Wandering Where We’ll Be

Monday, July 7 – Day 8

Broke camp and got going at about normal time. Stopped at Alfred’s Pond for water and lunch – very peaceful and idyllic setting. Stopped on bluff among birch trees after Crystal Creek to rest and eat a snack – also peaceful with a cool breeze off Lake Superior. Just before Caribou River, I found a patch of ripe, wild strawberries, picked a bunch and put them in a plastic bag. Walked down to see Caribou Falls – not sure if I’d ever seen these before – very cool. Finished hike to Horseshoe Ridge, where I’m staying tonight. I’ve done this section before (on Memorial Day weekend of this year).

The weather is cooling off now. Just rinsed my shirt and socks in the small stream near the campsite.

Cleaned the berries to yield about a cup. I split up an oatmeal packet I had made up for a breakfast. I split the ghee (clarified butter) and brown sugar in half (roughly), took the raisins out and ate them, and chopped the walnuts a bit more. I mixed the oats, ghee, brown sugar and nuts in a plastic bag for the topping. I melted the remaining ghee and added the sugar, then, the berries. After stirring the berries into the sweetener mixture, I dumped them into my cup and topped them with the oat mixture. And, voila, I had Wild Strawberry Crumble – it was excellent! Had it for dessert with my rice dish. Sewed pants – again!

Tuesday, July 8 – Day 9

Got going at normal time. Stopped in Crosby Manitou State Park for water from a pump. Talked briefly with student worker. Stopped at Blesner Creek for break/snack. Later, stopped at Lilly’s Island for break/snack. Treated water from Egge Creek. Decided to walk into Finland (about a mile and a half each way). I went to “Our Place,” a bar and grill, and had a great burger, fries and a beer! Got back on the trail and went 2.2 miles to Leskinen Creek campsite. Saw two deer on the way. Got set up, rinsed out clothes and treated water. Had rice dish for supper. Read.

Wednesday, July 9 – Day 10

Had oatmeal and tea for breakfast. Stopped at Section 13 Cliffs, of course, for break/snack. Treated water at Sawmill Creek. Took spur to Picnic Rock. Stopped for break and food after Kennedy Creek; creek was dry. Stopped for water, food and break at High Falls on Baptism River. My right ankle hurts; not sure what I did? Took some Ibuprofen to get me to Palisade Creek campsite (East).

Looked like rain, so set up fast. Rain passed north of me. Rinsed out clothes and soaked foot/ankle in creek. East Palisade Creek is flowing well. More thunder – this time it passes over, and I do get rain. It rains hard for awhile, but doesn’t last long. I make “Thanksgiving Dinner” for supper: instant mashed potatoes with parsley, chives and TVP (textured vegetable protein); gravy from packet and dried cranberries – best supper, so far.

Thursday, July 10 – Day 11

Cliff bar and hot chocolate for breakfast. Go past Bear and Bean Lakes on my way into town – very cool mountain lakes! Reach town (Silver Bay) by about 9:30 am. Picked up package of food that I sent to myself at post office. Had a big breakfast of pancakes, bacon and hash browns at the Northwoods Café, located in the same mall as the post office. After breakfast, I organized my food and also met a guy who is biking from California to Connecticut via the north shore of Lake Superior.

It began to rain as I left Silver Bay. I called Dan and, then, Mom and Dad while I had a mobile signal in Silver Bay; was good to talk to them and plan my pickup for the end of the trail in Two Harbors. Hiked out of town, back onto the trail and to the Beaver River. It stopped raining toward end of day’s hike. Set up camp at South Beaver River campsite and hung things out to dry. Read by river while warming up. Then, the sun came out! I walked a bit upstream and found a good place to treat water and rinse out clothes and myself. Had a noodle dish for supper. While reading by river, an organized group of boys (six, with two leaders) came to the site. Read in tent.

Friday, July 11 – Day 12

Had oatmeal and tea for breakfast. The group was still in tents when I left. Stopped at Chapin’s Ridge and, then, at the shelter overlooking the Split Rock River valley for break/snack. Got to Blueberry Hill site in late afternoon. A group of six (4 boys, 2 leaders) with Wilderness Therapy was there, plus two high school-age guys from Chicago; they’re just starting a thru-hike, south to north. The group had been just re-supplied and gave me an extra orange they had – yum!!

