July 6, 2024

Stealth campsite to Silver Bay

7.8 miles

My alarm goes off at 5, I become conscious, and the first thing I see is slugs. All over my tent. The more I look, the more I see. Alright, that’s it. This trail is shifting something indelible in my brain. I will not exit this experience with a positive opinion of slugs. Before, I thought they were cute. Now, they are a gag-inducing menace. I mean, have you ever flicked a slug? Tried to pry one off your tent with a stake? They are thick, wet, muscly little freaks. They are just, like, ALL muscle. And there are millions of them everywhere this morning and I hate them now, I just really hate them, I’m sorry, but I just do. Machine has it worse than me though. The slugs seem to like his double-walled tent and have taken up residence on the rain fly in between the inside of that and the mesh inner lining. I finish packing up, DEETing up, and steeling myself to face my demons (read: slugs and mosquitoes) and begin my day.

There is much shaking, flicking, and prying off of slugs before either of us can pack our tents up. I check every corner of mine as thoroughly as I can, but I’m still convinced that there’s one hanging out somewhere that I just can’t see, and the idea of there being a smashed slug somewhere in my pack is just repulsive. But I do my best. We’re walking by 6:00, a record. The combination of just wanting to get out of that terrible spot and wanting to get to town is powerful. Or, to put it in Machine’s words, “It’s the power of slugs and town!”

We come across a trail parking center not far past the Baptism River Campground, and I notice some picnic tables through the trees near a kids’ outdoor play area. I make coffee with the last of my fuel and have breakfast. After a short break we’re on our way.

The trail is a standard mix of okay and slop. Machine and I are having an interesting chat about references in media to other works, like the eyeball-squishing scene in King Lear and the reference to it in Kill Bill (his observation, not mine) and what makes an allusion effective versus forced. Then we brainstorm some additions to our Triple Crown video game idea. I’m really stoked on this vision. Any video game developers reading this? Let’s talk.

We pass through an area marked on the map as the “Drainpipe,” which is really just a set of stairs through a narrow, steep corridor, and not long after we climb up Mt. Trudy, which is a rough and very steep climb, but worth it. The day is lovely and we randomly erupt into dancing at the top in the sunlight. We aren’t far from town and we are joyous! There are mosquitoes but we are still joyous!

The rest of the way is mostly downhill. We reach an ATV track on the left and take it, meeting up with another ATV track, and we’re roasting in the sun and town feels SO CLOSE but it is still SO FAR so I put on “Fishing for Fishies” and we boogie as we tear up the road walk miles.

Finally, we manage a rocky, uppy-downy SHT spur trail for the last leg of our going-to-town journey, and it spits us out at a road where we can just barely see the edge of a gas station. Convenience store! Gatorade! It pulls us magnetically. It turns out to be Bri-Essa’s convenience store, and rather than having just simple gas station fare, there is also a small restaurant. I am overwhelmed. We both buy bacon cheeseburgers and share an order of cheese curds. On top of that, I purchase both a 32-ounce Gatorade (for hydration) and Coke Zero (for yum). There is a little covered metal stand at the counter that’s labeled “Burger Fixin’s.” When we open it up, I can hear the angels singing. There are the usual burger toppings—lettuce, tomato, onion, jalapeño—but there is also a smorgasbord of sauces in little packets for the taking. It’s a hiker’s dream. I grab some mayo and spicy sauce to pack out and slather my burger in lettuce, tomato, and ketchup. It’s not the best burger I’ve ever had, but in that moment it is simply delicious.

By some miracle, we had arrived to to town not long after 10. Machine calls the hotel and they say we can’t check in until after 12:30, so we sit at the store for a bit. I do phone things. I eat an ice cream bar and have a coffee, because I didn’t have enough beverages. Then we go next door and knock out our resupply at Zup’s. We lowkey love Zup’s. It has a pretty good selection of hiker food, including an impressive variety of dried fruit. There are also Zup’s t-shirts, which we do not buy and immediately regret, and we resolve to come back.

