An alternative title to this section could be “SHT 5-7: I Go Into Civilization, Skip a Bunch Of Miles, and Stop Sleeping on the Trail”
Maybe that’s a bit dramatic. However, the previous parts of the hike up until this point have been nothing but true, good ol’ hiking. These past three have been town/restock days, which is a whole different vibe.
For those slightly confused (“why’s is he in town? Shouldn’t he be walking?”) let me explain. It’s a little bit of a misconception that that a thru hiker is supposed to spend all their time on trail. When I was starting out, I was surprised to learn that it’s fairly common for thru hikers to walk or hitchhike into town and spend a day restocking and enjoying the comforts of society. This could include eating at a restaurant, sleeping in an actual hotel bed, or even going out to the bar for a drink. I haven’t done the last one yet, but I guess there’s still time in Grand Marais…
These stops can be really common on trails with lots of towns (like the Appalachian Trail). Sometimes, people will even stop for weeks at a time to let minor injuries heal up.
Since the SHT is a lot shorter than those kinds of trails, my goal is to keep my town days short while still enjoying the food and restocking my kit. I won’t be doing any zero days, but I decided ahead of time that “nearos” would be ok when coming and going from town.
Essentially, the goal for towns is to get everything ready to go back out on trail. This means buying more food, but also doing the small things to keep morale up. It’s not good being resupplied if I quit the next day.
With that said, though, I still had to make it to Silver Bay…
Day 5: The Silver Bay Sprint
I woke up late in Blueberry Hills after sleeping. like an absolute rock. This already cost me like an hour of hiking, as I didn’t get out of my tent until 9:30. I don’t know what it was, The ground at that camp was so soft, so maybe that played a role? Maybe it was the gentle buzzing of the bees at their flowers.
Whatever the reason, I knew that today was going to be the day that I pushed through to Silver Bay. I’d packed in way too much food (enough for ~9 days, if I had to guess) so that wasn’t a problem. Still, there were a few things I was lacking, mostly medical kit for blisters. I didn’t have any yet, but I also wasn’t thrilled about possibly getting some and not being able to treat them.
I also wanted to dry out my gear, which was STILL WET from the rain during the first two days. My boots were especially bad, but we’ll get to that.
With all that in mind I booked myself a campsite in Silver Bay, figuring I could hitch in, sleep there, then restock in the morning. It was around 20 miles away, which was completely doable. I’d hit 19 walking into Blueberry Hills the night before. Honestly, the idea of not being in the woods sounded pretty good at this point as well. I was going to get to Silver Bay, no matter what.
I started walking. Almost immediately I came across a really cool waterfall. It was the lower part of the Split Rock River, one of the first capital R rivers I’d encountered on the walk. I was cool. I took some good photos.
Normally, the trail would then cross the river, head inland, and cross back over at a higher point in the river. Unfortunately, the upstream bridge was out, so I had to detour down into Split Rock River State Park and cross the river there.
This wasn’t altogether too bad, as I think it was actually shorter than if i’d had to go inland. Also, it was on state park trails which are practically paved roads compared to the wetter sections of the SHT.
I think the best part, though, was bumping into some SHT volunteers raising awareness at the trailhead during the detour. They were incredibly friendly and had had fruit snacks and cold water. They’d been section hiking further north, and were able to give some tips about the infamous “Tetegouche State Park Reroute”. Overall it was super fun to meet folks so excited about the trail, and I put my email down on the volunteer newsletter.
As a side note about the cold water they gave me: this trail has made me crave refrigerated beverages like nothing else. Food is fine, I only want it when I’m hungry and it’s mostly been cravings for things I have in my pack, like cheese or jerky. A movie theater icee though? Or a cold glass of lemonade? You have to remember, I’ve had nothing but lukewarm filtered water for the past 4 days. I literally had to avoid thinking about cold, sugary drinks while walking or it would dominate my thoughts for the next hour.
I promise you this isn’t a symptom of dehydration; I’m drinking at least six liters of water a day.
Then the trail started to CLIMB. Like I said in the last post, section C was a night and day difference from section B. Instead of winding through bogs and lakes, section C climbed up into the vast hills of volcanic rock that had been a backdrop of the hike up until now. This made for some incredibly pretty views, but also caused a pretty big problem.
You see, I was basing my opinion 20 a day distance estimate on what I had been doing during section B. Definitely solid efforts, but I’d forgot to consider that section B was as flat as a pancake. Section C was not.
It took approximately two leg burning, ling destroying climbs before I realized that I would be hard pressed to go even fifteen today. 20 to Silver Bay would be a do or die effort. However, the campsite had already been booked. Do or die it was.
It was also at this point that my feet started to hurt BAD. A little bit of foot pain is to be expected when you’re putting that many miles on them, buy the soles of my feet were starting to become overly tender to the point where it was affecting my ability to pick my way up trail.