Had rice dish for dinner. A thunderstorm with a good downpour came through shortly after I went to bed. Stayed mostly dry.

Saturday, July 12, — Day 13

Got up, ate and left before others got up. Hiked to Gooseberry State Park and down along river to the lakefront (Lake Superior). Continued on to Crow Creek Valley. Picked berries along the way. Not sure what they are, but leader of the Wilderness Therapy group said they’re edible. They’re like a very delicate, raspberry-like berry that grows on very low plants (5-6 inches from ground). Got to site in early afternoon. Two women were already there. Set up and had more “lunch.” Hung the food and took a nap. A couple came to the site and set up their tent while I was sleeping. While I was reading outside, another couple from Oakdale (nice couple: Kim and Jamal) showed up to check out the site. There’s no water here, and they needed some, so wouldn’t be able to stay here. They talked to me for a bit before heading to a Gooseberry River site.

Had curry rice and veggies for supper – one of my better suppers. Started cleaning berries earlier, but they were too delicate to get the stem off and, usually, still have an intact berry. So, I just ate them right off the stem. It rained as I began to eat; moved to tent. Finished my book and got ready to sleep.

Sunday, July 13 – Day 14

Up and packed before others. One of the two women came over to talk as I was getting ready to leave; she congratulated me on my thru-hike. I would reach the end of the trail today, and it was a short day (8.8 miles). Stopped at Encampment River for water. Two young men passed as I was treating water. They were at the trailhead on Lake County Road 301 when I got there. They were from Minneapolis and thru-hiked the trail in 10 days. They had chocolate chip cookies in their car and gave me one – yum!!

I hiked to the Silver Creek campsite. Set up and then took a day hike on the section of trail that I worked on last summer. It’s not officially open yet. Looks pretty good, with only a few larger windfalls that need clearing. Read by creek. Had noodles for supper.

Monday, July 14 – Pick-up Day

I walked into Two Harbors (about 7 miles); picked up the newspaper, a couple donuts and orange juice at the Holiday store. Walked to a small park with picnic tables and a bandshell; read the paper and had “breakfast.” Since I got into town at about 9 am, I still had some time before my parents would arrive, so I walked down toward the shoreline and the lighthouse. Mom called me as they were passing through Duluth, so I headed back toward Highway 61 and met them (Mom, Dad and nephew, Derek) at Judy’s Café. We had lunch there, visited the Superior Hiking Trail Association office just up the street and headed back to the Twin Cities.

In 1985, while on a camping trip along the north shore of Lake Superior with my (Tim’s) family, my two brothers (Joel and Mark) and I hiked to Lookout Mountain in the Cascade River State Park. From Lookout Mountain we were able to overlook the Cascade River valley and Lake Superior below. Though it was probably only a few miles round-trip from the campground, it seemed like a long hike at the time. And, the trail continued. Not as the Superior Hiking Trail, which didn’t exist, per se. But, as a continuation of the trail running through the park. Not wanting to worry (further?) Mom and Dad, we didn’t continue from Lookout Mountain, but headed back to the campground. My thru-hike in the summer of 2008 was — in some ways — undertaken to find out what was beyond Lookout Mountain — to stitch together all of the pieces of trail I had previously hiked and to see in one backpacking trip all of the magnificent sites along Lake Superior in Minnesota.

The following is the journal of my Superior Hiking Trail thru-hike. It’s certainly no prose. I often use incomplete sentences with no subject; usually the subject is “I.” I often omit articles (a, an, the). It’s just what I did each day on the trail and in camp.

Photos of my thru-hike are here: Thru-Hike Photos

Sunday, June 29

My partner, Dan, and I marched in the Twin Cities Pride Parade Sunday morning. I play percussion in the Minnesota Freedom Band, and Dan helps out by being part of the group that twirls flags out ahead of the band. After the parade, we went right home to do last minute packing and to pick up Jake (our dog).

