Sunday Night With John: The Bad Luck Trail
/It didn’t start off well at all. We were car-pooling to a trailhead by Finland, Minnesota to continue our quest to hike all 296 miles of the “SHT,” Superior Hiking Trail. As we left Mason City, Iowa the plan was be on the trail by 12:00 and take 7 hours to hike the first 11 miles on our three-day hike. A rainstorm hit right out of the gate which slowed down the speed we could travel and also separated our car-pool. After I drove most of the way to Duluth, Minnesota we switched drivers and I took a nap in the back seat. Getting up at 5:00am tends to lead to a nap later in the day. The lead car now about a half hour in front of us texted me the coordinates for the starting point of our hike. Being asleep I didn’t get the text or put them in my phone right away. By the time I woke up my phone had no service, meaning the text message was useless. We were left to guess where to go.
The SHT is 296 miles long with numerous entry points. We started by going to the spot where we ended our hike last year. No luck. We then drove down the road to the closest state park knowing there was an entrance to the trail there. No luck, but we did see a sign for another entrance, which was about 4 miles behind us. We head for that trailhead and after 5 miles on a one-lane dirt road, we find them an hour late It felt like located a needle in a haystack. Next came unloading the packs and leaving Kyle, my best friend, behind as we drove the cars where we decided to end our hike this year. We were comfortable in the car talking about how to make up for lost time on the trail and Kyle was beginning his battle with the super mosquitoes.
Kyle's anit-bug gear!
Upon our return to the SHT trailhead, we packed up and covered ourselves with bug spray and began our hike. Our first 11 miles was supposed to be done over 7 hours, but the delay meant we only really had 5 hours of good hiking hours. Out the door went the easy stroll on the first day.
The humidity had to be around 99% because I began to sweat through every peace of clothing I had on in roughly 5 minutes. Dehydration began to set in on our trek up Horseshow Ridge, which happens to be the most rugged part of the trip. We stopped at mile 8 for a rest and Anne, my wife, has a very concerned look on her face after seeing how pale I had become. I admit to feeling weird, and I realized I hadn’t peed in a while. I need to chug water, get to camp, filter the water and then chug water again. I realize I don’t have time to waste and Kyle and I take off at a quicker pace than the other three to get me to water. About 1 mile from our campsite I start to fantasize about a roaring fire, fresh water, taking this pack off and sitting down. With my mind on camp, I trip over a rock on the trail and face plant right into the ground. Both feet are throbbing in pain as I limp the last mile with Kyle. Arriving at camp I proceed to gulp down as much water as I can and change out of wet clothes so my body can begin to cool down. Anne arrives 15 minutes after I do and goes into what we tagged “Mosquito Madness.” She can’t stand the thousands of bugs and attempts to call her parents to get off the trail at some point tomorrow (Her parents are meting us on Sunday at Moose Mountain). She only has one bar of service so this leads to Anne walking around in a circle and repeatedly dialing her parent’s house. She can hear them and they can hear her but they can’t hear each other. We begin to joke Anne has the mosquito madness.
After Anne calms down and I drink enough water to not be ghostly white, we go set up our tent to get a safe haven from the bugs. We begin to set up our tent and come to find that one set of tent poles breaks. After using duct tape to at least make our tent upright for the night I check my wounded feet. My middle toe on the left foot is a very deep purple and the big toe on my right foot is bruised as well. Good thing we only have 26 miles left to go over the next two days.
Day two, the bugs lessened slightly and we find some relief with a morning breeze and an easy hike. After putting in 8 good miles we stop for an hour and a half for lunch and to top off water. The afternoon hike was a little tougher but still easier than yesterdays hike and we get to camp at Cross River in good spirits and by 5:00 pm giving us enough time for a creek shower after using my new saber saw to make easy work of gathering firewood. Just maybe this hike has turned the corner and our luck is changing.
The campsite by Cross River. A wonderful place to set up shop for the night.
