Sunday, October 24, 2010
I didn’t wake up particularly early on Sunday Morning. I think it was around 7:30 am. I got dressed enough to go down and eat breakfast. It wasn’t a particularly deluxe breakfast. It had the waffle iron that you flip over, so I made a waffle. I drank a lot of orange juice and got some hot water for Theraflu. I watched the weather report on the TV while I was eating. It was going to be a drizzly cold day. Not exactly a Chamber of Commerce Day for hiking.
I got my stuff ready and had one last computer session, and I was on my way. I took Highway 34 back to Akeley, where I checked out the town campsite. It was a long thin campground, which went along the shore of Eleventh Crow Wing Lake. The Crow Wing River created a series of lakes and each one is numbered. This goes on for several miles to where the First Crow Wing Lake is southeast of Park Rapids. I continued driving the combination of Highway 12 and Highway 6 back to Highway 371 north of Hackensack. This time, instead of taking Highway 5, I took Highway 371 north to the Woodtick Trail.
The North Country Trail crosses the Woodtick Trail 4 times. They count them starting at Highway 371 going west. So, actually the first crossing of the Woodtick Trail that I did yesterday, the one closest to Highway 5, is called the 4th Crossing, and the crossing where Ken picked me up is called the 3rd Crossing. So. I drove down to the 3rd Crossing and parked my car on the side of the road. There isn’t a parking lot near the 3rd Crossing, where the other crossings all seemed to have a parking lot associated with them.
The hardest part of the hike this day would be starting. It was raining outside, not really hard, but at a drizzle rate. I really didn’t feel like getting out of the van, but I did, I put on my red/orange poncho, then my backpack, and I headed out. The hard part was over.
Once I started walking, I warmed up to it. I was in a groove by now since it was my fourth day out. I was walking through a mixture of pines and deciduous trees, similar to the area in the Goose Lake Trail system. This was right across the Woodtick Trail from it, so it’s to be expected. I was hiking through an upland forest with no pothole marshes around. But eventually after hiking in the uplands for a while, I saw a marshy area to the left of the trail, then Moccasin Lake to the right.
The trail skirts along the northern end of Moccasin Lake for quite some distance. But it never goes really close to the lake. But still it seemed like there would be some really good places for a campsite along that part of the lake. There is some private property further down on the lake, with some vacation homes, but in this bay at the top of Moccasin Lake, those buildings cannot be seen. The land goes gently down to the shoreline, so it would be a good location for a campsite.
Why am I always saying that? I’m saying it because campsites are few and far between here on the North Country Trail in the Chippewa National Forest. One of the things that may help attract more Backpackers is having more designated backcountry campsites. The SHT has campsites every 3 to 4 miles, and I think that’s a number that the CNF should be shooting for. Backpackers like designated backcountry campsites for several reasons. There is a fire ring to contain the fire. There are cleared tent pads and there is a latrine. And all backcountry campsites should be close to a water source.
In the Chippewa National Forest, you can camp in a dispersed fashion, which means you can camp pretty much wherever you feel like. Having a designated campsite is much better that having people camp in a dispersed fashion. If during a summer ten different camping parties camped on the north shore of Moccasin Lake in a dispersed fashion, ten different sites would be impacted. If there is a designated campsite on the north shore of Moccasin Lake, then only one site would be impacted.
If a backpacker reaches a campsite at 3 pm, and the next campsite is 7 miles away, that backpacker might stay at the campsite he reached. But if the next campsite is 3 miles away, he might continue on. So, having more campsites does change things up for backpackers. And since you can camp in a dispersed fashion in the Chippewa National Forest, I’m also giving you, the reader, some ideas on where you might want to camp. But, like I said having a designated campsite is much better.
When I did my research for this hike, I did notice that campsites up until now were around 8 miles apart. But, in the section that I will be hiking today, I will be encountering up to 4 campsites, which are within a ten mile stretch. That’s more like it.