I found a nice scenic overlook, unpacked my things for lunch, and took my feet out of my boots. They were wrinkly messes, like when you soak in the bathtub for too long. I kicked them out in the sun, but despite drying off pretty quick they didn’t seem to be un-wrinkling at all.
This kind of had me panicking. I had a a bar of service, so I was googling “consequences of wet feet” which quickly lead me to trench foot and all the horrible google images that come with that.
Fortunately, trench foot requires colder temperatures (below 60 degrees) and it had been pretty warm, so I don’t have trench foot. I had, at worst, a super early stage of its cousin, warm weather immersion syndrome. Even then, since none of my skin was peeling (yet) it seemed like all I needed to do was keep my feet as dry as possible for the next few days.
Crisis averted, but also easier said than done. My boots would not dry out, and my socks were damp at best. I used the sun on the open rock surface to get one pair almost dry, then hung the other on the back of my pack to get them more dry. I planned to rotate my socks every few hours, keeping my feet as dry as possible even if my boots were still damp.
For the most part this plan worked, and I was able to keep chugging out the miles. Still, the rocky, technical downhills and crushing uphills meant that I was making slow pace. The views were nice, at the very least, but I felt like I couldn’t enjoy them because I was so busy pushing up and down this mountain to get off trail faster.
By the time I got down off the mountains, I was exhausted and still had at least four miles to go. I was sitting in the parking lot contemplating what to do when I noticed a car was running. A man rolled down his window and asked if I needed a ride. Iforgot to ask if I could write about him, so his name won’t be featured, but he was incredibly kind.
He’d been helping with a trail race that was apparently going on near by, and was just now driving back into town. He had a cooler full of ice cold coke, which was possibly the best thing I’d ever tasted. He dropped me off at the Black Beach campground and bid me farewell.
So yes, technically I skipped four miles of trail here. Sue me. I was exhausted and I would not have made it into town until after dark if i’d chosen to do it. I atone for it later in mileage, trust me.
After setting up my tent, I walked up the road into Silver Bay and grabbed dinner at Zoe’s Pizza Kitcehen. I ordered pulled pork with jalapeños and pineapple. It was one of the best things i’ve ever eaten. Also, I had a blast drinking literally every option from their soda fountain. I think Mug tasted the best after being on trail.
Full of at least 2000 calories, I hiked back down to my campsite and settled in for a good night of rest.
Day 6: Silver Bay Stroll
Ok, day six was a pretty chill day. It didn’t start out that way, though.
You know how I said that the Durston tents were great, but if you pitch them badly they can fall over?
Yeah, it happened.
At 1am one of the stakes for my tent slips out of the ground, causing the whole thing to collapse on me. Luckily I was already half awake, so this was annoying rather than terrifying. I then had to spend the next half hour frantically trying to re-pitch my tent as a pretty strong wind blew in from the north. It was cold, I was tired. Not fun.
I don’t think it was fully my fault. The Black River campsite was pretty exposed. I didn’t have tree or rock cover, so when the wind blew in it hit my tent directly. The ground was also loose gravel, meaning I didn’t really get to sink my stakes in deep. I admittedly half-assed my pitch because I was excited to go eat dinner, so that contributed too, but the environmental factors were the main cause (that’s what I’ll tell myself, anyways).
Fortunately, things were calmer in the morning. we got some real sun at the campsite, which allowed me to finally dry out my gear for good. Except my boots, but I managed to get them to just damp, which was a win in my book. Plus, I realized I could take put the insoles and dry those specifically, so at least. a third of my boot would be dry every time I put them on.
After packing my stuff back up I headed in to town to make some purchases. I didn’t really need food, so all I bought in that department was pop tarts and MnMs to boost morale until Finland. I did pick up more plastic bags (all of my old ones were getting holes in them) and some medical supplies I needed.
The best purchase wasn’t even a purchase: I just asked the woman running the store if she could give me one of her 40 gallon garbage bags to use as a pack liner, and she said “sure why not”. Now, hopefully, my sleeping set up and spare clothes will stay dry inside the bag while I get rained on.
I started out again. The road walk back to the trailhead was brutal; almost two miles of a steep uphill. Being blasted between the sun and asphalt makes you appreciate how much cooler the forest keeps you.
The trail, once I got there, was super cool. This was the section that overlooked Bear lake and Bean lake, which is one of the super scenic areas they slap on all the promotional material. Still, it lived up to its name. I got some absolutely killer views. More importantly, because I wasn’t in a rush, I actually got to enjoy them this time around.
Being on a more scenic section of trail meant way more day hikers. Seeing more day hikers lead to ten realization that, holy cow, I look rough. I probably smell rough too at this point. I’d be friendly to people and they’d be friendly back, but it was clear they were giving me my space. It was. almost a badge of honor to finally be evolving into scary hiker trash.
