First Superior Hiking Trail Overnight

[Saul Panzer]

My son and I recently completed our first overnight on the Superior Hiking Trail. We hiked the first section of the Duluth to Two Harbors portion last Friday.

20141031_154659.jpg

The weather was very nice for walking and we couldn’t have asked for better conditions getting out to our campsite. Having lost the second page of the trail section description, we thought we had missed the first site due to a very active beaver population knocking dozens of trees over by the first beaver dam. That ended up not being the first camp site, and we eventually found the right spot another mile down the trail.

20141031_170057.jpg 20141031_172738.jpg

We set up camp and had a nice fire at the provided stone fire-ring. That night’s meal was an MRE pack a friend had given me a while back. We couldn't get the heating element to work right, but the Tortellini was at least luke warm, and the rest of the meal was pretty tasty.

20141031_181528.jpg

It got down to 18 degrees (F) that night, and I now realize that feet which are cold when entering a sleeping bag seem to stay cold all night. I slept fairly well until a 3am wake-up call from some nearby wolves. From that point on, I listened to owls, wolves and other various animals until about 6 am, when I decided to get up and restart the camp fire for breakfast.

My son slept the entire night, and I had to wake him up for a breakfast of dehydrated beef stroganoff. Our water supply froze solid the night before and my attempts to slowly thaw out the Nalgene bottle by the fire end up with a bubble being formed in the cylinder. As the sun was starting to rise I noticed several large objects in the trees that surround the beaver pond we were camp by. When there was enough light to see clearly, I realized they were 8 bald eagles! All but one of them eventually took off at about the same time, and it was a true sight to behold.

20141101_080335.jpg

Nalgene Bottle Bubble.PNG

My son used his GoPro to film some of our journey, and every time he signed off a recording session, he would say “All clear in Sector 7!”…evidently he’s been watching Shug videos on the side.

The trek to our extraction point was a 2 mile jaunt after breakfast through some clear cuts and piney woods. It was a great little trip and was an awesome way to start our weekend!

[Xdbass]

Nice write up. Nothing better than spending time outdoors with your kids in my opinion! Looks a like you had fun. Thanks for thr trip report.

[2ply]

Looks like y'all had a great time in the piney woods.

[outdoorsguy]

beef stroganoff for breakfast, I like it

[Refreshing]

That is awesome that your kid stayed asleep all night, looks like he is already a professional hammocker and I am happy to see the patches of snow because that means winter is just around the bend! So from your report it sounds like the trail from Duluth to Two Harbors is finally finished?

[AKA Pete]

....We set up camp and had a nice fire at the provided stone fire-ring. That night’s meal was an MRE pack a friend had given me a while back. We couldn't get the heating element to work right, but the Tortellini was at least luke warm, and the rest of the meal was pretty tasty....

I eat MRE's pretty regular when I'm camping. The packaged meal is pretty bulky and heavy. Before you go - open up the package, strip all the boxes off, sort through getting rid of all the trash, heater and stuff you don't want. Stack the meal parts back together and run a piece of postal tape around it.

To heat simply scrunch the packs you want to heat into what you use to boil water. When boiling remove the packs, make a cup of coffee, open the packs and enjoy your meal.

The sausage gravy meal with cornbread makes a darn good breakfast.

[AScott]

Good report, Mr. L. Looks like you guys had a good trip. Maybe we could do a trip some time in the future with you guys and me and N.

So from your report it sounds like the trail from Duluth to Two Harbors is finally finished?

Yep. Opened up last summer. You can hike from one end to the other now (if all the sections by Jay Cooke are finally open again; not sure about that).

[Shug]

Whoooooooo Buddies)))))))))
A right goodie for sure.
Shug

[hooky]

Nice trip report. It's hard to beat time in the woods with your son. I hope you have many more nights out there with him.

[STinGa]

Thanks for sharing the trip and the pics. I wasn't able to get out to the woods, but we did camp out in the back yard over the weekend. We don't have any white fluffy stuff yet, but we did get down to 40, which is the coldest my kids have camped in.

STinGa