Kyle and I decided to pool our resources and team up for dinner combining his turkey sausage with my macaroni and cheese into a delicious trail meal fit for the President and First Lady. We laugh about how hard day one was, we gush about how great this campsite is and my bruised toes are returning to their normal color. But then, we begin to hear thunder in the background. Our hiking partner Ryan and his girlfriend suggested that it was probably just a train. Yeah right, a train in the middle of the wilderness? As luck has it, it begins to storm. We rush to hang food so bears don’t crash our campsite and with our luck it could happen this trip and we crawl into our tent just before the downpour hits. Kyle and I our enjoying our dinner creation when I notice my feet are getting wet. The tent is definitely leaking a lot of water through the zipper. All I can do is laugh at this point. This trip is just not going our way. To paint a picture of what was going on in our tent, Anne was furiously itching her bug bites and maniacally laughing, Kyle has had enough and just complains about how can anyone build a tent that leaks. “A tent has only a couple of functions with the main one being keeping you dry,” he mutters. We use the pans we have to catch the water from the zippers and try to tie a rain jacket over the door to try to shield ourselves. I now have to now sleep curled up in a ball to not knock the water over during the night. Needless to say, I slept horribly.
Day 3 sees us hiking the first 4 hours in a downpour but that was off set by the beautiful river we were following. The Temperance River has what’s called “The Hidden Falls,” and we cross over them into a beautiful site. Next up is a 1500-foot climb to Carlton Peak, which zaps whatever energy we all had left although it’s a beautiful view on top and we meet an ISU grad willing to snaps our picture. Taking in the beautiful view, we have to push ourselves to get moving again to finish up our 7 last miles of the trip. At this point, 7 miles seem like a marathon. As we trudge through the mud, maneuver roots and rocks and get eaten alive by mosquitos we all start to fall apart. Anne’s knee aches, Kyle’s feet are a wreck, my right leg seems to have stopped working, Ryan’s back is in pain and Katie just wants to be done. Finally, we run into Anne’s Mom and Dad on the trial about .5 miles from the car and it’s the greatest view I’ve had all weekend. We were supposed to camp Sunday night and hike 4 miles to the top of Mouse Mountain, but in our current state we unanimously nixed the plan. The trail had definitely won this year. We couldn’t help but this three days of hard work to our time on the SHT last year where we covered 62 miles in 5 days and came out of the trail laughing and happy. This year, we covered 37 miles and came out covered in bug bites, bruises, and waving a white flag.
The View from Carlton Peak, a gut wrenching climb half way through day three
Our ultimate goal is to hike all 296 miles of the SHT. With 99 miles down, despite our pain, we aren’t doing too shabby. As we came to find, not every miles is going to be as easy as the last, the weather wasn’t going to cooperate the entire time, and we could have planned better for this trip. But we finished another 37 miles. The long road to completing goals is not always paved with help along the way, although Anne’s mom and dad did give us a little boost. There will be obstacles to over come, there will be moments you want to call your loved ones and say get me out of here, but to power through and finish makes all those bad moments yours. When we own bad moments, we get to tell the stories about them. But when we let them own us, the bad moments write the story.
I figured that out this past Saturday when I went camping with the college friends. The Superior Hiking Trail crew including Ryan, Kyle, and Anne all accompanied me on this camping trip that was much more relaxing and included a 5 hour float down a river. As I caught up with my college friends, I was excited and proud to tell them about our SHT journey. It was so rewarding to hear us all laughing and telling stories about a broken tent, the bug bites, the rain, and me almost passing out.
See, we finished a bad trip and now we get to shape it and we get to define it. We will return and we will finish because we want all 296 miles of that trail in our life and we know full well that some trips will leave us refreshed and others will leave us beaten. That day we cross that finish line of 296 miles, we will join a select few you have hiked it all. We want to finish what we started and that’s the point to so much in life: “Finish what you start,” so Moose Mountain your on the to do list, but this time I might just bring industrial strength bug spray and a new tent.