Start: Silver Bay (Penn Blvd.)
End: East Branch Baptism River Campsite
Day 7-9 mileage: 33.4 miles
Total mileage: 128.1 miles
We decided to take a “zero” day and the morning was spent touring the grounds of the Split Rock Lighthouse which we saw from afar the day before. It was beautiful and the caretaker’s home was perfectly preserved.
We dropped off my resupply boxes at Lutsen Mountain (where we saw spectacular fall color) and Grand Marais before dropping my car off at the northern terminus of the SHT. We spent the late afternoon strolling around Grand Marais, where we saw another lighthouse and had a great dinner at the Bluewater Cafe.
I had a homemade veggie burger and didn’t realize I missed beans so much! Tomorrow Domonick drops me off at Silver Bay for me to finish the remaining 160 miles of trail, alone. I am still nervous about camping alone, but this is a fear I am determined to overcome. It may take time, but hopefully by the end of the trail, being alone (sleeping, specifically) in the wilderness will feel more natural.
Domonick dropped me off at the Penn Blvd. Trailhead in Silver Bay and I was hiking a little before 9am. What I didn’t say to Domonick was that I was holding back tears. I had this incredible urge to cry for some reason. Maybe it was nerves, maybe I felt the pressure of embarking out on my own. [I revealed this to Domonick after the hike was all over, and he said he didn’t feel like crying, but he was nervous about me, “She knows what she’s doing, right?”]
I was shocked, within the first 2 hours of hiking, I saw about 20 people on the trail. All day, I think I saw over 30 backpackers and countless day hikers. It was Sunday after all, but this was way more people than we had seen up until that point. It was foggy most of the day and the trail kept bringing me to peaks (Mt. Trudee, for example) from which I saw nothing. The trail went through Tettegouche State Park which was spectacular, with the Baptism River running through it. The trail goes by High Falls which was amazing and is the highest waterfall completely in Minnesota.
I met a group of five hikers going North and found out they were camping at a site 0.1 miles from me. My worries went from spending the night alone to there not being enough sites for everyone. I hurried along and the fog began to lift. The sun began to blast a muggy and fierce heat and my shirt got instant “hiker funk”. I was greeted with a view of Johnson Lake where I saw a couple canoes.
Canoe is to Minnesota as kayak is to the UP (at least in my observations). Turns out the group of 5 was able to fit at their campsite, and a solo guy camped at my site too. I felt better having someone nearby that night.
The morning afforded some steep hiking to Sawmill Dome and Section 13. The best fall colors yet!
The rest of the evening had fairly flat terrain. Around 5pm, I ran into a guy going south. It didn’t sound like he was going very far. I had already put in 18 miles that day. I told him I was camping a couple miles down, as I was trying to get to Lutsen by Thursday morning as heavy rain was forecasted and I wanted to spend the day sitting in their ski lodge or get a room. He warned me about the upcoming section in Crosby-Manitou State Park, saying there were steep ups and downs. I got a little concerned my plan to speed through wouldn’t work out. He said he could only do four miles the day he went through there. Wow. I ended up camping by myself, which I still am not used to, but managed some quality sleep.