Pre-Trip Preparations and Friday, May 4, 2012
I had done my usually activities to get ready for this hike. I was sorting out gear for the past few weeks. I sorted them out into different teams as I call them. There’s the Team A, these were the clothes and gear I intended to start out with on my backpacking trip. That included all the clothes on my person, the gear in my pockets and the gear in the backpack. I have a lot of gear in my pockets because I’ve been wearing a fishing vest on hikes lately and it has many pockets. In the fishing vest top pockets, I put my cell phone and voice recorder in one pocket and my headlamp and Spot Messenger in the other pocket.
I like keeping the electronics in the top pockets so they avoid getting wet. That’s because in the lower pockets I usually carry a platypus bag of water. If I don’t put the lid on good enough, the bag of water might leak. Then there are a series of lower pockets. There are two really huge lower pockets, and those are the ones I use for water bags and also my trowel and bathroom kit. In the other smaller lower pockets I have many items including a compass, knife, I Saw Tman cards, bear spray and other stuff. Sometimes when I start getting hot, I stuff my stocking cap and gloves in those pockets, too.
So Team A is everything I’m going to start out with. Team B is a second set of hiking clothes that I leave in the car. This is the set of clothes I start out with on my second time going out backpacking. For instance, if I hike for 3 days and manage to get a ride back to my car, then I won’t have to go to the Laundromat to wash my clothes because I have a second set of clothes handy. I also have a second set of hiking boots in the van in case the first pair gets totally soaked. I usually have a couple of those big 30 gallon Rubbermaid totes full of gear in my van. Then if there is something I really need I can grab it. I also have some street clothes in the van so when I’m visiting town I don’t look like a bum.
Part of my preparation was to spray all my hiking clothes with permethrin, then let them dry. Permethrin can be bought at many sporting good stores and actually kills ticks and other insects. Whenever I have hiked with my permethrin treated clothes I have never seen a tick on me. That’s pretty amazing because when I was on a work weekend one time, another guy came out of the woods with many ticks on him. The only thing to be wary of permethrin is that it can make cats sick. Dogs and humans are fine with it.
At any rate, there’s a bunch of other stuff that I do before I go on a weeklong hike. I have to make sure my mom is set with everything she needs for the week. We go out grocery shopping, and I make sure all her prescription drugs are in order. I made sure everything was set with my mother, plus some of our friends would be stopping by and checking on her.
The one piece of equipment I would not be hiking with would be my front tooth. They had pulled it and were making a bridge to replace it. In the mean time I had a fake front tooth that was on a retainer. I figured that I would just wreck it if I took it backpacking, so I left it in a case in the van.
So, on Friday Morning at 8 am I was ready. Everything was packed in the van. I made one last sweep of the house, then I set sail to the north. Everything was going good with the drive. I do my usually stuff like get gas in Superior, because one time I had a hard time finding a gas station in Duluth. I called Jan and Kathy Horak of the Cobblestone Cabins to let them know I was coming. In Two Harbors I stopped at the Superior Hiking Trail Office but it was closed. They all were up at the Wolf Ridge Environmental Center for their annual conference. I thought about going there and participating in some of the events, but I really wanted to get hiking. Also while I was in Two Harbors I went to the Granite Gear store up in the business park. They must has some storage problems because they had two semi trailers sitting out front that didn’t look like they had been moved in a while. I went inside and checked it out. Of course I ended up buying something.
Before I left Two Harbors I called Jan and Kathy again and let them know I would be up there in about an hour. Jan said it was going to work out perfectly, because he had to go pick up a Juvenile Detention Van up near Lutsen. So then he could drop me off and pick up the van in one trip. I headed for the Two Harbors Culvers for one last burger to go, then I headed up the coast and soon I was at the Cobblestone Cabins.
Jan and Kathy invited me for supper, but I told them I really was itching to get started before it got too late, so we all drove up to Lutsen in my van. I turned onto the road known as the Caribou Trail and met up with the Superior Hiking Trail after about 4 miles. And sure enough, there was a van parked there, instead of at the parking lot down the road. That was the Juvenile Detention Van that Jan was picking up. Evidently there is some sort of program for first time juvenile offenders that at the end of a month long program they go out on a week long backpacking trip. And somehow Jan got the job of shuttling the Vans for them. It’s amazing all the odd jobs people get up in the north woods.
Well, Jan, Kathy and I posed for the beginning of the hike photo at the Superior Hiking Trail sign. Then Kathy drove my van away and Jan drove the Juvenile Detention Van away. I was waiting for my Spot Messenger to mark the beginning point of the hike. This sometimes can take up to a half hour. The Spot Messenger sent its message fairly fast, and then I was on my way. It was about 5:30 pm.
To Follow along with the photos of this hike Click Here (it will open another window with the photos)
The hiking was very easy at first. Everything was pretty level and I was just walking through some woods. There were a couple boardwalks and a couple forest two-track road crossing, but it was mainly walking through a mature woods. Pretty soon I could see the faint light of a lake in the distance. Then the Trail came closer, and I was at Lake Agnes. You hike along the lake through some rocky and rooty areas for a hundred yards then you get to a Trail Junction. The trail going to the right was the trail to the Trailhead Parking lot near White Sky Rock. That was the parking lot where Jan thought the Juvenile Detention Van would be parked at, but it was instead parked along the road. Well, anyway, that trail is almost a mile long and I wasn’t that interested in seeing White Sky Rock at the moment, so I continued on. I figured since White Sky Rock was located right off the Caribou Trail, I could just drive up and see it some time. Besides, I was more interested in covering some ground on the main SHT so I could make it to a Campsite.
