Hiking Club Trail #43 HIKE DETAILS Date: June 7, 2022 Location: Roseau, MN Length: 2.0 Miles Difficulty: Easy Cumulative Hiking Club Miles: 122.9 of 197 BUGS.... So many mosquitoes! This park is beautiful, I wish I could have enjoyed it more - but if you stopped moving, thousands of mosquitoes would swarm you. The Lake was pristine with a nice beach. Campground looked nice. Walking through the pines with the view of the lake was my favorite part. I will be back to see the rest of what this park has to offer. I really do think it has the possibility to be one of my favorite parks. We did see the smallest fawn I've ever see while driving out through the Beltrami Island Forest it had to have been brand new and under a foot tall.
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Hiking Club Trail #42 HIKE DETAILS Date: June 6, 2022 Location: Birchdale, MN Length: 1.3 Miles Difficulty: Easy Cumulative Hiking Club Miles: 120.9 of 197 This park is up there - It's on the Canadian Border and it's a Park I knew nothing about. The GPS didn't quite know where it was either... it took us down a dirt road on the back side of the park where there were no access roads, but we found it. This area has had record flooding this spring so we weren't even sure we'd be able to hike it given that it sits right on the Rainy River. The hiking club trail starts at the top of a hill that takes you right down to the river. Upon getting to the bottom we found out if we wanted to find the password in this Park we needed to find another way - the river was moving quickly and the trail was underwater... This park is small and I was able to find a route that could get me back to the HCT which hopefully wouldn't be underwater. This park has not been well maintained recently - probably due to the flooding and remoteness of this park. The hike was muddy, buggy, swampy and hard to navigate. You did have a nice view of Ontario Canada and the Rainy river throughout the hike. Sometimes the conditions just don't work out, we did get the password so it's still a win but, this isn't a park I need to come back to. Hiking Club Trail #41 HIKE DETAILS Date: June 6, 2022 Location: Waspish, MN Length: 2.0 Miles Difficulty: Easy Cumulative Hiking Club Miles: 119.6 of 197 We are determined to get more hiking in this year than we have the last couple of years. So today starts a week long vacation to hike the Parks in the NW corner of the state. I've been trying to make it to this park since we started the Hiking Club years ago, but it is 4 hours away. This was the perfect time as it was on the way to our AirBnB in Warroad. It's the largest peat bog in the lower 48 states. This was a beautiful/educational, easy hike. The boardwalk is fantastic. We saw a variety of bog plants - Bog Rosemary, Pitcher Plants and Cotton Grass to name a few. The whole hike felt a little like walking through Whoville the black spruce trees just make it feel like another world. Hiking Club Trail #40 HIKE DETAILS Date: April 17, 2022 Location: Winona, MN Length: 2.5 Miles Difficulty: Easy Cumulative Hiking Club Miles: 117.6 of 197 First hike of 2022 + Easter Sunday - we might make this a tradition. There are less people in the parks due to the Holiday - just the way I like it. The trail was nice and started up high on the bluffs, so there wasn't a ton of climbing. Roots and rocks but nothing unmanageable. The trail leads to a beautiful overlook, looking over the bluffs and the Mississippi River - this hike would be spectacular in the fall! It's an out and back so you follow the trail back the way you came. We did have a surprise run in with an unleashed dog which caused mass chaos for my dogs. Rio got out of her harness while I was getting Penny out of control - thank goodness her and the unleashed dog just sniffed each other. The woman with the dog didn't leash it and just lingered around for awhile getting my dogs more and more worked up. The rules are there for a reason - please keep your dogs leashed! John A. Lasch is HARD - small park, only one trail and it is all stairs... We stopped to get our passport club stamp and Rio and I decided while we are here we are going to hike it! 585 stairs to the top (and back to the bottom) - the views are amazing (would be better in summer or fall). My legs were like Jello climbing down, but we did it! Hiking Club Trail #39 HIKE DETAILS Date: September 23, 2021 Location: Solway, MN Length: 2.9 Miles Difficulty: Easy Cumulative Hiking Club Miles: 115.1 of 197 This was the last hike of my Birthday trip. It was way shorter than what is listed in the book. My watch clocked 1.6 miles instead of the listed 2.9. Trail was easy - a little strange as you start in a gated area (to keep deer out) follow a mostly grass trail to a dead end that overlooks the Mississippi River, then you hike back. Since the trail was shorter than expected and the weather was beautiful - we decided to go check out the picnic area and eat lunch and do a small amount of hiking down to La Salle Lake. The park is very clean, nice and well maintained. It was also our last day at the cabin so I threw in some pics of our off hiking day yesterday - we had fun on the lake paddle boarding and just enjoying the weather. Hiking Club Trail #38 HIKE DETAILS Date: September 21, 2021 Location: Park Rapids, MN Length: 3.5 Miles Difficulty: Moderate Cumulative Hiking Club Miles: 112.2 of 197 Happy 40th Birthday to me. Outside