Therein Lies a Tale

On June 21, 2016, my husband R.J. and I purchased a Minnesota State Parks pass. It was around the time of our anniversary, and we were in northern Minnesota vacationing with my family. We wanted to go to Itasca State Park, the headwaters of the Mississippi River. We considered a day pass, but then thought it might be fun to have the option of state park day-trips now and then, so we opted for the annual pass. After a couple more trips to parks, we picked up a map that had all the state parks marked out on it. Somewhere around that time, we decided that it would be a fun goal to visit them all. We didn’t set a timetable, but we know that it will take years to accomplish our goal. We also know that in the process, we will get a really good look at most of our home state.

It has been a delightful adventure so far, and it was especially beautiful last fall when we visited many state parks along the Mississippi River as the leaves turned. The hiking has been good for us as well. R.J. and I both have fitness goals, and the hikes are a beautiful way to achieve those goals while spending quality time together.

Over the course of the past year, we have been to 29 state parks. About half were brand new to us, while the other half were parks at least one of us had visited previously. We have derived great joy from planning our outings or sometimes just being spontaneous. I always have my camera with me to document the occasion, and I have plans to create a Shutterfly book about the experience once we finish our task of seeing them all. We have seen large parks with expansive welcome centers and park stores. We have seen small parks with no ranger station at all. We typically hike on the “Hiking Club Trail” as those trails are easy-to-moderate in their landscape-challenges and distance-covered. I would say that an average hike would take us an hour to an hour and a half.

Today, on State Park #28, we had a noteworthy experience. George H. Crosby-Manitou was a new park to both of us. We traveled down a taconite-gravel road in northern Minnesota to get there. R.J. commented that it felt like we had already been on a hike before we even arrived. The day was cloudy, with intermittent showers and temperatures in the upper 50s. We both donned our hiking hats. R.J. wore his light rain jacket while I wore my raincoat with a hooded sweatshirt underneath. We sprayed ourselves with Deep Woods Off (mosquito repellent) and looked for the trailhead. We found our Hiking Club Trail and set off.

Maybe we should have been tipped off by the trail name, “Hump Back Trail.” Perhaps we should have turned around after seeing the first 50 feet of the trail, which was overgrown and had a downed tree across it. If there had been a trail map accessible to us before we started out, we would have looked at it, but there was none. Honestly, it would have been hard to describe this trail on a map, maybe even impossible. I will say that it was unlike the other 27 state park Hiking Club Trails we have hiked. It was, in my humble opinion, insane.

First of all, much of the trail was very overgrown. Ferns infringed to the point where the narrow path was difficult to see at times. Since it had rained earlier in the day, the trail and the ferns were wet. The path was never more than a single person wide, and my pant legs were quickly wet and muddy. For much of the hike, I had to hold my camera at least chest high, and sometimes head high, to keep it from getting whacked by wet underbrush. It is challenging to hike a difficult trail while holding one hand high. My arm started cramping and I walked awkwardly. There were many steep inclines, where it was hard to get your footing. Tree roots and loose rocks were abundant. There were virtually no scenic overlooks, even with all the steep climbs, because everything was overgrown. 

After that first sign, nothing else said “Hiking Club Trail” until we got to the very end. When we were ascending yet another rocky incline, R.J. said to me, “This isn’t the worst it could be. The worst would be if we got to the end of the trail and it said the only way back was to turn around.” If that had happened, I totally would have cried, and it turned out almost that bad. When we got to the end of the trail, we were not back where we started. We saw our first map at that point, which showed us that we were only about halfway through a loop. We would have to follow the Superior Hiking Trail along the Manitou River to get back to our car. It was a better trail than the one we had been on, but it was still challenging at points.

 In the meantime, we both realized the great insulating properties of a plastic raincoat. R.J. said his sweat dripped off him to the point where he thought it was raining because sweat was running out of his sleeves. My t-shirt, sweatshirt, and raincoat were all soaking wet from the inside out. I was so wet that I got a bit chilled when we slowed down on the Superior Hiking Trail. There was no way we could remove our jackets, as there were swarms of mosquitoes in these woods who were not heavily deterred by the repellent we had applied. Whenever I stopped to take a picture, I had to swat them away, and the only thing protecting us was those very jackets that were causing the sweat to pour off us. R.J. joked that he was so sweaty that all the repellent he had applied slid off his body and either collected in his underwear or went all the way down to his socks, where it pooled up inside his waterproof boots.

I'm posting this pic because it's blurry and our expressions are as crazed as we felt at that point.

The hike took a total of two and a half hours of strenuous work. On the upside, we LIVED! We were capable of completing this hike, which we would not have been before we both got healthier (R.J. by losing 70 pounds and me by losing 55 pounds). We were capable of doing this hike ONCE – we will not be back. George H. Crosby and I are not on speaking terms.

Oh, we had to abbreviate our planned second hike of the day at Tettegouche State Park, due to time constraints. However, Tettegouche had a really nice park store where I bought a Minnesota State Parks t-shirt to replace my dripping wet t-shirt. I changed in the bathroom and had R.J. take my picture after our short hike down to Lake Superior. Look closely, and you will see that the size small sticker is still on the shirt, in the picture. Yup, it was that kind of a day.

P.S. The day can’t be all bad when you get a great story like this to tell!