Day 7: Wednesday, September 7: Crow Creek to Big Bend

Garmin Data:

I woke up to my alarm early in the morning, but snoozed for an additional 10 minutes. I seemed to drift off again, even in the short period of time. Tim, the guy two feet away from me, was snoring still, sleeping flat on the ground, sleeping pad twisted beneath him and his sleeping bag curled over him like a botched tootsie roll re-wrap job.

I packed up as it was just getting light. I wanted to get an early start because the forecast had said afternoon and evening thunderstorms. Bring it on. I stopped at the latrine in the early morning on my way out, and lets just say I saved my precious toilet paper strips in lieu of my extra boxers that had been soaking wet for about 60 hours. Once I got them wet in the East Branch Baptism River, they never dried completely. And so I left them in a hole, but the sacrifice was worth the refreshment and weight savings. I was definitely the first person to stir, and I left quietley in the early morning dawn. A few steps down the Crow Creek and I filled up my water, ate four smooshed breakfast bars and sipped deep on my water. It was definitely getting gunked up and I’d have to backflush the filter at the Big Bend campsite, 34 miles away. Hopefully not in the rain. On the first big overlook, I checked my phone.

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It was shaping up to be another day of good hiking, but thunderstorms overnight. Not bad, I’d done it before. Twice the past three nights, in fact. I thought about how I’d set up at Big Bend, a site I had camped at several times before. One time, I hiked in three miles, set up for two nights to have a long weekend of trail running. After one night, on the Saturday, my dog Diamond got quilled by a porcupine a quarter mile from the campsite. We packed up, walked three miles back out with quills poking out everywhere and cut the trip short a night.

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I knew it was an easy hike, and once past Reeves Road, it’d really be on. That is about 2oo miles in, 100 miles to go. Plus, I pulled the plug on a long weekend trip earlier in the year at the Reeves Road parking lot because the forecast called for thunderstorms. This time, I’d get redemption. Bring on the thunderstorms. Nothing I believe will change what weather does.

In the meanwhile, I trucked past some deep river gorges, the beautiful Castle Danger, and got my feet all wet at the Encampment River. The rain made the creek swell and I wasn’t able to rock hop.

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It was very muddy through County Road 301. I thought of my buddy Pete at the Crow Creek campsite the night before, hiking in on his thru hike, 7 miles on the very first day to stay at Crow Creek. By now, 2 hours and 30 minutes into the hike, 7.5 miles on the day and it was barely 9:30am. Was Pete even awake? How many miles will he make the day he gets past Judge C.R. Magney State Park?

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It was tough walking along Silver Creek. This is such a cool section, but I was draggin’. All I wanted to do was chill by the river and eat my whole Clif Bar. Just scarf it down. But I did not, I ate one small bit, quickly filled up my water bottle and kept walking. The fatigue didn’t cease out of Silver Creek onto the tall and wet grass all the way to County Road 2 and the Reeves Road trailhead. However, I was excited to get to the big section through the Lake County Demonstration Forest, and just pushed on through with excitement for that.

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I anxiously checked my phone on the half-mile roadwalk south on County Road 2, just north of Two Harbors. It really was shaping up to be a perfect day of walking–the morning was windy and cloudy, just how I like it. There were no bugs thus far, but I’d seen reports of bad bugs right in this section between Two Harbors and Duluth. The storms were inevitable, but they were pushing them off later and later, and the forecast was calling for fair skies until at least dark. Perfect. I can take any storm as long as I can set up in fair weather. I was in good spirits into the Lake County Demo Forest, but I could definitely tell that my body was starting to feel the fatigue. I couldn’t remember if I was walking any faster or slower than the first day with fresh legs. Well, 4 hours and 20 minutes in and 13 miles is right on track for 3 mph. It was day 7, so my food stash was down 2/3, meaning a scant five pounds left. My whole pack weight, less one pair of boxers, was probably even below 15 pounds. It no issue to haul it, and it was no issue to walk. The monotony and tediousness of not stopping walking was the hard part.

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Through the woods, I heard people, and some trash bins clanging together or something. It must be private land. Nope, it was a road, some guys were loading up trash bins or something. Wait, it was a Superior Hiking Trail maintenance crew! Cool! I chatted away with a few of the guys. One was definitely in charge, and I wondered if it was Larry Sampson, who I’d seen on so many SHT newsletters and such. I didn’t ask, though, and they ushered me along after talking about speed hiking for a bit. Time is of the essence! Yeah, yeah, ‘ya gotta stay moving, but I laughed how trivial just a few minutes of leisurely chatting is. They seemed to think it was a marathon mindset where every second counts, and I was laughing to myself walking walking away. Nope, THIS is what speed hiking looks like. Regular ol’ walking.

My online campsite calculator was somehow way off and at 14 miles on the day, I was calculating a much smaller day, around 30 miles or less total, to Big Bend. I was looking at a nice and early night into camp. Things were good, dry and good, walking through the Demonstration Forest.

