Wild River State Park

Hiking Club Trail #5

​HIKE DETAILS
Date: October 6, 2017
Location: Center City, MN
Length: 3.3 Miles (Hiking Club Trail), + a lot of miles on a lot of other trails
Difficulty: Easy: (HCT) Half of the trail is paved, the other half follows wide paths next to the river
Cumulative Hiking Club Miles: 13.4 of 197

This day didn't really go as planned, but that's alright.

It had been a pretty wet fall up to this point, and it had rained a lot a few days prior to this hike so when we got there to hike the Hiking Club trail we found half of it closed because the river was too high and had flooded the path. I found this more annoying than I should have (a good reminder to check the MN DNR website for trail conditions prior to leaving if you have a specific plan in mind) but in order to make the most of our trip we started down the next closest trail...

Got a mile down that trail and had to back track because the trail was closed due to high water... UGH!

We found a new trail heading away from the River (Pioneer Trail) and from there we took any trail that looked good - so this won't be the most informative post. We wound through a meadow, over a creek and through the woods until we came back across the paved path.

The thing we were hoping to see most on this trip was the Old Nevers Dam site (sounds cool right?) - this was supposed to be along our HCT hike - it looked like the paved path would get us down there as well and we hoped that when we got there it wouldn't be under water. We got down there - stumbled across the HCT password - and made it to the sight, which was nothing special just the river with informational signage (I didn't even take a picture).

But on the way out of there I found a piece of birch bark hanging in a tree with words written on it - "How lucky we are to escape into the peace captured in the water"... that day the water wasn't providing me much peace but in a way that piece of birch bark spoke to me - how lucky are we to be able to explore the saved spaces that the State Parks system has to offer?

Then it started to rain - this day was good and trying all at the same time!