I also was really starting to hit my rhythm on this section. My stops were down to a science: big breakfast in the morning, three hours of hiking, lunch, three hours of hiking, dinner, three hours of hiking and then sometimes a second dinner if I was hungry.
Water became pretty exact too: I’d stop and chug water (and gasp for air) at the top of every climb, and refill whenever the trail would go back into the valley to cross a stream. It would do that pretty often, climbing up to a scenic view and then going back down to cross water, so I was drinking over a liter and a half per hour. I needed it: 85 and sunny on the exposed ridge lines was frying me like an egg.
The day ended fairly dramatically in Tetagouche state park, home of the dreaded “Tetagouche reroute” that Id been hearing about. As a side note, the park is pronounced Tet-ah-goosh. I’d been saying Tat-a-gooch-ee like the southerner I am.
Anywho, the problem with TG state park is that the trail normally runs way up into the park to cross the Baptism River at the high falls, which is another one of the promotional material caliber scenic vistas. However, the high falls bridge has been out for years. The reroute isn’t that bad, you just follow the river down to tbe shore where M 61 crosses, and then follow it back up to where the trail starts again.
Unfortunately, at least as far as I could tell, the trail to do that was ALSO closed for maintenance. This meant that the only way to get down to the highway (the only working bridge across the Baptism River, apparently)was a second trail that went 5 miles southward, adding a total of 8ish to my walk.
Mind you, I got into TG at around 6:30. I was ready to be done, not to walk an extra eight miles to make what should have been two miles of progress. A part of me considered camping up on the mountains, but I had just enough service to see that there might be storms later that night and I didn’t want to risk it.
Fortunately, the other thru hikers and the SHT volunteers told me the best way to get down. I hiked off trail through the park and hitched my way up to the state park, where I ended up crashing for the night. And, to my credit, it did end up being windy, so I made the right call skipping a hit of trail to get off the mountain.
Day 7: Finland
The walk to Finland was probably the least eventful out of the three days.
I got up fairly early and hiked out of the state park campgrounds. I found the reroute, and hiked about 3 miles of it to get back to the trail. Not amazing, but could be way worse.
From there, the trail wound up and down through the remainder of the mountains I was in. I met a few hikers, but not nearly as many as I had in previous days. Still, I was in weirdly high spirits. Compared to the earlier bits of this hike, I really felt like I was starting to figure things out. I was in a rhythm. I was putting down some miles.
At some point I passed the Minnesota highway 1 trailhead, which meant I’d officially entered section D. I knew C and E were hilly and scenic, but less had been said about D. It seemed relatively the same to section C, but maybe a bit flatter.
Another nice thing about this day is that it was probably the clearest one so far. I’ve been dealing with wildfire smoke from Canada blowing in and lowering the value of the views I got, which hasn’t been great. Today was really, really clear so I was able to get some good scenic photos.
Eventually the trail wound down out of the mountains into a stretch called “Section 13”. I don’t actually know what section 13 is, or why every trailhead for the miles leading up to it had a sign saying how far I was from it. It wasn’t particularly scenic or anything. It was just a stretch of trail. My best guess is that it used to be the 13th section of the original SHT before they added the Duluth bits, and that made it important because… who knows.
The good thing though was that the mysterious Section 13 was the flattest part I’d had since entering section C of the trail, so I was able to really push the pace. I made it all the way to Finland before it even hit 6:30, and tried to get a hitch into town so I could resupply at their co-op.
I managed to grab a ride with someone(s) who, once again, I forgot to ask permission to write about. The bad news, they told me, was that the grocery store had closed at 6 (small town things, made sense). The good, even great news, was that they were willing to let me stay on their property for the night, and would drive me into town in the morning so I could resupply.
This was the first bit of really propped trail magic I experienced. I got a shower, a warm meal of mushroom pasta (with foraged mushrooms, it was SO GOOD) and I got to hear all about the local area and its flora and fauna. It was one of the best nights I’ve had on trail so far. I’m so grateful for the experience, and will be sending them a postcard when I get off trail.
In Conclusion…
So yeah. I skipped around 8 miles of trail and didn’t sleep in SHT campsites on any of the nights. I don’t feel too bad about any of it; I think the circumstances made sense. Plus, I already skipped 40 miles at the start. This isn’t a true thru hike anyways. I’ll cut myself some slack.
I have been feeling a lot better about being on trail. Things haven’t necessarily gotten easier, but I feel like I’m just getting more acclimated to the challenges I’m facing. I really have been in a good mood since I got into silver bay, with a few minor exceptions like when my tent blew down. At some point during these few days I think I quietly passed the hundred mile mark on this hike. Soon, I’ll be in the home stretch.
I can’t wait for Grand Marais and getting a giant burger with an XL Coke. That’s the biggest motivator rn. Still, that’s around 80 miles away at this point. I’ll update when I get there.
Happy Trails!