I continue going around the north shore of Moccasin Lake. The other thing that I would also be seeing more frequently would be lakes. I would be seeing about 10 to 12 lakes over the next 10 miles. I passed Moccasin Lake and soon came up to Cranberry Lake. It had a very marshy shoreline and was down a fairly steep hill from the trail. And here I go again. So I didn’t think this would be a very good spot for a campsite because of the steep hill and marshy shoreline making it difficult to get water. This lake was almost all marsh, except there was a place out in the middle, about the size of a baseball infield that had open water. Sitting up on the hill next to it might be a good place to view birds and wildlife during the spring and summer.
So, I managed to go past 2 lakes within the first two miles of my hike today. But there would be a break in the lake action for now. Instead I continued west on the trail through the deciduous woods. I thought I saw a lake off in the distance. Perhaps in was one of the Twin Lakes. But it was far away from the trail and you probably wouldn’t see it if there were leaves on the trees. I just kept on trucking through the woods and then I made it up to Forest Road 2108, which is a fairly good Forest Road. The trail turns right on the road and there is a short road walk of about 100 yards. The trail starts up again by taking a left off the road. But at this point, I could see a Y in the road towards the north. If you take a left at the Y it takes you to a boat access point and campsite on Teepee Lake. But that would be a detour of over a half a mile. And I couldn’t even see Teepee Lake, and I kept looking for it out to the right.
I hiked for a short ways and then instead of seeing Teepee Lake to the right, I saw North Stocking Lake to the left. The trail goes very close to the north shore of North Stocking Lake. And there were some rather big white birds floating on the lake. I’d say there were 10 to 12 of them. They were white, but I’m not sure what type of bird they were. I’m leaning towards Swans. I know they are not egrets, and perhaps they are too large to be snow geese. At any rate, the trail goes near the north shore of North Stocking Lake for about 1/8 of a mile. And I was keeping my eyes peeled for the campsite at North Stocking Lake.
Last year, Nimblewill Nomad wrote that he camped on the south shore of Teepee Lake. I kept looking north to see if I could get a glimpse of Teepee Lake, but I never did. And the Campsite on Teepee Lake is allegedly on the north side of the lake. But somehow Nimblewill got to the south side of the lake. Perhaps he was headed for the campsite on the road and said to heck with it, I’m not going that far. I’ll just camp here on the south side.
I kept looking for the campsite on the shore of North Stocking Lake and got to the point where I was almost past the lake, when I saw a post with a campsite marker on it. So I headed down the spur trail to look at the campsite. After about 25 yards I got to a place that looked like there were a couple tent pads. It was a flat cleared out area. But I didn’t see a fireplace area, and this area wasn’t right next to the lake as I would expect. I continued down the spur trail, seeing a grove of tall pines next to the lake. Surely the campsite must be there, but it wasn’t. The spur trail had some brush that fell across it and I was not sure how far I would have to walk to find the campsite, so I headed back to the NCT.
After North Stocking Lake I kept heading west, looking for Teepee Lake to the north and I still did not see it. I was walking through what I call the upland woods. It’s mainly a deciduous forest, with a little pine tree sprinkled in every once in a while. It’s the uplands because I did not see all the pothole swamps and grasslands like I saw on other parts of the trail. I kept going and eventually I did see a little pothole swamp to the left of the trail, then I saw Ivins Lake.
Ivins Lake is a nice little lake. It’s big enough that it might have some fish in it. And there are nice spots for a potential campsite here. Plus it has a nice shoreline where it would be easy to get water. But let me tell you what’s the coolest thing about it. It’s farther from a road than most lakes in this area. I’d say it’s over a mile from Forest Road 2108, which I hiked across to the east. And it’s about a mile from Forest Road 3790, which I will be hiking across in the near future. Plus in each case there are lakes that are closer to the road. There is North Stocking Lake to the east and Long/Gut Lake to the west. Ivins Lake is a nice spot.
