Visiting MN- in Nov

Wow, it has been almost two months since my last post.  Yeesh.  So much has happened.  I actually wrote a post in November of my trip out to MN but never got a chance to publish it.  So.  Here it is.  I will write something else as an update in a few more days.

This past week I went to visit my mother in MN.  We planned to go explore the North Shore area since I had never been there before and make an adventure out of it all.  My check in luggage was a MASSIVE duffel since I had to fit 2 pairs of snowshoes, snow gear, trekking poles and winter boots in it.  My friends called it the body bag it was so large, haha!

Of course, after I landed I had to stop at REI since that store is my happy place.  Someday I will get my Grivel G1 SA+ ice axe or the Black Diamond Raven Pro ice axe.  Someday…

Till then, I will keep admiring them and wishing I had one.  I looked at mountaineering shoes and hell those are expensive!!!  Somehow I seem to find the more expensive outdoor hobbies, haha!  Minnesota was cold.  Of course.  But coming from Boise, it was COLD.

 

This is the map of the general route we took: https://goo.gl/maps/dvQVFGbuYJC2

Our first destination was Jay Cooke State Park.  This park had been utterly destroyed by the floods in 2012.  A dyke broke and water cut the park in half and swept the foot bridge over the St Louis River off its moorings.  It took over a year to repair and reopen the bridge.  The day was frigid.  Maaaybe 12F if we were lucky.  With a negative degree wind chill.  Luckily we hiked through the woods and were mostly protected from the brunt of the wind.  Mom wore her blaze orange sweatshirt.  I was impressed by her.  We hiked roughly 3mi in the cold.  We had the park to ourselves.  Not enough snow for the snowshoes, but deep enough.  My thighs were pretty cold, even with two layers of pants on.

 

 

We spent the night at the Lighthouse Bed and Breakfast (https://lighthousebb.org/) in Two Harbors, MN.  And WOW!  What an amazing place!  It is run by the local Historical Society and is still an active lighthouse.  Built in 1891.  Sold in 1970 to Two Harbors/Lake County Historical Society (https://www.lakecountyhistoricalsociety.org/).  Updated into a B&B in 1998.  So cool!  We got to go up to where the light is located and look out the port holes overlooking Lake Superior.  The entire place was renovated to classic parlor early 1900s style.  We had the entire place to ourselves, so we spent the evening hanging out in the parlor.  Our room overlooked the harbor which had the massive iron ore

 

For more info on the history of the Lighthouse, here is the link: https://lighthousebb.org/lighthouse-history I think it is so cool that local volunteers come in 2x/mo to check on the bulbs of the lighthouse and make sure it is functioning optimally.  The US Coast Guard turned over management rights of the lighthouse to Two Harbors in 2001.

 

It snowed on and off.  In the am it was near whiteout flurries for a bit.  We saw deer all over the area at the property.  Quite tame-ish.  Apparently there were once about 40 resident deer at Two Harbors and they had to take action to attempt to lower those populations.  (I am guessing via hunting and/or trapping/relocation).  We then went to Split Rock Lighthouse State park.  The buildings were not open yet, so we hiked toward Corundrum Point using the new book we purchased as a guide (https://www.amazon.com/Hiking-North-Shore-Minnesotas-Spectacular/dp/0979467527) .  Unfortunately, the guide did not match what the trail actually did.  We went down stairs at a boardwalk toward the shore.  Mom was apprehensive about having to climb back up but we found there was a bypass if we came back that way.  We ended up not getting to the point but on the south side if the point at Corundrum Mine which did not have an overly impressive view.  We turned back and took an alternate route back.  What was meant to be 3.7mi was most likely becoming a longer hike than planned.  Mom’s feet were hurting greatly.  I eventually got her to stop at a rest stop along the Gitchi-Gami paved trail (http://www.ggta.org/) that follows Hwy 61.  I then ran back to the truck and picked her up.  We decided to continue on to Grand Portage and skip the other hikes we had planned to give Mom’s feet some rest.

 

Along the drive we saw a bald eagle alongside the road eating deer carrion.  And then a juvenile bald eagle being harassed by crows.  Numerous deer.  A red fox greeted us at Grand Portage at the parking lot.  It circled the truck and sat outside the door.  *sigh* I wish people would not feed wildlife.  This behavior may be cute, but it is not natural and puts the animal in danger, as well as people.  We took the short trail to lower falls on the Pigeon River.  The north shore of this river is in Canada.  It was cold outside, but the views were amazing!  The weather has caused the waterfall to freeze in many spots and have giant ice flows and sheets on the river down flow.