We stopped at a wayside rest to walk Jake and, later, to get gas. In Grand Marais, we had supper at Sven and Ole’s (pizza, of course) and then ice cream, too.

We continued on to Judge Magney State Park, where we found a site, set up camp, fed Jake and, then, walked up to the Upper Falls and Devil’s Kettle on the Brule River.

Monday, June 30 – Day 1

Got up at about 6:30 am. Had donuts and juice for breakfast. Broke camp and drove up to the Otter Lake Road trailhead (northern terminus of the Superior Hiking Trail, less than a mile from the Canadian border). I did my final packing, said “goodbye” to Dan and Jake, and set out at about 8 am (guess).

The first part of the trail is a recent logging road and was very swampy and thick with mosquitoes. I had my two base layers on, and the mosquitoes were biting my arms through the long sleeves of the outer layer. Plus, I was getting too warm. I finally stopped, took off my long-sleeve shirt – leaving just my short-sleeve shirt) and spread insect repellant on my arms. This was much better.

The trail became drier as it rose in elevation, but was overgrown in many areas. It’s clear that this section of the trail gets less use than more southern sections.

I ran into two solo day hikers today and a party of three nearing the end of their south-to-north thru-hike.

Got into camp (South Carlson Creek campsite) in mid-afternoon; set up camp, treated water, dried shoes, rinsed socks and a shirt. Had backpacker spaghetti for supper. Nice evening, but mosquitoes are still bad. Headed to tarptent to write/read.

Tuesday, July 1 – Day 2

Got up and had grapenuts for breakfast. While I was taking the food-pack down, the twig I used to hold the food in place caught on the mesh bag and ripped it. The liner bag was fine, but if the rip grew larger, it could make hanging the food more difficult. There was a breeze that I couldn’t be sure would last, so I decided to delay setting out in lieu of patching the food bag. I cut a square of spinnaker nylon from the inside flap of one of the stuff sacks I made. It’s not pretty, but it’s working for now. [I later added squares of duct tape to the inside and outside of my patch.]

I didn’t see any backpackers today, only day hikers at Judge Magney State Park. I had lunch just upstream from Devil’s Kettle behind a big, rock wall. It was cool, shady and mostly bug-free! Actually, the bugs aren’t as bad as yesterday, beginning at Judge Magney. Got rid of some trash in the state park.

Arrived at South Little Brule campsite in afternoon; set up tent, hung food, treated water, washed short-sleeve shirt and socks and washed up a bit. The river flows right past my campsite, including some rapids and a small falls. It’s a really nice afternoon with a breeze, so fewer bugs.

Had supper (rice dish), and the bugs began to come out with sunset. Headed into the tent to read and, then, sleep.

Wednesday, July 2 – Day 3

Had a good thunder/lightning/rain storm last night. It didn’t seem too windy, just heavy rain. The tarptent kept me and my things mostly dry. The foot end of my sleeping bag got just a bit damp.

Had oatmeal and tea, broke camp and took off. I was up with the sunrise, so got an early start. The trails were even more muddy due to the rain last night. Shortly after starting out, I crossed Highway 61 and walked along Lake Superior’s shoreline for 1.5 miles. This was very pretty and peaceful, with the sun coming up. I saw a deer along the shore. Crossing back over the highway, I hit the mud again. Today was tough-going for some reason. I just couldn’t keep enough food/liquid in me, but I think it had more to do with not wanting to stop in the thick of mud and bugs. The constant wet feet resulted in a couple blisters; I’ll have to tend to them before starting out tomorrow.

Wildflower Hill was amazing! Oranges, yellows, whites, purples… There was a wild, orange lily that I haven’t seen before.

Stopped at Cliff Creek for lunch. Hiked along Devil Track gorge and finally arrived at East Devil Track campsite. Today I saw more people on the trail: a party of three backpackers (mom, dad and teenage son, I think), a couple (day hiking), a mom and four kids day hiking along the Devil Track gorge, a solo day hiker, a couple (staying at West Devil Track campsite) and a solo backpacker (female) doing Gooseberry to Canada and then back to Gooseberry!