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I started thinking about lunch, and wanted to get to a river to eat. It wasn’t going to happen, so I sat on a rock outcropping. There was a tiny slice of rock not wet or mossy. I took of my socks to air out my feet just a bit, and they were really wet from the dew on the grass near Silver Creek. Another day of trench foot…

The food was so tasty, and I was having a tough time rationing. I could finally see and really plan out the last bit of food, and was really happy to remember that I packed four bags of Lays and three Cheetos. I thought it was three and three, so decided to save the bonus bag of chips for Friday, my ninth and final hike. It was great to sit down, and I calculated my final afternoon stop at 4:20pm sharp to be near 12 Mile View and just a few miles from the campsite. That was motivating, the day felt still young, and I was happy to cruise through the easy woods.

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I filled up water in Stewart River and hiked up the little climb just past the campsite out of the river valley. It seemed like the steepest hill in the winter, when I stayed at the Stewart campsite 9 months prior, but after the signature ups and downs of the true North Shore, I was up and over it in a flash! I sped through the woods, past the Demo Forest spur trail, into one of my favorite sections through Rossini Road. In the endless forest, with little dips and the gentle winding of the trail, it was easy walking. I actually started to yearn for some climbing and descending just to switch it up. But, I felt good and was making good time.

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Out of nowhere, mosquitoes. I noticed a few fly around me, and then got swarmed. Here they come, I thought. I covered up and was only bothered by bugs in my face and on my hands. They’d find their way all over my hands and bite away. I had a few big bites on fingers and my wrists and the tops of my hands. I was paying attention to smack ’em, but they’d catch me inattentive for one second and go for it. I killed one, full of blood, on my palm! Trekking poles in action, and somehow a mosquito finds space to bite me on my left palm, the one absent of a sketchy splint. Also, they were on my clothes. I noticed it mostly on my shoulders and back where the pack wasn’t touching. I couldn’t feel a bit, but was obsessively swatting anyways. I was so happy when I forgot about a swarm. A mile of walking and I realized that there were no mosquitoes and it must’ve been a swampy mosquito zone or something. All right! The forest was in great hiking shape and I was still cooking along and feeling fine.

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Before I knew it, I was past Rossini Road. It is just a three mile walk from here, one hour, and I was 9:20 in for the day and just 28 miles. A few minutes behind pace, but it was only 4:15 and I was ready for my daily stop. I hunched down in the middle of the woods and relaxed, no sense of urgency. I kept hiking and felt pretty sluggish, but ready to take it home and relax at Big Bend. I missed the 12 Mile View, not noticing until I was way past. It is a pretty lame view anyways, and only cool for the sake of novelty. I enjoyed the view of the beaver pond, and set up shop at Big Bend in no time. I was the only one there. The wind and the gurgle of the creek, the West Branch of the Knife River, kept me company enough.

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It was not even 5:30pm, so I took my sweet time at Big Bend. I didn’t have enough phone service to get a weather update, but I’d seen it at some point since Two Harbors and was still looking good for the evening. It was certainly cloudy, but not threateningly rainy. I backflushed my water bottle filter and started to carefully scope the ground for a spot to set up. Nowhere popped out at me right away. I considered a sloping tent pad on one side of the site, but didn’t want water flowing right down on my head. I didn’t want to sleep with my feet up either. I envisioned the water running down the gentle grade right through the middle. Across the site, I looked at the tent pad I stayed at one night when Diamond got quilled. If I could set it up to drip far enough out from me, there would be enough of a trough and enough of a downward slant to allow the water to drain completely away from me. It did look like a slight depression where so many campers have likely stayed before me. But, if the water drips far enough out… and so I set the tarp up right there. I wanted to be meticulous, and it looked fine. It was hard to do anything with the broken pinkie, but I even managed to get a patch over the dripping seams over my face by using band-aids and a plastic grocery store bag once used to hold food.

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I tried to use the alcohol stove to cook, but it was windy. I used my mat as a shield, careful to not set that on fire. That would make for two uncomfortable nights! I actually started a fire and cooked my pasta and soy protein isolate quickly, using a lot of olive oil in it. The fire barely burned the remaining soggy maps I had, and I saved my last two maps for the last two days of the trip, only 75 or 80 miles to go.

I was so dirty. Everything was dirty, I felt dirty, caked in dried sweat, dirt under my fingernails, stained shirt, dirt-stained skin on my ankles. And I smelled bad. Not much worse than any other day, though, as I’d maintained a varying level of stank from day two.

As the sun set, I clamored into my shelter, opting once more to put my rain poncho over my backpack, everything I need stuffed away inside. In my tarp, the bare essentials. Ground sheet, mat, quilt, pillow, phone in plastic baggie, and headlamp. I couldn’t tell if the sounds over my tarp were falling seeds or sticks or light raindrops. I expected the rain, didn’t see any moisture on the ground, and questioned what would happen if it poured on me. I even had a stick to dig a trough, from my prone position, to let the water drain away from me. I closed my eyes, not quite asleep, but comfortable. When will the thunderstorms hit?

On to Day 8

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