I kept walking and soon I could see a lake off in the distance to my left. It was Long Lake also known as Gut Lake. I’m not exactly sure what’s up with the two names. Perhaps it originally was called Gut Lake, and that proved to be problematic. It’s not exactly a Chamber of Commerce name for a lake. So, maybe some people didn’t like the name and it was changed to Long Lake. But I don’t know why you would change it to Long Lake. There are already a zillion lakes named Long Lake. They could have thought of something else. I think the weirdest name for a lake up in these parts is a lake called Lake Ododikossi. It’s over near Remer and is not very close to the trail. But I wonder how it got the name Ododikossi? But I like it because it rhymes with Toddodikossi.
As the trail came up close to the lake, I saw a cleared out spot that looked like a campsite. It was right where the trail comes up to the lake, on the left hand side. I was wondering if this was the official campsite for this lake, but I didn’t see a fire ring or latrine trail. The trail goes along the lake for a little ways and I came up to the real Long/Gut Lake Campsite. And this is a nice campsite in the tall pines on a little peninsula. It’s a gorgeous setting. There was no one camping in the campsite. But it looked like it was heavily used. In fact, the hunter I talked to a couple days ago said he saw people camping here. This campsite must be so popular that on some week ends more than one group of people probably wanted to camp here. Hence, the second campsite area that I saw down the trail was created. The official campsite had a fireplace area with some logs to sit on, and it had enough room for several tents. But, I looked around and I did not see a latrine trail. I think this is a very popular campsite with fishermen, so a latrine would be a good thing to have.
I kept going west on the trail. This section of the trail had some really tall red pines. I don’t know if I would call them old growth trees, because perhaps they were not that old, but they were definitely taller than any other pines that I had seen so far on my 4 day hike. Soon I crossed a little logging road. Perhaps this is the road the fishermen use to get to the campsite. The trail is a mixed forest that is what I call the upland woods. I didn’t see any pothole marshes until seeing one just before hitting Forest Road 3790.
Forest Road 3790 is a nice gravel road. I drove down it a couple days ago when I was scouting out the trail. That’s when I met the hunter named Mark, the one that saw people camping at the Long/Gut Lake campsite. He seemed like a great guy, but I had not scared up any grouse all day, so he wasn’t hunting in a very good spot. Of course, if you bushwack through some thickety areas, perhaps you would scare up some grouse. But when I was hiking up near highway 4 on Thursday, I scared up plenty of grouse just hiking the trail.
I continued on in the upland woods west of Forest Road 3790. I had seen one pothole marsh right before getting to the road, and now I saw another one just after passing the road. Otherwise, it was just woods. I was looking for the next lake, which would be Hovde Lake. I saw some ponds and pothole marshes off in the distance but nothing that was a lake. And Hovde was a fairly big lake, too. Definitely bigger than Long Lake or Ivins Lake. Soon I went up over a little knoll and Hovde Lake was spread out before me.
I started looking around for the campsite that is on Hovde Lake. Soon I came up to a trail intersection. It looked like a trail that people could haul their canoes down to the lake from some sort of old logging road. I went down to the lake using the spur trail, and looked for the campsite, but didn’t see it. But there was a nice little landing there for canoeist to launch their canoes. Now, I’m told that the campsite is next to the lake, to the right of the spur trail. But at the time, I didn’t see anything.
Maybe, since most of the leaves had fallen from the trees. I was having a hard time finding campsites because the leaves are covering them up. Or the leaves are covering the trails to the campsites. Since volunteers mow the trail and the campsites every June, perhaps it would be a lot easier to see the campsites just after they have been mowed. You just need to follow the mowed trail to the campsite. At any rate, I was having trouble finding campsites. I didn’t find the potential campsite near the Boy River. I didn’t find the designated campsite on Crown Lake. I wasn’t sure about the campsite at North Stocking Lake, and now I couldn’t find the campsite at Hovde Lake.