of the North Shore Itasca is my favorite - the Park is huge and has something for everyone. Miles of hiking, many lakes and the headwaters of the Mississippi River. We came to hike the Hiking Club trail this time - which brought us to a part of the park I haven't explored before. We saw 4 people on this trail all day - which is amazing for one of MN's most popular parks. The weather was perfect with puffy white clouds in the sky reflecting off all of the lakes. The HCT is on the opposite side of the park as the headwaters which is probably why it was so quiet. The trail was moderately hard with lots of hills, rock and roots - which makes it hard to lead my mom through. Penny veered off the trail every time she could get close to a lake, drinking out of all but one which when she got down to it she immediately turned around and peed in it, I guess she liked that one best and wanted to claim it as her own. After the hike we went over to the headwaters - it had been 20+ years since I had visited so it was a must see. Hiking Club Trail #37 HIKE DETAILS Date: September 20, 2021 Location: Bemidji, MN Length: 2.0 Miles Difficulty: Easy Cumulative Hiking Club Miles: 108.7 of 197 Birthday Trip 2021 - this year I turn 40 so we are making a week of it. We rented a wonderful AirBnB Cabin on a lake just outside of Remer, MN we are using it as home base to hike a few State Parks. First stop was the Bog Walk at Lake Bemidji state park. This was a nice hike after 4+ hours in the car. It was raining and fairly cool outside, which was perfect because it meant we were less likely to run into other dogs on a boardwalk - the last thing I need is to have Penny worked up about other dogs with nowhere to go. This boardwalk is short and narrow but it provided a different scenery than we are used to. Bogs are interesting environments with even more interesting plants - like carnivorous pitcher plants. Not only is my Mom trying to complete the Minnesota State Park Hiking Club - she is also trying to visit all 50 states. She isn't quite as actively pursuing the latter. Two years ago when I took my niece to Hawaii my Mom adamantly said she didn't want to go (I think the believed she would ruin our adventures because of her disability), fast forward we are starting year 2 of the Covid pandemic and everyone is stir crazy - Hawaii gets brought back up and shortly there after I am trying to navigate the new world of travel that requires vaccines and heath checks... This was our first trip since the pandemic shut down the world in March of 2020. Hawaii was the farthest we could go, as American's still weren't allowed to enter most other countries. Hawaii had way less tourists as their borders were only open to American's after negatived Covid tests and a health check at the airport. Definitely a different way to travel, but definitely worth it. My mom, her friend Pat, my niece and I fully masked boarded a direct flight to Honolulu June 11th, 2021. We would again stay on Waikiki beach, this time renting a car for part of the time. Travel is always interesting with my Mom - as you know she is visually impaired, but that doesn't stop us from adventuring. Highlights of this trip: Climbing Diamond Head, Pearl Harbor, My Mom and Pat's first time swimming in the ocean (I still find this hard to believe as they are in their late 60's - they both said they have waded in before but never swam), Paradise Cove Luau, The Dole Plantation, A Raptor Tour at Kualoa Ranch, Stopping at random beaches to swim and explore, Nu'uanu Pali Lookout, Leonards Bakery, Ho'omaluhia Botanical Gardens, Byodo-in Temple, and snorkeling at Hanauma Bay (the clearest I have ever seen it - the pandemic did wonders for the reef). What do you do when the Polar Vortex hits? You go searching for a caveman, of course. An artist hid a Caveman and a Cavewoman in different local parks in the Twin Cities. They are said to be off hiking trails where people who are searching will have easy access. I got a clue that the Caveman was at Theodore Wirth Park and I had a rough idea of where to find him. So my mom, my niece and I headed out into the -20 degree weather hoping to find him. After about a mile walk we found him - a good time was had by all and it was a nice way to beat the winter blues. Hiking Club Trail #36 HIKE DETAILS Date: September 21, 2020 Location: McGreggor, MN Length: 5.3 Miles Difficulty: Easy Cumulative Hiking Club Miles: 106.7 of 197 Birthday Hike 2020! This park is huge and I can't wait to come back and hike more of it. The fall colors were spectacular!!! This park is really well maintained, trails were great and the signage was even better. This park has quickly become one of my favorites. The Hiking Club trail takes you to a view point of the Continental Divide between the Mississippi and the St. Louis Rivers. It also brings you along part of the Savanna Portage Trail - this is an historic trail that was used by fur traders, American Indians and voyageurs. The last part of the trail takes you through some tall red pines (love the smell!). Overall great day, beautiful colors, and a good long hike where I got to test my new hands free double leash for the dogs - it's a game changer for sure! |
AuthorThis is my quest to find my place beneath the stars - outside the confines of my office and without the pressures of everyday life. Archives
November 2023
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