Yesterday's SHT adventure

[dougb]

Yesterday a small group of us got up in the wee hours of the morning and
drove up north to run the new section of the Superior Hiking Trail. I drove
up with Mary, while Scott, Pierre and Alicia drove up together. We met at
the Twin Ponds Trailhead parking lot in Enger Park in Duluth and left 1 car
there and then drove back south to the Grand Portage Trailhead in Jay Cooke
State Park. Ed Dallmann met us there to run some of the trail with us and we
took off at about 8:30.

What a perfect day it was to spend out on the trail. The weather was awesome! There was a few inches of snow on the ground but
the trail was easy to follow for the most part.

I think there was only 1 small section of trail where there were no foot prints to follow.Lots of ups and downs thru beautiful pine and birch trees and nice bluffs and ridges to run on. The footing was pretty good for the most part except for some mostly frozen creeks to gingerly walk across and some slippery snow sections. I think we all fell once except for Pierre.

There were quite a few runnable sections. Those of us who didn't wear Gore-tex footwear had wet toes early on but luckily it warmed up quite a bit so it didn't turn into a problem.

The views from the summit of Ely's Peak were great; I was surprised at how
windy it was up there. Ed decided to run with us until we got to the Spirit
Mountain area. His wife Linda was there to pick him up and brought us water,
Gatorade, pretzels and peanut butter sandwiches to refuel up on which we
greatly appreciated. Thanks Linda! This turned out to be very crucial for us
due to my miscalculations on the total mileage we would be doing. More on
that in a minute...

Anyway up we climbed again. The trail after this was a mix of woods, creek
crossings and open meadows with rocky areas. You could hear the nearby I-35 during this section and see it at times too. As we came by where we crossed under I-35, we saw a large buck. Into the woods we went again on the other side of the freeway and then we had to walk on a few paved streets- mostly residential to get back into the woods. It was nice to get away from the I-35 noise. We followed a few creeks as we continued and the trail was more rocky in this area. We would see Enger Tower way off in the distance and think of how far we had to go yet.

The views from the hilltops of Duluth were awesome. With how long we had been out and with how far away our end point seemed to be, I looked at my map and added up the trail section mileage and oops, it wasn't the 22 miles like I had thought, but 27 miles.

The SHT Duluth section map said 22 miles but I think that must of referred
to the new section of trail they just completed this year. We were all
getting tired and very low on fluids. We would have been toast if Linda
didn't bring us some aid earlier on in the day.

With approx. 3 miles to go, I led everyone on the wrong trail but luckily we only went a short way and I realized there weren't any blue blazes. Back up to the top of the Knob and of course there was the trail right off to the side of where we went; I just followed the wrong set of footprints. We were in and out of woods in a residential area for a short while. No one was talking much as we trudged along. Finally as the sun was starting to set, we arrived at Enger Park. We rung the large bell the trail passed by a few times which sounded quite somber...fitting for how we felt at that time. Thru some woods and a rocky short section again and there was Skyline Drive and ...Alicia's car.

We had finally made it shortly before 4:30. It took us about 8 hours. We were tired and famished! It was sure an awesome training run. We changed and then headed to Pizza Luce'. After finally being seated, Scott asked what the fastest appetizer we could get would be and within 30 seconds we were
devouring chips and salsa. The pizza sure hit the spot. Then it was time to
head home; had to go back to Jay Cooke first to get my car. A few hours
later I was finally home and crashed in bed. What a great Saturday!