MN > SHT > George Crosby Manitou to Carlton Peak & Temperance River, Memorial Weekend

[mrcheviot]

Report from planning thread here.

I opted to start in GCM Park instead of Finland after clarifying parking and site registration options, and heavy endorsement from Shug if I'm honest. Seemed like it would give me better terrain options, although at the time I set out I still didn't know how far I'd go.

Not sure what my weights were, guessing base was around 17lbs. Had my XLC, new HG Winter Palace CF tarp, HG Phoenix 40 + EE Rev 45, ULA Circuit, my trusty Element and Fancee Feast stoves, Olympus EM-5 camera w/ 12mm lens, trusty Mora & SA knives.. the usual.



Fri got to George Crosby Manitou Park, registered for site #6 in case the park was going to be full on Monday (it wasn't, more on the site below). Hiked through the valley of the noisy frogs to Horseshoe Ridge, 4.5mi. Wish I had recorded a video of it but was in a bit of a rush.



Sat broke camp and made super time down to the Caribou River, turned north and had planned to go on to Dyer Creek but as I kept hiking I realized I was really enjoying the miles, so my plan for 8 mile days was quickly tossed. Alfred's Pond was quiet and serene, enjoyed a brief snack under the shifting clouds. Dyer was full of 20 somethings making a day of it, so I hiked on to Fredenberg Creek site, 14.4mi. The site was great, down the slope from the fire pit right on the creek there are two trees that worked great for a hanging spot.



Sun got under way and not more than 20 minutes in I heard a fast approaching rustling. Looked up and there was a MOOSE coming around the corner straight for me, I tried to dodge right but with two strides between us it veered off into the trees and crashed on until it was about 100 yds away. Think it was a female (no antlers, ~7 ft tall), and no calf thankfully. About 1/2 mile ahead I ran into a guy coming south who said he had also seen it and it had bounded away from him down the trail (towards me). Very cool sighting, but could have turned out much worse.



Again with no set plans I got the itch to keep going, stopping to admire the rivers and take some pictures. Somewhere around lunch I decided that I would at least make Carlton Peak and then see what happened. Hiking along the Temperance was fantastic, felt like outdoor air conditioning for 2 hours. Hike to the peak wasn't too bad by AT standards, fantastic views and well worth it.



At that point I finally felt my hiking urge had been satiated, and with my newish hiking shoes breaking in my feet as much as the other way around I opted to finally turn around, so I headed back down to Temperance St Park for overnight camping by the lake. And a hot shower.



Monday I didn't do much, relaxed along the lake shore and fooled around with my camera rig a bit, but otherwise found shade to relax in and picked up the shuttle back to George Crosby to spend the night at my reserved spot.



I wasn't quite ready to hike up there though, so I drove into Finland for a burger and some beers at West Branch bar - it was Memorial Day afterall. Feeling very American, I drove back to Crosby, shed my pack of stuff I wouldn't need that night (and grabbed my JRB camp stool) and hiked up to site #6. My fears of the park being full were unfounded, in fact every other site was unoccupied. Where the sign is for #6 it's pretty disappointing, but knowing I had a hammock I kept going up to the overlook, and right next to it there is a small copse of pine trees that made for a very peaceful hanging spot. The fire ring for the site is up there as well, so I wasn't really out of bounds.



Tuesday woke up with a great view, hiked back to my car and then headed back to Finland for breakfast. The omlette at Our Place was great and at $3.50/bottle their hot sauce is a steal.



I can't stress how much I enjoyed the variety of terrain - from conifers to maples to birch trees all missing their tops (I guessed ice storm, but apparently there's some genetic thing where at a certain age they just lose their heads!). The plentiful river and stream crossings were always a time to pause and catch my breath, and having the lake as a near constant on my right shoulder was oddly comforting. And lastly, unlike lots of trails out east there wasn't an absurd amount of climbing up and down giant granite boulders and glacial crevices.


Gear two-thumbs up:

• Prana Stretch Zion convertible pants
• Cotton balls briefly dipped in heated gel wax
• Treksta Evolution hiking shoes - super, super shoe, the Nestfit as they call it works great.
• EB/First Ascent Accelerant Jacket, built in wristies and the hood was great at night.
• Outlier Merino T-Shirts (would give these 4 thumbs up if I was a mutant)
• TATO Element Stove - quick to get a fire going, great ambiance, great as a wind shield for FF stove.
• HG Phoenix 40 and EE Rev 45 - I slept comfortably and warm, both quilts were outstanding.
• Packit Gourmet came through strong, I was well fed and the envy of two groups of Mountain House sufferers.

Gear one-thumb up:

• Stickpic - worked well for delayed shots, but very basic and had to shoot some treking-tripod shots upside down.
• MSR pack towel

Gear one-thumb down:

• Smartwool socks, well broken in but seemed to pill up at friction points. Darn Toughs were better..

Full set of pics on flickr.

[hikenbike]

What a great trip report. I'm headed up there in a few weeks and will trace many of your footsteps. Thanks for taking the time to put this together.

[Skygzr]

Great pictures, looks like you had awesome weather as well. The tree tops were broken off a few years ago by an ice storm followed by a very severe wind that moved along the Northshore area. I really love the SHT and consider it one of the very best trails in the US. well done

[Apeman1470]

That pic at night with the stars is outstanding! Also, what type of gel wax are you using with your cotton balls? Thnaks.

[mrcheviot]

Great pictures, looks like you had awesome weather as well. The tree tops were broken off a few years ago by an ice storm followed by a very severe wind that moved along the Northshore area. I really love the SHT and consider it one of the very best trails in the US. well done

I did think that the missing tops of the birch trees was a bit too uniform to be caused by disease alone, and I found some news reports of a major ice storm that hit the area in 2009. I also found reports of the general decline in birch health along the north shore due to changing ecosystem, so suspect it's a combination of both. The weather was great, perhaps a bit too sunny for all day hiking but I have no complaints considering the forecast when I packed called for rain & thunderstorms.

That pic at night with the stars is outstanding! Also, what type of gel wax are you using with your cotton balls? Thnaks.

I had fun experimenting w/ night photography, actually got a bit lucky on the tarp shot as you can see a shooting star in the sky (there was a small meteor shower on Friday night as well). Here's a link to the full sized pic, although it looks like significant noise was added during the export (along with light fringing from Silver Bay down the shore). I'll try to get a cleaner version posted.

As for the cotton balls, I've long wished for a way to avoid the mess involved with using vaseline, and after reading WB and some other sites found positive reviews for using candle gel wax instead. I followed the method shown in this Bushcraft Bartons video, and found that a quick dab in the melted wax using chopsticks was more than sufficient, otherwise it's much more difficult to open up the cotton gels to expose the dry cotton to a flint strike. The wax I used was Yaley crafting wax (avail on Amazon), which is low density and is apparently the best for making these. I'm going to post a thread in the camp kitchen section soon as I think the effort to make these is well worth it, they burn for about 10 minutes!


Thanks for the feedback!