Into the Wilderness, The Final Chapter

I woke up the next morning and immediately checked our packs for the tell tale signs of wildlife disturbance. Disappointly enough, they were untouched except for the spider that had lodged itself in my shoe. We got up and shared a nice breakfast with Kate and John, gingerly tested our legs (still sore, but working), and went about packing up and moving on out. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and we were excited to see Mount Trudie in less inclement weather. We planned to lunch on the top of the mountain, and then make our way back to the car. It was uneventful, for the most part. The walk back seemed less treacherous than it had the day before, most likely because we were becoming accustomed to the trail and because it wasn’t pouring rain. We made it to Mount Trudie in just a few hours and sat on a rock outcrop and had lunch and took in the spectacular views. Then it was back down the mountain, including the original climb that had caused a fair amount of lingering worry in the back of my mind. I inched my way down the steep trail, and made it to the bottom without incident. I commented to Jeff that we hadn’t seen much in the way of wildlife. A few minutes later, I heard a noise in the underbrush. I looked, and saw a small ground squirrel coming my way. I did a double take, however, because from the front the squirrel looked more like it had some enormous growth hanging off the front of its face. I looked again, and then noticed the four tiny paws wrapped around the back of her head, and realized that this was a mother carrying her tiny little baby through the forest. I was shocked, since I had never even thought about how squirrels get their kittens around, and more than anything I was supremely happy. I told Jeff to turn around and look, and he got a good look at it too, and was just as pleased as I was. It might not have been much, but it was new to both of us, and that was about as good as anything we could ask for.

We finally made it back to the car, and rode out much of the way to St Paul in silence, exhausted and looking forward to sleeping in our own bed, with our own pillows, clean and full and warm. And then, of course, we started to plan where we’ll go on our next trip.

Into the Wilderness, Part Deux

The trail started out on a fairly steep incline. Not a good sign, as far as I was concerned, but we were there, we were packed, we were walking. There was no going back. We shuffled up the trail, wheezing and puffing and trying not to get discouraged. We reached the top of the hill and followed the signs pointing the way to the Superior Hiking Trail. They were also pointing in the direction of something called Mount Trudie. I ignored this.

The hike started out innocently enough, with slightly rolling hills through a leafy forest populated by mainly birds and squirrels, at least from what I could see. It didn’t take long, however, before we were faced with the first of what would turn out to be many steep inclines, so steep that rocks and logs had been hewn and shoved into the trail to create makeshift stairs. All of a sudden, we came to a large cluster of rocks, with a sign that said something like “Drainage Pike” or “Waterfall Valley” or some other such thing. Basically, it was a vertical incline going up a good many feet. Towards the middle of the climb I had to resort to clambering from rock to rock using my hands, splayed out to keep my balance while my pack knocked against rocks and trees on either side of me. When I finally pulled myself over the top, I looked up at Jeff. “What on earth have we gotten ourselves into?”


From there, we proceeded to climb. And climb. And climb some more. Legs burning, we went farther and farther up, and at times we would come close to some cliff and realize that we were towering over the Superior basin, trees and lake stretching as far as the eye could see. As we ascended into the heavens, we also became aware of a new situation. Thunder. Rolling, angry, threatening clouds to the west, coming our way. Thunder growing closer. And we were climbing right towards it, as if to meet it head on. This, I decided, was sheer madness. Obviously, I was going to die from a lightening strike, and I had never even made it to the first camp site. I found this disheartening, but the idea of climbing back down the cliff of death was even more dreadful, so we pressed on. Finally, with one loud crack, the rain began to pour. We pulled on our rain ponchos (thank you Jeff!) and made our way forward. After what seemed like hours of climbing, we came out on top of Mount Trudie, where we were greeted with sheets of rain and rising mists. Jeff’s glasses had completely fogged over, which caused much grumbling, and the rain was pouring in rivulets down our legs. The ponchos did little other than stick to our sweaty clothing and let the rain in through little folds around the neck and arms, so that instead of an all over drenching, we got this mish mash of wet patches.

