks listed. Hidden Falls would be in .3 miles. I thought to myself that I was going to be seeing something good.

I hiked along the river, which is completely filled with rapids. I kept going as the trail went down some steps and over a boardwalk. It seemed like I went more than .3 mile and I still didn’t see the Hidden Falls. Maybe it was Hidden from me. The river was all rapids. Which one of these rapids is the Hidden Falls? I thought. But then I came upon a big section of waterfalls. The water was flowing fast and there were a couple of big drops. I set down my stuff and went down to the falls to take some photos. It was quite the sight.

Soon I noticed a big bluff on the other side of the river from me. And up on the bluff, there is a little stream of water falling off of it. I would have missed it if I had not set down my gear and went down near the water. Surely that must be the Hidden Falls. I took lots of photos of the falls, including some self shots. As I looked up the big bluff, I noticed a cordwood fence at the top. That must be for the west of the river trail, I thought. I was sure glad I didn’t go that way, or I would have had to walk up that gigantic bluff.

I kept going on the east of the river trail. The trail stayed along the river for quite some time. Then it started going up a hill. There were log steps for erosion control. It kept going, and going up. All of a sudden I was feeling that I wasn’t quite so lucky going on the east of the river trail. But the west of the river trail surely would have been a monster, too. At any rate, this hill was kicking my butt. It kept going up and up. I made it to the top and seen an unusual sight. There were two trees growing up from the ledge of the hill. It looked as though the two trees were holding on for dear life. But that’s the way they grew there. They were fairly big trees too, at least a foot and a half diameter. On top of the hill it was easy walking, but I was pooped out from going up the hill. Eventually I made it to the Trout Creek Campsite. Then I knew I wasn’t very far from the main park campground. After the campsite there was a fairly big bridge over this gulley of a creek. The creek was only five feet wide but the gulley was more like 20 feet wide. It looks as though during the spring thaw, the creek fills up the whole gulley. And the bridge crossed the whole gulley. This was Trout Creek.

Then I went along a portion of the trail that was fenced in. I could hear the river down below, but evidently park visitors had caused too much damage along the riverbank, so the Park Rangers fenced it off. Or perhaps that portion of the riverbank was too dangerous. I couldn’t tell because I was too far from the river. But I could hear it, so there must be some falls or rapids in the river. Soon I got to a spot where there is a footbridge crossing the river. And the view from the footbridge is spectacular. There is a series of beautiful waterfalls upstream from the bridge down in a gorge. I figured that’s why they had the trail fenced off. The sides of the gorge looked pretty dangerous.

After the bridge, there is a little overlook area with a cordwood railing and some benches. That’s where I met Don from Grand Marais. He said it was his day off, and this was one of his favorite spots. He was just sitting down on the bench relaxing, enjoying his surroundings. I took his photo and gave him my card. He pointed me in the direction of the campground and I left him to enjoy his favorite spot in peace again.

I set my gear down on a picnic table at the campground, then searched the campground to see if Eric and Matt were there. I looked around and nobody was there. The campground was completely empty. I headed down to Highway 61 to see the Lower Falls that Don had talked about. I crossed the Cascade River bridge on Highway 61, and below the bridge upstream there was another beautiful waterfall. And also to the east was a good view of Lake Superior.

Soon I saw a trail and a sign pointing to Cascade Lodge, so I decided to go check it out. Soon I was hiking up on a hill going parallel to highway 61. First I saw the Cascade Restaurant, then I saw the Cascade Lodge, then I saw some cabins up the hill in back of the lodge. I walked into the Lodge and ask the lady if they had a bunkhouse that I could stay in for the night. She said she had a room in the lodge for $69. After thinking about it I said yes, because I was pretty beat. Cascade State Park had kicked my butt. But again my Credit Card did not work. Wow, and I had just put $300.00 onto my credit card the day before.

I figured if I stayed at the lodge, maybe I could meet some people who could take me to Duluth the next day. I was getting pretty tired of this hike and just wanted to get out of there. The Lady at the Lodge said that my cell phone would work if I walked up the hill by the upper cabin. I asked the lady if there was a campsite on top of Lookout Mountain, like I had seen on one of the Park signs. She said yes. So I said that if I couldn’t get my credit card figured out, I would just hike up there and camp. She said there is a trail right near the upper cabin that would take me to the top of Lookout Mountain.

