Sunday, May 31, 2009

I woke up and went down to the breakfast area near the lobby of the hotel. My philosophy at hotels that offer breakfast is to eat early and often. Since no one was using the computer, I decided to make some new “I Saw Tman” cards. These were definitely nicer and more legible than the ones I had before, because the new ones are typed out instead of hand written. I went back to my room and started to get my stuff together.

I headed over to the Lake Superior Trading Post, which is about 4 blocks from the hotel. As I walked I saw the fiddle player from the night before pass me by in an older pick up truck. He waved at me. It made me feel as if I was becoming well known in the town. I arrived at the Lake Superior Trading Post a few minutes early, but the store was dark inside, showing no signs that it was about to open. I figured that this was a small town and the people who opened would show up at the last moment. I am so accustomed to working in larger stores in Madison, where the store personnel arrive early, get stuff ready and have a last minute meeting before they open the store.

I walked down to the end of the building where there is a small coffee shop. The college student who was running it was wondering why his back room wasn’t opened yet. Evidently, the Lake Superior Trading Post opens up the back room so he can get supplies. There were customers driving up and parking, waiting for the store to open, but still no sign of life.

I walked down to the other end of the building and saw a young lady standing near the side door as if she were waiting to be let in. I went down to talk to her and she said that whoever was supposed to open did not show up. Soon a second young lady showed up and learned of the situation. She said she was going up to a church and getting the owner. I thought it was a good sign that the owner attended church regularly enough that the employees knew that’s where he would be.

Well, finally after about 9:30 the store opened. The owner apologized. Evidently he didn’t schedule any manager to open the store that morning. It was some sort of clerical oversight. The owner was quick to help me. I decided that I would buy a new sleeping bag to keep me warm, something that I should have done in the first place. I also bought some bug spray and some other items. When I went to pay my bill, my credit card did not work. I called my sister and she put it on her card.That was nice of her. I wondered if I had met my limit on the card, but I didn’t think so. At any rate, when I went back to the hotel I went on the computer and put some money on my card.

Then I had another problem. I was going to send my mail package home. But now that I was sending my old sleeping bag home, I needed a larger box. I went over to Super America next door and they gave me a box. I stuffed all the stuff I would no longer need into the box and took it to Whole Foods to weigh it. They could weigh it, but they didn’t have any tape to seal up the box. So I had to go down to the combination Gas Station/Hardware Hank Hardware store to get some tape. So after going to three stores, I managed to get my mail package sealed up.

Then I went on the Hotel’s Computer and printed off a mailing label. Since I have not used the Post Office Website for a long time, I had to register again, which took extra time. My Credit Card worked on the Postal Service Website, but it was only for $15. I gave the hotel clerk my mail package and headed back to my room to get going. It was around noon when I started hiking, a lot later than I had expected.

My plan was simple at this point. I would hike up the hill that is west of Grand Marais and connect with the Superior Hiking Trail. But I also had a plan for ending my hike. I was going to hike a couple days to get down to Lutsen, then I would hike up to the Lutsen Mountain Gondola and take a ride on it. What a wonderful way to end my hike. On Saturday, I had called down to Lutsen Mountain, and they said it was $10 to ride on the Gondola.

So I hiked through the streets of Grand Marais and connected with the Gunflint Trail. It started to rain. I stopped at a laundrymat to change into my rain gear. Soon I was headed out of town. I was I hiking on the side of the road. My plan was to hike up the electric line right of way to and then I would connect with the Superior Hiking Trail. At the base of the hill, near the Gunflint Trail, there is a cylinder type water tower with the words “Grand Marais Welcome to Gunflint Trail Scenic Byway.” It also has a moose painted on it. What a surprise. I took a photo of myself in front of the water tower. Then headed up the hill.

At first it was pretty easy walking up the electric line right of way. It was fairly steep, but it was grassy. The fact that it was raining made it a little more difficult to walk. I looked back and was getting some good views of Grand Marais. I wasn’t sure when I would connect with the Superior Hiking Trail. I thought I might connect with it while I was going up the hill. I kept looking for the Blue Markings, because I had read that the Superior Hiking Trail had been completely marked with the North Country Trail Blue Markings.

The Electric Light right of way starts getting steeper and starts looking more like a rocky ravine. I passed a washing machine that someone had tried to roll down the hill. Finally, I made it to the top of the hill near all the radio and TV towers. I still had not connected to the Superior Hiking Trail. I checked the Guidebook. The Guidebook shows the trail crossing Tower Road, so I hiked down the road. After about 5 minutes I spotted a silver car parked along side the road, and I had reached the Trail. The trail was really well marked with a gate and a sign saying foot traffic only.

The Trail at this point is also a snowmobile trail, so it’s nice and wide. I thought I was in heaven. The scenery isn’t particularly outstanding, you’re just walking through some woods, but the trail is really well maintained. Eventually you get to a point where there is a nice little creek right next to the trail.

I was walking along and I saw two men off in the distance. When we got closer together I called out “Hi, are you the people with the silver car on Tower Road?” And they said yes. Their names were Chuck and Tim. They were just out hiking around. They were from the Twin Cities and they were renting a cabin in Grand Marais. For some reason I didn’t take a photo of them, which is pretty unusual for me. But I gave them my card and continued on.