After a quick stop to refuel, we decided that being on top of a mountain was probably not the smartest place to be in a thunderstorm, so we pushed on, now beginning the long, steep descent back into the basin. Going down was more difficult than going up, technically, as each step down places an enormous amount of pressure on one’s knees, and balance is much harder to find, let alone keep, at certain downward angles. When we finally reached lower ground, we found that the recent rains had turned the trial into a slick of deep, mosquito rich mud. It slurped at our shoes and seeped into our socks and coated our legs. Still, we pressed on. The sun came out, and a fine, humid mist rose into the air, so that mosquitoes and deer flies whined around us, bombing us at speeds approximating mach 20. The insect repellant rolled off of us onto the forest floor, and our damp sweaty clothing attracted every bug within a two mile radius.

And we trudged onward. After about five hours of hiking, we finally reached our destination. Bear Lake. We could see it from the trail, but to get there we would have to scurry down another steep set of stairs. On weary legs we made our final descent towards camp, and, hopefully, food, fire, and rest. We reached the bottom, only to be confronted with a dour old man who had set up camp on the one site by the water. It was a small, cramped site, and he had a large tent taking up all of the room. Dismayed, we asked if there were other sites back further. “Yuh,” the old man grunted, “but they’re full.” And then he stared at us, hard, unfriendly. I started to feel uncomfortable. “Um, okay.” Jeff and I hesitated. We were exhausted. We just wanted to sit down. There were old wooden seats around the fire pit, and we needed rest. Our legs were shaking and we were close to exhaustion. So, in the spirit of someone who knows what we’ve been through to get to this place, the old guy offered us a seat and encouraged us to stay a rest for a while. Just kidding. Of course he didn’t! He just stared at us until we turned around and made our way back to the trail, climbing up the steep set of stairs.

And here is where I’ll admit I came pretty close to losing it. I was so tired I could barely see straight. My pack felt like it weighed fifty pounds. My legs were like jelly, snapping out in front of me like two long wet noodles with feet attached. I was worried that at some point they would just quit moving. It was two miles to the next campsite, and if that was full, another three miles to the one after that. Two miles takes on a new meaning when you add steep hills and a full backpack to the equation. I was frustrated and close to broken and beyond disappointed. I couldn’t believe that the people at the camp by the lake hadn’t even offered us a seat. I couldn’t even comprehend being that unfriendly, that thoughtless. Jeff did his best to calm me down, but at this point I was beyond consoling. We made the decision to double back and go to the next closest campsite. It would take a few miles off our hike the next day. So, we staggered back to the Round Mountain campsite, with the attitude that we didn’t care who was there, we were camping there too, and just try and stop us.

We found the campsite and headed in along the densely wooded trail, which then opened up onto a large green clearing, full of freshly chopped wood, a latrine (well, a sign indicating where the latrine was), a beaver pond, and an enormous birch forest. And there was no one there. This was it, this was camp. The only thing we had to share it with was a colony of about 10 million mosquitoes. We immediately dumped our sacks and started on the long, tiring process of building a smoky fire from nothing but bits of damp wood. We had no kindling with us, no fire started, so we had to go around and collect all the dry birch bark we could find. One painstaking hour later, and we had a roaring fire. We stood and looked at it, as proud of it as anything we’ve ever done. This, we thought, was something to be admired. It had gone out twice on us, but we had coddled it and coaxed it into existence. Finally, we could relax and stop worrying about the fire going out, so we went about setting up camp.

Our first interruption came from two young men who wandered into the camp. They seemed surprised to see us there, although why that would be I haven’t a clue. We encouraged them to sit and rest and told them there was plenty of room. They were disappointed with the campsite, and said they had been staying at much nicer places along the way. They ate a quick dinner and then left without ever mentioning their names. We finished setting up the camp, cooked our dinner, and then opened up the wine that we had packed in. We were just settling down to enjoy the evening, when our next visitors arrived, in much the same state of mind that we had brought with us into the campsite. They dropped their gear and announced that they were staying.