Cleaned up and rinsed some clothes, including pants, which were really muddy and gross. Had miso soup and noodle dish for supper. Cleaned up and went into tent to escape the bugs.

Thursday, July – Day 4

No rain last night. Woke pretty early, broke camp and headed to Pincushion Mountain. Took the spur trail to an overlook of Grand Marais. At the Pincushion parking area, I had a signal on my mobile, so tried to call Dan; he must have been sleeping. It was before 8 am. I called and got a hold of Mom; talked to her a bit. It was good to talk to her, and she was glad I called.

The trail, after crossing the Gunflint Trail (paved road), went up to what seemed to be an old railroad bed. Then, the trail went through a beautiful, red pine, then fir/spruce, then maple forests. I had lunch at South Bally Creek Pond campsite – hummus on tortillas and I opened the gouda cheese – yay, new cheese!

I was planning to stop at the North Cascade multi-group campsite for the night (16.8 miles for the day), but I made good time on the state trail (old rail bed?) and I wasn’t too impressed with the North Cascade campsite. So, I went the extra 2.3 miles to Cut Log campsite.

As I was setting up camp, a guy came and asked if his party of nine could stay at the site. I said, “Sure.” The site officially has three tent pads, but they were able to find space for their three tarp/net set-ups. The group consisted of seven high school students and their two leaders with a group sponsored by Wheaton College in the Chicago area.

I went to the small stream (tributary of the Cascade River) to treat water, rinse clothes and clean up – very nice stream for this purpose! Had rice dish for supper. A couple who were day-hiking gave me two granola bars – their extras – very nice of them and a tasty treat!

Friday, July 4 – Day 5

Broke camp and took off about the normal time. Went through many beautiful maple forests today. Had snack/water breaks at Spruce Creek and East Lake Agnes, which was beautiful and, at the moment – bug-free. I thought about staying, but moved on to West Poplar River. East campsite appeared to be taken, although no tents were set up yet.

After setting up tent and hanging food, I cleaned up and rinsed clothes in river. Had backpacker’s spaghetti with gouda cheese for supper. The campsite was kind of a mess, so I started a fire and burned some of the partially burned wood that was strewn about. Read a bit outside, then, in the tent.

Saturday, July 5 – Day 6

Broke camp and headed for Lutsen Mountains. I thought I might be able to get a good meal at the restaurant, but they didn’t open until 11 am on Saturday. The shop didn’t open until 9:30 am, and it was only a little after 8 am. Darn!

Mostly maple forests today. Did spur trail around the top of Oberg Mountain. One of my toes was getting a blister, so I stopped at the Onion River campsite to mend it and, also, eat lunch. Continued to Springdale Creek campsite. The creek wasn’t running very fast, so just rinsed out a couple things. Had rice dish for supper. Read a bit in tent. Two guys stopped by on their way northeast; liked my tarptent.

Sunday, July 6 – Day 7

Woke at 4:45 am to thunder; thought about setting down quickly, but decided to just bring food, water and stove to the tent and eat my oatmeal with tea. Rain passed quickly, and I began to get ready. I just had the tent left to set down, and it began to thunder again. I set it down, and just as I was ready to leave, it began to hail (pea-sized) and then rain. It rained lightly until I got to Britten Peak; then cleared off. Hiked to summits of Britten and Carlton Peaks. Got to Temperance River Wayside about 9 am. Bought some bug dope (I was concerned that I might run out.) and pop at park office. Dried raingear, shoes, feet and socks. Sewed pants in a couple places.

Dad, Joel, Mark, Tyler, Parker, Derek, Ben and Tony met me at the Temperance River Wayside at about 11, I think? We drove into Tofte to have pizza for lunch at the Coho Café; the pizza tasted great, and it was good to hang out with family! They drove me back to the wayside and handed off the bag I had prepared with four days worth of food.

The hike out of the Temperance River gorge was hot, sunny and very steep! Stopped at Ledge campsite on the Cross River and set up camp. Rinsed clothes and self in the river – felt really good after the hot hike. Took a short nap and read. Had noodle dish for supper. It was still warm out, so I took another dip in the river.