I continued down the trail, keeping my eyes peeled for the campsite. The trail went along the lake for quite some time, and then it went away from the lake. But every once in a while I could still see a glimpse of the lake. The terrain was getting a little hillier now with several small ups and downs. That’s why sometimes I would still keep seeing Hovde Lake to my right. Plus, it is a fairly big lake. Then I went up over a little knoll and saw a forest road. This was a muddy, sandy forest road that looked like it was used quite often. It is not nearly as good as a gravel road because it had several ruts and potholes in it. I continued west and went up a hill where I could see a little lake to my left. The trail starts going downhill and I could start seeing a little lake to my right, too. And when I got to the bottom of the hill, I came across a portage between the two little lakes. I thought I was in the Boundary Waters again.
This is a great little spot. It may not be big enough or flat enough for a campsite. But, you could go fishing in both little lakes here. Here’s a fantastic idea. How about building a trail shelter here. Build it right next to one of the lakes with a little deck where you could go fishing. That would be so cool. And nothing symbolizes backpacking quite like a trail shelter.
I continued walking on the NCT to the west going up a hill. I was still seeing the little lake on the left. But then I went up over a little knoll and could no longer see it. After I got to the top of the hill, the trail goes downhill for a long time until it gets to the bottom of another fairly big hill. The trail goes to the left for at least 50 yards while going up the hill then turns sharply to the right. It was at this point that I realized that I was on a switchback. It was a certifiable switchback. I looked down the hill and saw where I was just hiking to the left, and now I’m walking to the right. What’s this trail coming to? First I find a portage, and now I walking a switchback. That’s definitely a change from walking through the lowlands seeing pothole marshes everywhere.
I continued on making it to the high point. Then it gradually headed downhill. There was not switchback on this side of the hill, but it’s more gradual so they don’t need it. Soon I saw a very marshy lake on the right side of the trail. The map shows two lakes on the right side of the trail before the Woodtick Trail, and sure enough, I found the other lake. It had a much less marshy shoreline, making real good to get water from. Plus there already is a little path going over to the lake. Maybe people haul in their canoes from the Woodtick Trail. Or perhaps fishermen like Ken just hike in to fish at the lake. And the approach to the lake is flat, which would be good for a campsite. It wasn’t that far, perhaps a 1/4 of a mile from the lake when I made it to the Woodtick Trail. At the trail crossing there is a little parking lot extending from the road that will fit may 5 or 6 cars.
Now I would be walking through the Woodtick Impoundment Area. I think the Woodtick Impoundment must have been some type of public works project back in the 1930’s when FDR had his New Deal. Maybe not, but it definitely was some type of wetland project. I headed down the trail and saw some pothole marshes at a regular rate. Then I saw a beaver dam and an NCT boardwalk going right below it. The Beaver dam looked very old and it also stuck up in the air like an above ground pool. A very interesting site indeed.
I had been hiking by so many cool little lakes, a portage and a switchback, that I forgot to mention anything about the weather. It had been drizzling all morning, but now in the afternoon it had quit for a little while, so I took my poncho off. And you know what happens when you take your poncho off, it starts raining again. So I had to stop and put my poncho back on. All in all, it was a fairly gray, cold and miserable day. And I was starting to worry that I would get really sick.
I kept walking and began to see a big clearing through the woods to my right. I saw a little lake over there, but the clearing was really big so I saw another little lake, too. It seemed like there was a series of them. The Trail was curving around these series of lakes when I before me I could see a rock dam that the trail was headed for. Water was not going over the dam, but instead there must be some pipes the water was flowing through. It was perfectly dry walking across the dam., except for the rain.
After the dam, there was a big flat spot in front of me and a little knoll hill to the left. I walked up to the big flat spot as saw a campfire grate. I had made it to the Woodtick Impoundment Campsite. The whole area looked as though it had been worked on within the last year or so, including the rock dam. On some maps it shows another lake area,which would be below the rock dam, but that lake doesn’t seem to be there anymore. (Note: After the hike I found out that a dike was removed from this area, and the area has been allowed to return to its original state.)