I also asked her if there was any bus or shuttle that traveled down the coast to Duluth. She gave me a sheet of paper from D&J Shuttle Service. It had a whole schedule of when it stopped at different places along the coast. I was happy about that. Now maybe I could get a ride to Duluth.

I started up towards the upper cabin and when I arrived there I tried calling my Credit Union. But it was too late, they were closed. So, I said to heck with it and just started hiking up Lookout Mountain. And incredibly, it was fairly easy walking. The trail was well marked. There were signs with maps every so often. I figured that this was a tourist area, so that’s why it’s so well marked. After a while I started seeing some pretty great views. I was at a rock ledge and I could see Cascade State park down below and Lake Superior all the way out to the horizon. It was gorgeous. It was a nice evening too, so I didn’t feel bad about camping out. Then I got to a point where there was a great view of the Sawtooth Mountains to the west. I decided to take a break here and call Visa. Visa couldn’t really help me, they said I would have to call my Credit Union In the morning.

Then my ex-girlfriend Maria called me. My cell phone was definitely working now. She had just returned from a college class trip to Germany, and she wanted to show me the photos. You can read into that whatever you want. She’s old to be a college student, but you gotta do what you gotta do in this economy. I told her I was on top of Lookout Mountain in northern Minnesota. Maybe I’d be back in Madison later that week. I told her I was backpacking, and that I had lots of beautiful photos too. In fact, where I was standing was a wonderful spot to take a photo.

The phone call ended and I went off to look for the campsite that is supposed to be on top of Lookout Mountain. Shortly after, I saw a small wooden building so I walked towards it. The building was a Trail shelter, and I seen some smoke rising up near it. I also saw a big clothes line with a bunch of clothes hanging on it. As I got closer, I saw Matt bending down next to the fire.

Matt was real happy to see me. He started giving me a tour of the shelter. It was a three sided shelter with the side headed east being open. There was a picnic table inside of it and two benches to sleep on. On the side of the shelter there is a metal bin that looked like a mini fridge, but it actually was a place to store your food where the bears wouldn’t smell it. And there was an outhouse out in back of the shelter.

I asked him where Eric was and explained that Eric went down to get some water. The closest water was Indian Camp Creek, which is over a mile away. It was getting a little cold, and I asked him if they were planning to stay in the shelter that night. He thought they would, but then I said it probably would be warmer in the tent because the shelter had one side completely open. If we had a tarp or something to cover the open end, the shelter would have been good. But we didn’t have anything like that. So we started setting up the tents.

Eric came back with 3 Nalgene bottles of water. Eric was happy and surprised to see me. Eric said that the next campsite, the Indian Camp Creek Campsite, was a really nice campsite, and maybe we should go down there. It was only about a mile away, and we still had plenty of light. But Matt said that we had too many nice amenties here such as the outhouse, bear box, picnic table and shelter, and that he wanted to stay here. So we stayed. ( I found out later that the shelter site on Lookout Mountain is actually a reservable fee site of Cascade State Park. We should have paid a fee for using it, but we didn't know and there was no sign explaining it)

We cooked supper, then Matt and Eric played cribbage on the picnic table. I don’t know much about cribbage. Matt was winning at first, the Eric came back and won. I told Matt that’s what he gets for playing against a Math and Statistics Major.

I showed Eric the sheet of paper about the shuttle to Duluth and told him that I was planning on taking it. But Eric pointed out that the Shuttle only runs on Mondays and Fridays. I looked at the sheet and he was right. I was a little bummed after that. Eric said that he and Matt were making good progress getting back to Matt’s car, which was parked in Tofte. And after getting back to the car they were planning to go up to Grand Marais and backpack the Devil’s Track portion of the Superior Hiking Trail. Eric’s car was parked at the Grand Marais Trailhead, so they would have to go up there to retrieve it anyway. Aiden and Tyler had convinced them that the Devil’s Track had some great scenery.

We had a nice evening together. It was dry but a little cold. Everyone was pretty content. I told Matt and Eric that I was going to wake up early, pack up, have a power bar, and leave. I didn’t want to wait around for them like I did this morning at North Bally Creek. I had heard that the Lutsen Mountain Gondola closed at 5 pm, so I wanted to get up early to make it there. I told them that they would catch up to me anyway. It was getting cold, so I snuck into bed.