We’ve updated the map and posted the remaining photos to our Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/timdan2/.

Thanks for following along with us on our journey through Europe!

Tim and Dan

We’re now home! We got up at 5:30 am, London time, took the Tube and the Docklands Light Rail to London City Airport and had a 45-minute trip on a KLM City Hopper plane to Amsterdam. From there, we flew non-stop to Minneapolis-St. Paul, arriving at about 3 pm, Minneapolis time.

We’ll write more about Paris soon, but we’re really tired now, having been up for almost 21 hours!

Tim and Dan

Ok, I tend to be slow when I write these and take up a lot of time on the internet. I’ve got a short amount of time so I will get to it.

Dan here. Thought you might want to read a little about Nice and Arles. Here it is.
When we arrived in Nice (pronounced Niece to us English speakers), I was surprised how warm it was. I wasn’t expecting it to be as warm as Sicily since it is farther north. Nice balmy 60’s to low 70’s is a great way to start a city…in January…winter. So, we checked in and then walked the beach at night. NICE…No pun (if that is what you call it) intended. Even though it was dark, the Prominade des Anglais (English Prominade) is so lit up and the buildings (all high class hotels and bigwig bars) were just as lit, the water was blue. There were many people. Some where swimming, some playing guitar, running, walking, fishing, you name it. We saw a lot of cool places that night. Next day found us walking all around Nice but mainly we went to 2 modern art museums. This is a fresh change for us. We have seen so many baroque, gothic, whatever paintings of every kind of Jesus and Mary picture from so many different time periods, I am sorry, but I am burn’t out on them. A modern cut up and stuck to a wall cello is great. The day after that we went to Cannes (as in art, movie and musical festivals). It is a touristy place with a nice look out but we didn’t stay long because it was raining pretty hard. We then went to Monaco. Great, old buildings were to be seen everywhere. They are all very upkept. Everything seemed new and built last year. The Montecarlo Casino is a beautiful building. It also has a great walking terrace outside in the back. I liked Monaco.

On to Arles. This is a friendly, quaint, seemingly smallish town in Provence. It does have a Roman amphitheater which they still use for bullfights. They also have other Roman ruins that are really fun to see. The best thing was a museum that had really well done models of all the ruins in the city. It was great to see the representation of what they were like way back when.
We also did a day trip to Avignon. This city was, at one time, the headquarters of the Catholic church during the late 1300’s to early 1400’s. This was a fantastic place for architecture. Huge castle, big churches, monuments, cool intact city walls, statues, all of which were very ornate and, at the same time, big, heavy, and tough! This was a functional fortress city! Cool! Oh, by the way, Arles is MUCH colder than Nice is. I have got on all my layers, including long underwear!
Well, that’s it for now. We are currently in a warmer Paris.

Write more later,
Dan

Our visit in Florence was short (two nights), but a good mix of what we like to do and see in any city: visiting museums (the Bargello, with mostly sculpture), visiting churches, having one good meal out to try the local foods, walking around the city to see the sights and to get a sense for the city’s atmospheres, taking a walk up and out of town — for views of the city and, in this case, to see all of the olive trees, and visiting with the other travellers at our hostel.

On Wednesday, we took the train to the Cinque Terre (“Five Lands”) region on the northwestern coast of Italy.  Five, small, mostly car-free villages hug the rocky, Mediterranean coastline.  The steep slopes around and between the villages are covered with mostly vineyards, but also some olive, lemon and orange orchards.  A hiking trail with marvelous views of the sea and villages winds its way between the villages and among the vineyards.

Dan and I hiked most of the trail yesterday, and we met up with a fun, young woman, named Laurie (sp?), from Nova Scotia, Canada.   Today, we’ll hike some more of the trail and tomorrow we leave Italy for Nice, France.

More details later,

Tim

Well, guess what? We are now in Florence after two and a half days in Palermo.