The campsite is in a big flat space, up from the rock damn, and with a good view of the impoundment lake. You can bring the whole Troop for this campsite, I’d say it would easily fit over a dozen tents. There was a side trail going up the little knoll to the left, so I went up there. Evidently, the old campsite was on top of this little knoll because there was an old broken down campfire ring located there. Then, to the right side of the knoll, there is a Latrine sign, so I walked down another little path and found the Latrine. And It looked brand new. Nice and shiny, it was. But the problem with the latrine is the sign is located at a spot where people who are camped at the big flat campsite would not see it.They need another sign at the bottom of the knoll.
But now at the Woodtick Impoundment, I was having another problem. My camera battery was running low. I was already on my second battery, and it was just about dead. Like a dope I had forgotten to charge the batteries when I was at the Super 8 in Park Rapids the night before. Also, I only brought two batteries when I could have brought 4 of them. The other two are sitting at home in my backpacking stuff. What a dope I am. It was about 4 pm, and I was hoping to finish my hike at the Lake Erin Trailhead on Highway 371. But it’s a half-mile from the campsite to the Woodtick Trail, then it’s another 2 miles to the Lake Erin Trailhead. I would never make it with the battery power. And the whole point of me doing this hike was so I could photograph it.
So, I called Darrel Rodekuhr and asked him to pick me up at the First Crossing of the Woodtick Trail. He said it would take him about 20 minutes to get there, and I said that I was about a half mile from the crossing, so it would take me some time, too. Then I started hiking towards the Woodtick Trail. And all the time I was hiking, I wondered if this would be it. I wondered if this would be the end of my Chip hike.
I could stay one more day and hike over to Highway 34 by the Shingobee Trail System. But I had called home, and my mom wasn’t feeling too good. And I wasn’t feeling the greatest either.
I hiked through the woods away from the Woodtick Impoundment Lake. Soon I came to an electric line right of way, and saw one last view of the lake. Soon after that, I saw the Woodtick Trail and then made it out to the road. That was the shortest half-mile I had ever hiked. But according to the information I had, it was supposed to be a half-mile.
I activated my Spot Messenger to mark my spot, then I started hiking north on the trail up over a hill, to see what was on the other side. I left my orange backpack by the road. So I went up to check the view, but I didn’t see the big beaver dam that Darrel had mentioned when I talked with him. That must be further up the trail. I walked back to the road and soon Darrel arrived.
The Spot Messenger had not sent it’s message, so I just left it there. I put my stuff in the back of Darrel’s station wagon, and away we went. We headed down the Woodtick Trail towards my van. It seemed to take a long time to get to the van. I had walked a long ways. Darrel invited me to stay overnight at his house. But I told him that I was thinking about heading back because my mom was sick. But I wanted to take Darrel out to eat for helping me out. So we decided that we would go back to Darrel’s house so I could get cleaned up. We finally got to the van. Then headed we headed back the other direction. This time I was watching the mileage in the van, and it was over 8 miles back to the First Crossing of the Woodtick Trail, where my Spot Messenger was. We stopped and took some photos of Darrel and I there. It was more and more feeling like the end of the hike.
By this time it was past 5 pm and getting dark. It would have been dark by the time I got there if I tried hiking to the Lake Erin Trailhead. So, in a way, I’m glad I stopped my hike where I did. Even though it was 8 miles back to the crossing, I had hiked over 12 miles today because the trail goes off in the woods every time it crosses the trail. We headed down the Woodtick to Highway 371 and turned north. We headed into Walker and went to Darrel’ house which is very close to the Heartland Trail. His house is and older cabin type house that had been built on to. I went in and washed up, and the thing I remember is that his bathroom is really small. But that’s to be expected in a converted cabin. He said that his Grandfather had bought the property for $25 after it had been logged way back when.