The Superior Hiking Trail turns off the snowmobile trail then crosses Cook County Road 6. There is a nice sign there with the distances to future landmarks. Sundling Creek is 2.3 miles and campsites are 2.9 and 3.0 miles away. I went on and crossed Forest Road 115 three times over the next mile and a half. Forest Road 115 deteriorated from a dirt road the first time I crossed it to a grassy road that last time I crossed it. In fact, the last time I crossed Forest Road 115 it looked more like a ski trail.

The Superior Hiking Trail is really well maintained. David and Rachel, the backpackers I seen the day before on the shoreline, were right, there were no obstructions on the trail. The trail even has little wooden bridges to cross even the smallest creeks. It really is “One of the Top 10 prime trails that leave all other in the dust” as Backpacker Magazine calls it

Soon I came upon the Sundling Creek crossing where there is a fairly big beaver dam pond. You cross the beaver dam on a long series of boardwalks. It looks like some people walk in the grass next to the boardwalk, which is good too.

I hiked on and after a while I noticed a campsite down a short hill from me. There was a faint path going to it, so I took it. When I made it to the campsite, I saw another better path coming into the campsite, which was the main entrance. I had taken the back door into the site. The site was nice, with a wooden L shaped bench around the campfire ring made using 2 sturdy boards that are 8 feet long. At least I would have a nice flat place to sit.

I checked the Superior Hiking Trail Guidebook and found out that I was at the North Bally Creek Campsite. I had come into the campsite down a small hill, then the campsite was fairly flat, then down from the campsite I could see a marshy area, which must be Bally Creek. According to the Guidebook, there is another campsite on the other side of Bally Creek called the South Bally Creek Campsite. So I decided to leave my gear and go down and check it out in case I wanted to camp there instead. I hiked down about 100 yards and crossed the bridge over Bally Creek. Then after about 25 more yards I found the spur trail to the campsite. The trail is on the other side of the marshy area from the North Bally campsite. At any rate, the spur trail seemed really long. I checked the guidebook and it said the spur trail is 2 tenths of a mile long. Finally, I made it to the campsite. It was a nice campsite, but I thought it wasn’t worth all the distance I would have to hike my gear. It was around 5:30 pm, and I also thought it wasn’t worth going to the next campsite which was 6 miles from the Bally Creek Campsites. So, I decided just to stay at the North Bally Creek Campsite.

So I went back to the North Bally Creek Campsite and I grabbed the driest wood I could find along the way. I searched under pine trees where the wood was fairly dry. The rain had stopped, but still everything was pretty wet. When I made it back to the campsite, I immediately made a fire. I used some alcohol from my stove to help get the fire going.

After I got the fire going, I set up my tent. I thought I better set it up and put my gear in it in case it started raining again. Soon I was off looking for some more firewood under pine trees. When I came back with the firewood, all of a sudden I heard some voices up the hill from me. One person said “There’s the campsite” and another person said “but how do we get down into it?” I called out “just go down the trail a little ways and there is a entrance.” Sure enough, a couple minutes later two college aged men walked into the campsite.

“ Are you Todd?” one of the men asked, and I said yes. I was surprised they knew my name. They said Chuck and Tim, who I had seen earlier, had told them about me. They introduced themselves to me. Their names are Eric and Matt. Eric just graduated from the University of Minnesota. They asked if they could share the campsite with me and I said “Sure, I would like the company.”

They seemed really happy that I had a campfire going. In fact they were wondering how I got it going since everything was wet from the rain. They started unpacking some of their gear to get their extra pair of shoes. I noticed that they had pretty heavy packs and were carrying a bunch of unnecessary weigh. For instance they had a whole roll of duct tape, where I had carried some duct tape that I had wrapped around my trekking poles and trowel handle. But the problem with their duct tape was it was a big 6 inch diameter roll instead of being a smaller 3 inch roll of tape

Eric had said that it was there first time out backpacking, and that there was supposed to be a third person coming on the trip but he got an internship and couldn’t come. Evidently, the third person was the one who was the experienced backpacker.

Eric didn’t seem to think that they could of got the fire going. So they were happy that I was there. I said that I had used some “Girl Scout Water” to help get it going. Eric didn’t know what to think about that. Somehow he thought that I was calling him and Matt Girl Scouts. But I said that “Girl Scout Water” was a generic term that we use in Boy Scouts that described any fluid that you use to accelerate the fire. In this case I had used some Alcohol from my Alcohol Stove to help start the fire. But charcoal fluid and White gas could also be called Girl Scout Water. He said that he had some Everclear that he could use to help start a fire. I didn’t know what that was and he said it was a high-octane liquor that isn’t even legal to buy in Minnesota. You can have it in your possession, but no liquor store can sell it in Minnesota. Eric said he could also use the Everclear as a disinfectant on any wounds they would get. Evidently, they were not planning on drinking the Everclear.

Eric and Matt put their extra pair of shoes on, then put their boots on the rocks next to the fire. I put some dry socks on and put my feet in ziplock bags, and also put my boots next to the fire. The fire place was just a bunch of rocks in a circle, there was no forest service iron fire grate that I had grown use to in the Boundary Waters. I had grown fond of the iron fire grates because they worked good for drying boots and socks. I would put two pieces of wood on the fire grate, then put my boots on the wood so they wouldn’t melt on the iron.

They set up their tent, which I thought was kind of small for two people, but it had a door on each side of the tent and a vestibule on each side of the tent too. It took them a while to set up the tent. They had rented the tent from the University of Minnesota Outdoor Club, so this was actually the first time that they set up the tent. This was actually their first night out and they had started near Grand Marais.

We boiled water on our backpacking stoves and used the hot water for our dehydrated food packs. It was nice having some company for the night.