Kate and John were a very nice couple from Minneapolis, up camping for the weekend. We shared the campsite and the fire, and it was interesting to have company other than already established friends. We told them we had been drinking, which led them to the not entirely correct conclusion that we were drunk. In reality, we split a liter of wine over several hours. I did not even come close to drunk, although I was stumbling over words in my exhaustion. But John and Kate were just sure that we were smashed, and I wasn’t about to take the time to dispel their convictions, so we just let them think it. Later, in the tent, Jeff whispered to me “When we get up in the morning, let’s ask them who they are and when they got here. Then, let’s accuse them of drinking our wine.” Later, he turned to me and said “Let’s leave a little trail of snack mix from their tent out into the woods.” John, you see, was paranoid about bears and had gone to the trouble of hanging his food stuff in a tree. Jeff and I had just stashed ours by the tent. We dared the bears to come. Jeff spent the next hour thinking of ways to torment our fellow campers. I laughed until my sides hurt as much as my legs. I finally fell asleep while trying to listen intently for bears, or, at the very least, raccoons.

Into the Wilderness, Part One

I think the most surprising part of the weekend was that it even happened at all. Isn’t that just the way of most things, that you talk about them and vow to do them, but they rarely ever come to fruition? So it was that Friday came along and Jeff and I had our backpacks in the car, stuffed with sleeping bags, a tent, some non-perishable food, and plenty of water. This should have been evidence enough that the trip was going to happen, but even then I had nagging doubts in the back of my mind. After all, why would two sane adults burden themselves with 30 pound packs (Jeff would have you know here that his was 30 pounds, and mine was closer to 20, but I digress) and trudge off into the woods for no other reason than “having fun?”

Friday broke bright and clear and hot, and the weather was so promising that around noon I started to shuffle around the office. “When can you leave?” I asked Jeff. “I want to leave early today, like around three” I told him. An hour later we both left notes on our computers indicating that we were working in another building, Jeff grabbed his computer for cover, and we both sauntered away from the office, truants in search of a weekend away.

It wasn’t until we reached Two Harbors that things started to get interesting. Ominous clouds were gathering to the west, rolling towards Lake Superior with angry grumblings and a promise of plenty of rain and wind and other lovely additions to any camping trip. We stopped at the local grocery store to stock up on a few essentials (baby wipes, a flashlight, apple pie filling) and then went over to Pamida to look for non-essential items, like Frisbees, twister, and clothing from 1982. We emerged from Pamida triumphant with two camping chairs and a deck of playing cards, after coming to the conclusion that twister and camping really just don’t go together.

To put this all in perspective, the goal of the weekend was a backpacking trip into Tettegouch State Park, a beautiful gem of a park on the west coast of Lake Superior. We would camp out on Friday night on the Baptism River, and then head out first thing Saturday morning to the Superior Hiking Trail, a winding path that covers over 200 miles of rugged Northern country. Our section looked relatively easy from the map, with our stated destination being about 6 miles in, where we would camp at Bear Lake for the night, and then we would hike back out the next morning. Six miles, we thought, was nothing. Obviously, this was just a warm up trip, a test to see if I even liked backpacking, so we would take it easy on the first excursion out.

As we left Two Harbors and headed up to Tettegouche, the clouds opened up and the rain started to fall. “Well, obviously it is lighter up ahead” Jeff assured me. “Yeah,” I agreed, “this should clear up in no time.”

We arrived at Tettegouche, with rain in full force. We headed into the camp office to register and to possibly buy some rain gear. We were greeted by a monotone blonde girl, with wide set eyes and a mouth that looked prone to drooling. “So, do you know the weather forecast for tonight?” I asked hopefully. The girl nodded at a nearby computer screen, which had a Doppler rendering of the area, bands of red and green moving across what I assumed was our location. I studied it thoughtfully for a few minutes, but as far as I could tell, either we were in for clear skies or a flash flood. “Do you have any rain ponchos?” Jeff asked. “Wellllll….” the girl stammered, “not really.” “Do you have any rain gear at all?” Jeff continued on, although it was obvious by now that it was pretty much a failed course of action, talking to this idiot at all. “Ummmmmmmmm.” Was our only response. With this helpful advice, we headed off towards our campsite, wagering on the weather and wondering how people with such low IQs ever get employed in the first place.