Darrel’s had the news on the TV and the weather came on. It was going to be a worse day the next day (Monday), and maybe snow on Tuesday. That was the clincher for me. I decided I was headed back tonight. Darrel had a really nice house and a spare bedroom which would have been a great place to stay. But I didn’t want to risk having bad weather driving back to Madison.
Darrell had picked the Lucky Moose as the place where we were going to eat. That sounded good to me. To we headed back out of Walker on Highway 371, and just out of town there is the Country Inn and Suites, then the Lucky Moose. It’s a fairly new place and Darrel said that the owner was someone he went to high school with. They picked a good spot for this bar/restaurant, right next to the Country Inn and Suites, which will send them customers for sure.
At dinner Darrel and I talked about the trail. He had hiked much of it, and we could compare notes. I told him I couldn’t find the campsites on Hovde Lake or Crown Lake and I wasn’t sure about the campsite on North Stocking Lake. He said that I should send my notes to Tom Scheckman, a ranger at the Walker District that works with the Chapters on the trail. Darrel would be sending me his email address.
Darrel is an interesting guy. He is a retired pilot who was in the military for twenty years. Now he helps out with the trail and plays bassoon in three different orchestras. I didn’t know there were three different orchestras in North Central Minnesota. But he says he has to drive over an hour to get to one of the orchestras. Now that’s dedication.
On Tuesday, he and some other NCT volunteers would be flagging a trail loop around Lake Waboose. (Hey that rhymes) And that’s the day it might snow. We finished up our really good meals and had the waitress take a photo of us. After all, this is what I call the “End of the Hike, Victory over the Wilderness” dinner. I paid the damages and said goodbye to Darrel and I was on my way.
I went out past the Casino and turned left on Highway 200 towards Remer. When I got to Remer, I stopped and took a photo of myself by the Eagle Statue. It was dark, and on this trip, I would never see Remer in the daylight. The closest I got to that was when the Fitzgeralds drove me through Remer at around 7 am on Thursday, but it still wasn’t very light out then.
I headed out of Remer on Highway 200. The next two hours of driving to Duluth would be a whole lot of nothing. It’s just a lot of scrubby woods. I can see why the NCT wants to reroute the trail from here. I turned the radio on to the Packer Game. They were playing on Sunday Night Football against Brett Farve and the Vikings.
The only excitement on that stretch of highway was a bad accident near Hill City. One car was way off the side of the road and look like it got there backwards. The other car was really smashed up on the road. There were several fire trucks with big flood lights, and several ambulances. I was stopped at a flagman for several minutes.
Darrel told me it would be quicker if I took Highway 2 across into Superior, so I went that way. I stopped at a gas station in Proctor, to get some refreshments and take a bathroom break. I crossed over the bridge into Superior. This is the southern of two bridges that goes from Duluth into Superior. But when I got into Superior it seemed to take a long time to get past a detour over there. It took me through a bunch of commercial areas and seemed to go every which way. I’m not sure if this way was faster. And there must have been an easier way, but I didn’t have a map handy. Finally I got on Highway 53 and headed south on the 4 lane highway.
It was getting towards the end of the Packer/Viking game and Brett Farve was mounting a comeback. I was thinking of pulling off the highway and watching the end of the game at a bar, but I never did. Brett finished off the game by throwing an interception, so the Packers won. Yeah.
I pulled off Highway 53 at Rice Lake and parked in the outer reaches of the Super Walmart. This would be my home for the night. I went into the back of the van and went to sleep.
I woke up around 6:30 am and had to go to the bathroom. I drove up to the Super Walmart and went in for a bathroom break. After that, I just decided to start driving again. I was up, and the chances of me falling back to sleep were slim. I headed down Highway 53 and connected with Highway 94 near Eau Claire. I ate breakfast in Tomah, and made it back to Madison before noon. This trip was officially over. You’ll have to read the Aftermath section to find out what my final words are about the Chip.