Once we’ve done that, we walk one mile to our hotel. I notice flags on the telephone poles with a little mascot that says “Rocky Welcomes You.” He looks like a little miner, with two black balls one on top of the other, little gloves, a miner’s hat, and a pick in one hand. As we’re walking down the road, I spot a statue in the distance. “Oh my god, I think that’s Rocky,” I say. Sure enough. There’s a Rocky Taconite statue to commemorate the town’s mining heritage. “Take my picture!” I command. Machine acquiesces. Later I take his as well.

The walk to the hotel is not pleasant; it’s along Minnesota 61 and a little terrifying. But the hard work pays off when we get to the hotel and Machine spots one of those red wacky waving inflatable tube guys next to a putt-putt course in front of the building. I drop my resupply bag and walk over to it, impersonating the wavy arm movement. I love these things. I don’t know how to explain it. They just have my energy.

We check in and immediately get to our hiker chores: repacking the resupply, washing literally everything, showering. I regret not taking a photo of the sock soup we made in the bathtub when we prewashed our disgusting socks. It’s the worst I’ve ever seen, and the PCT had some pretty bad stretches of filth. But once I am clean and everything has been laundered, I feel human again.

To get back to the shopping complex that holds both Zup’s and the Northwoods Family Grille for dinner, Machine has the front desk contact the Silver Bay Shuttle Service. We’d seen it when we arrived: basically a guy named Phil in a decorated golf cart who drives people around the area. Phil arrives shortly and takes us up to the restaurant—using a gravel road that goes underneath the highway and totally avoids the road walk we did earlier. We both put this information away for later. Phil and his golf cart are great. He’s got oldies blasting, the cart is all decorated and has color-changing lights, and he has a bubble-blowing machine. He drops us off right in front of the restaurant. (Sadly, I didn’t get a photo. I was too overwhelmed with whimsy in the moment to remember.)

Dinner is delicious. We both have burgers and our respective beverages: a Voyageur Devil’s Kettle IPA for me and a Dr. Pepper for Machine (he doesn’t typically drink alcohol, which I find impressive, considering my love for craft beer), and after our burgers we share a delicious slice of key lime pie. Over the meal we ponder our plans for Two Harbors, our next trail town, and the end of the trail.

It’s become clear at this point that we will not be able to do the “total” thru-hike we had planned all the way to the Minnesota-Wisconsin border. It’s been too difficult and we’ve taken too many days off and short days to make it before our scheduled flight. This is fine with me. The SHT originally went from the Martin Road Trailhead just north of Duluth all the way to the northern terminus, but in later years they linked urban trails together to take the SHT through Duluth and then to Jay Cooke State Park and the border. So when you say you’re doing a thru of the SHT, the question is “total or traditional?” We wanted to do the total, but changing our flight and managing the logistics of getting back to the Twin Cities without a ride seems like a lot just for a couple of extra days of hiking, so we resolve to come back up in the fall and sweep up those last miles, and to just to the “traditional” thru hike for now.

It’s not what we originally planned, but that’s kind of the spirit of this whole hike. We underestimated the challenge and have been humbled. I thought we would be able to just roll up, easily tear through the “flat” terrain, and squeeze out a 300-mile hike in less than three weeks. The reality is not as simple. This isn’t the PCT. This isn’t the Camino. It is not flat or easy or dry. It is definitely more like the AT than I imagined. And I am not fast. I’m not one of those hikers who can just crank out miles. I have persistent old injuries, I hurt, I have malfunctioning veins, I need breaks, I like town days and enjoying myself. I’m sorry, I will just never be an FKTer or big-mile hiking bro. (I don’t know why I feel the need to apologize for this.) All this is to say: the thru we are managing to do will end in Duluth for now, and that’s fine.

By the time dinner is over it’s past the ending hours for the shuttle, and we feel like we might need to walk to digest a bit, so we meander back to the hotel, this time taking the gravel road shortcut rather than walking on the highway, which is much better and actually quite peaceful. At the hotel we visit the hot tub, which is part of a rather impressive (and somewhat random for this otherwise unassuming hotel) pool complex. There’s a 110-foot water slide ending in the main pool, and the kiddie pool has an adorable frog water slide. Why not in adult pool? I want to go down the frog tongue. The hot tub is lovely; no comparing to the one in Grand Marais, but nothing ever will, really. It is a peaceful way to end this very successful nero.