Okay, on to what we did there.
The first night we got there we wandered around for awhile. The city has an energy level like Naples…meaning there is lots of noisy traffic and alot of people. There are many neat buildings to look at, not to mention, if we are by the sea, cool cliffs and neat rock formations. We saw Palermo’s Cathedral. It has a very different “look” to it. It is “Arabic” looking. I am not an expert on what “Arabic” buildings look like or anything so take my comment with a grain of salt and look at the Flickr site to see if we have posted a picture of it (I think it will make it in there). After more wandering, we called it a day and went back to the hostel. We went out that night. We didn’t party up a storm in anyway because there is a midnight curfew at the place we were staying. We only had one beer after wandering around night-time Palermo a bit. Next day, we went to the water front. There wasn’t a beach there but it had some good cliff views. We, then, went to the (in my mind) “biggy”. There is a church with some catacombs that have over 8000 viewable dead bodies. Oh Yea! You can’t even picture how macabre and creepy this was. They weren’t all laid out in graves for the most part…Oh no. They were hung up and stood upright in thier niches. Babies, old people, young people, recognizable facial characteristics, unrecognizable skulls, all done up in their sunday best! Okay, I will stop. It was quite a sight though. After that, we did a bit more walking but called it a night.
The next day was the last day we were in Palermo, we were catching a night train to Florence at 7pm. We went to Mondello beach. This beach is about half an hour north by bus. It was gorgeous. Tim was walking along the water line bare-foot and I ended up doing it as well since a wave caught my right shoe and sock in a wet embrace (how do you like those word choices ;)).
This morning, myself a little bleary eyed, we wandered Florence a bit. We saw the Cathedral and went to a market. We saw a fun bridge somewhat like the Rialto bridge in Venice (there are shops on it) but better.

Well, that’s it for now.
Write later,
Dan

OK, we’re on pay internet again, so this will be quick.

The train and ferry trip to Sicily went fine. We spent two nights in Taormina and spent the day hiking in the hills above Taormina and the Mediterranean Sea.

We arrived in Agrigento, Sicily yesterday and toured the Valley of Temples today. Tomorrow, we move on to Palermo, Sicily for a couple nights.

More later,
Tim and Dan

When Dan and I were trying to figure out where to stay to kill some time before activating our final two-month rail pass, we knew we would be coming from Rome and wanted to head to southern Italy.  So, the Naples (Napoli, in Italian — rhymes with Monopoly) area — with its many nearby sights — seemed to be the logical answer.  Plus, we found what seemed to be a great hostel: near the city center, free breakfast, guest kitchen (so, we could cook meals), free internet, free pasta nights and a decent price.  (It almost seemed too good to be true.)  But, everything we were reading told us that Naples is a noisy, dirty and gritty city, so we were a bit nervous planning to stay in Naples for twelve nights.

Yes, Naples is everything that we had heard and because of that, I think, we had a great time.  Most tourists to the area tend to avoid the city and stay at a picturesque village along the coast, like Sorrento or Positano — with a lot of other tourists.  We just took trips via cheap buses to these places during the day and returned to our noisy, dirty and gritty city and excellent hostel with both fun staff and other guests at night.  The hostel staff was VERY helpful in assisting us in planning our day trips, both in and out of the city.  And, several days, we just walked around Naples, getting lost among the narrow and sometimes steep streets, clogged with markets, pedestrians, vespas and cars.  The worn buildings nearly always had laundry hanging from the balconies, and it often seemed as though someone in one building could reach out from their balcony and shake hands with their neighbor across the street.  We washed our laundry in the sink (as we have been doing for most of the trip) and also hung it out to dry on the hostel’s balcony; we were on the seventh floor.  And, we ate like Neapolitans as often as possible — picking up slices of pizza for lunch from stands in front of the many small shops, buying our bread from bakeries (the best bread is NOT sliced and NOT in a bag), and cooking pasta at the hostel.

We also spent some time just reading or watching a movie at the hostel.  We needed a little bit more of that after some busy stretches recently.  Plus, we got caught up on posting our recent (and, not so recent) photos to our Flickr site.  Check them out here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/timdan2/

Tim

The map functionality provided with our site was fixed, so I was able to update our map — YEA!!