And make it to a campsite I did. After travelling next to Lake Agnes for a short ways further, I made it to the East Lake Agnes Campsite. This is a big campsite that’s located on a little peninsula. There’s the main campfire area and tent pants, then if you go up a little knoll to the right there is a nice view of Lake Agnes with another campfire area and tent pads. But this campfire area wasn’t one of the official SHT Campfire areas with 2 x 12 boards for seating. No, this campfire area had log seating, leading me to believe that it was created by campers. The campsite was supposed to be a single campsite, not a multigroup Campsite, but evidently it was so popular that it has become a multigroup campsite unofficially. It was a nice campsite with a great view of the Lake, but it seemed a little bumpy with many tree roots where you’d be setting up tents.
It was early, I continued down the trail. I was planning on staying at the West Lake Agnes Campsite, which is another 3 tenths of a mile down the trail. The trail goes in an upward pattern and pretty soon you come out to an overlook called Hunter’s Rock. This place has a great view of Lake Agnes and a trail box with a logbook inside it. I wrote something, probably my usual pitch. I took some photos by the overlook and continued down the trail again. Pretty soon the trail is back down near the shore of Lake Agnes again. After hiking along the shoreline for a little ways I came up upon a stairway going up a hill to the right. Then I saw the sign for the West Lake Agnes Campsite.
I saw a bridge down the SHT from the stairway, so I walked down to the bridge and took off my backpack. I really didn’t want to walk up that big staircase with my backpack on unless I really needed to. It was still pretty early, and I entertained thoughts of hiking to the next campsite. So, I set down my backpack near the Agnes Creek Bridge and I hiked up the big staircase. I hiked up a ways, then the staircase ends and there is a trail going in an upward pattern. Pretty soon I could see a green tarp and I called out “Ahoy Campers.” There was no response. So I kept hiking closer and called out again. Nobody responded. I walked up near the green tarp, and I could see a blue tent off in the woods to the left. I could see that the fire was still sending up lots of smoke near the green tarp. Under the tarp there were lots of stuff sitting out including some beer cans. Off in the distance I could here some guns shooting. It sounded like someone was doing target practice.
I started hear some banjos playing. It was the dueling banjos song from the movie Deliverance. No, I didn’t actually hear the Banjos, they were playing in my mind. I went down the staircase and put on my backpack near the Agnes Creek Bridge. I decided it was going to high tail it to the next campsite.
Trail trail goes in a fairly level then uphill pattern over the next mile or so. I was making some really good progress hiking so I felt confidence that I would make it to the next campsite. The campsite was called the East Poplar River campsite and it was 3 miles from the West Lake Agnes Campsite. It was easy hiking for a long time, then I came out at a wonderful overlook of the Poplar River. You could see the river curving around like a snake out in the distance with groves of pine trees around it. To the east you could see some hills and Lake Superior. I assumed the hills were from the Lutsen Mountains Ski Resort, but I couldn’t see any chair lifts, etc., at this point. I made a short video at the overlook, and I scurried on my way. Even in the Video I said I needed to get going because I was going to camp somewhere down by the river.
The Trail heads in the direction of Lake Superior along a ridge for quite some time. Then you make it to another overlook with essentially the same view. After that the trail heads in a downward pattern. At one point you can actually see a glimpse of the river and it looked closer than it was at the overlook. Maybe you can’t see that glimpse of the river when the trees are in full foliage. I kept hiking and when I got to the bottom the trail proceeded to go through some thicket areas. It’s a low land with lots of boardwalks going over little creeks and swampy areas. And some of the boardwalks were in disrepair. Some were tilted and wobbly. But I figured since it was May 4, that sometime in the next few weeks the trail maintainers would be fixing stuff. I was hoping to make it to the river, but it seemed like the trail was going through these lowlands for a long ways. I was even starting to sing “Take me to the River” by Brian Ferry to myself. That was the version of the song that I knew, but I know that song has been recorded several times, including more famously by the Talking Heads.
I kept walking and walking through this low land area with several boardwalks, and eventually I made it to the river. Wow, now I knew the campsite wouldn’t be that far. According to the map it looked like the trail went along the river for a quarter mile to a half mile to the campsite. So, I hiked along the river. The river was very smooth and gentle at this point. I’d say it was about 40 yards wide, so it’s a fairly wide river for up in this region. I hiked the trail next to the river, encountering more boardwalks and little bridges. It seemed to be a rougher trail here, with many roots to trip on. Soon I made it to a little trail going to the right along the river, where the SHT went farther away from the river to the left. It was at the East Poplar River Campsite.
I pulled into the campsite, which was right next to the river. The SHT goes around the campsite on the outskirts of the campsite. It was a nice level campsite, but it seemed to have a lot of tree roots. I did find a nice spot to pitch my tent, which was the first order of business. Then I found a rock and hiked down the SHT to put up my bear bag rope. I threw the rope attached to the rock over two tree branches and got it all ready for the bear bag. I wouldn’t be putting up the bear bag for a while yet but I wanted to get the rope up so I didn’t have to struggle with it in the dark. Speaking of darkness, it was fast approaching. I had made it to the campsite at around 8:15 pm, and set out to get everything ready. This is a very nice campsite, but I noticed across the river is some sort of building. You can see a roof of a building. I don’t know if it’s a cabin or deer stand or skiing warming shelter.
I ate a little food and it became dark. I brushed my teeth, then put the toothpaste in the bear bag. Then I went and hoisted the bear bag for the night. I went into the tent and got in my sleeping bag. I did my voice recording for the day, then went to sleep.