 

We crossed the border here into Ontario, Canada.  The Border Agent wanted to know why we were going to Canada.  I told him so that I could saw I went to Canada.  He smiled, gave us our passports back and let us on our way.  Thunder Bay, from what I saw of it after the sun set, it nothing to rave about.  A standard industrial city with not much else.  Boring hotel.  Boring city.  It snowed that night.  Yay, no frost!!  We decided to go to Kakabeka Falls (https://www.ontarioparks.com/park/kakabekafalls) and explore those.  It was Veterans Day in the US and Remembrance Day in Canada.  The boardwalk was slippery, but the fresh snow helped for traction.  These falls were not quite a horseshoe shape.  You could cross a bridge to see the other side.  River depth was fairly shallow.  Falls in the winter are so majestic.  We planned to go explore Fort William Park, but I missed the turn so we decided to go back to the US and hit up the other state parks we missed the day before.

 

 

 

First park was Judge CR Magney State Park (http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/judge_cr_magney/index.html).  This man helped create many state parks in Minnesota.  So naming a park after him is very apt.  We hiked the Devil’s Kettle waterfalls trail.  Holy balls!  For a roughly 2.3mi round trip, over half of it was either solid ice at an incline/decline or stairs.  The guidebook did warn there were 177 stairs down to the falls.  I was worried about Mom on the stairs.  She managed to get down to where you can get to the overflow base of the kettle falls part, but was uncomfortable climbing up more stairs to get to the prior falls overlook.

 

This park, just as many others in the area, is open to hunters during deer hunting season, which is the first two weeks of November.  Perfect timing.  So we wore blaze orange while hiking.  Good thing mom bought blaze orange sweatshirts before I arrived.  And here I thought she was overdoing it.  Nope.  She was right on.  Like mom often is.

The day was VERY windy and the lake had massive whitecaps that would crash onto the shore.  We stopped so I could marvel at the power of the water and take photos of the areas where waves would hit and freeze the entire area.  It was so cold outside that the mist froze on the ground, trees, etc. around where the waves made contact.  We stopped and walked the grounds of Cascade River State Park, Temperance River State Park, took photos of Lutsen Mountains sign (teheehe, such a cute little “mountain”) and the Naniboujou Lodge.  I wish we could have stayed here.  The lodge looks so beautiful.

 

It was recommended to me that we eat at Sven and Ole’s Pizza in Grand Marais.  I was super hangry by this point and not very pleasant.  The pizza was good.  Nothing special.  I made the reservation for our stay that night.  And fucked it up epically by mixing up the dates.  Ooops!  That was a mess and the only tiff Mom and I had.  Which was ultimately, my fault.  But I did sort of fix it.   Cove Point Lodge it is!  All rooms had a lake view.  Rustic cabin feel to it.  It was nice to wake up and see and watch the water in the morning with coffee in hand.  I finally got to try pickled herring at their continental breakfast.  It was not that bad!  We drove to Tettegouche State Park (http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/tettegouche/index.html) and hiked to Shovel Point.  Which was AMAZING!  302 steps one-way.  Yup.  You read that right.  And Mom did it!!  Which means she did 604 steps in all on that trail.  The trail is only ~1mi in each direction.  But you gain about 600’ in that mile.  Which did not feel too steep since the stairs were so nicely put into the steep sections to make it easier.  The visitor center is brand new and amazing!  So very nice.  It is also a rest stop along Hwy 61.  I highly recommend this park to anyone.  We could not hike anywhere else since it was closed for hunting.

 

We drove down to see the historic buildings at Split Rock Lighthouse SP, but they had just closed for the season the day before.  Ha, go figure!  So we wandered around and took photos.  Then we stopped at Gooseberry Falls SP.  Yeesh!  Talk about slippery!  The snow was packed down so hard and so smoothly that we could not safely take the stairs and walking the zig zag ramp route was stressful.  We walked off the path into the brush for some traction.  Mom made it!  We only made it to the first falls since the walking conditions were so horrid.  Lots of people were out as well.  We took our photos and turned around.

We then drove to Duluth.  Had lunch.  Shopped at the Duluth Trading Co retail store (so awesome!) and drove home.  We stopped at Moose Lake State Park on the way to check it off our list.  It feels more like a Lucky Peak State Park- built for recreation for swimming. 

 

 

All in all, I had a very good trip visiting Mom and exploring the North Shore.  I am glad to show her my outdoor passions and explore an area I had never explored before.  Mom is certainly going out of her comfort zone and I am so proud of her!  Go Mom!  You're a badass!