Luckily enough, the rain started to abate only minutes after we found our campsite. The sites were clean, private, and within walking distance to a nice rest room, complete with showers. Once we had set up camp and had a fire going, I suggested to Jeff that one of us should go and buy more firewood. More is always better than not enough. He returned with one bag of firewood and two plastic ponchos. “Where did you find those?” I asked. “At the camp office, on the wall.” The camp office sells all of 10 products, and yet the girl working the desk there was not aware that rain ponchos were among them.

“Well, at least you found them,” I said.

And with that, we headed off to hike a little bit of Tettegouche, just to stretch our legs. The views were amazing.

Now, I have to tell you that Jeff and I recently invested in some new camping gear, including new sleeping bags and new sleeping pads. One of the selling features for us on the sleeping bags were that they could be zipped together, giving us a nice big cocoon to burrow into at night. However, upon further inspection neither one of us could figure out how on earth the zippers could ever get to the point where the two bags could become one. After several frustrating attempts, we agreed that it would be hot in the tent anyways, so we would lay one open bag down beneath us and use the other as a blanket. Problem solved! We headed back to the fire to cook our dinner and gaze at the stars. The night got cooler and the darkness got deeper, until we were sitting in a velvety inky black night, punctuated only by brilliant stars and our dying fire. We headed off to bed full of fresh air and snack mix, happy to have ended the night relatively dry and comfortable.

I have no idea what time I awoke, but it was still pitch black out. I was freezing. Every time I shifted even the slightest bit, the sleeping bag would slip off my body, exposing one bare buttock to the elements and one whining, hungry mosquito that had made its way into the tent. Shivering, I poked Jeff until he was sufficiently awake, and then asked him “So, are you having trouble sleeping?” Thus commenced zipping up the sleeping bags into single units, with the reassurances that we could still cuddle through the sleeping bags, with warm bottoms besides. I quickly fell back asleep, only to wake up to the thin light of dawn and the heartening sound of raindrops on the tent. I put my head back down, determined to sleep out the rain if at all possible.

The rain finally ceased, and we clambered out, eager to make breakfast and head off into the wilderness. Jeff started the bacon, while I spread peanut butter over bagels and got out the French press. As I started making bagel sandwiches for the trail, Jeff turned to me, stirring the bacon furiously lest it burn to a little crisp over the 12000 BTU whisper lite stove. “What are we having for dinner tonight?” he asked. “Hmmmmm,” I responded, “I don’t suppose peanut butter bagels would be the right answer?”

So, before we could head out on the trail we would have to run into town and get some sort of day-end meal, preferably something that would be hot and filling. “How about brats and beans?” I hedged, and thus it was agreed to that the evening’s meal would consist of pan fried bratwurst, with baked beans added to the mix. The sun continued to rise, and afternoon was fast approaching when we finally had everything packed and ready (except, of course, for the beans and sausage). As we left Tettegouche headed back into Two Harbors, Jeff pointed out a camp store, casting his vote for shopping there instead of the grocers back in town, since it was a good hike out and back, and we wanted to make good time on the trail to make it to the campsites in time. I couldn’t argue with this logic, so we headed into a large wooden structure with a sign our front that said “GROCERIES, FIREWOOD, CAMP SUPPLIES” with the hopes that we would not be disappointed. We left 5 minutes later with one can of generic baked beans and one sad little package of hot dogs.

We finally reached the trailhead, did our final pack adjustments, and congratulated ourselves for making it this far. Our journey, you see, was finally going to begin.

Getting Started

MySpace doesn't cut it as a blog forum. I'm going to start posting here in the hopes that friends and family can check in, check out, and respond. With that being said, this is just a space for me to cover the day to day events that I find interesting. I don't expect anyone else to share my opinion, but in case they do, here they are.