Lakewalk - Day 289

  The best-known feature of today's section of the Superior Hiking Trail is the Lakewalk. This is a place where the trail comes down from the hill/bluff along the Lake Supeior shore, and follows the beach for a little more than a mile.

I got started early and managed to hike six miles before the rain started, but it began just as I got to the Lakewalk.


The lake wasn't scary-rough, but it was kicking up some decent waves. I wouldn't have wanted to be out there in a kayak, that's for sure.


Some places, I had to find a path through the trees because the water was washing over the rocks. Most of the walking was on pebbled beach. Actually, this is the kind of beach I like best. Where I grew up, the beaches were gray shale pebbles. Here, the beach is red shale pebbles. Of course, the walking is pretty difficult in the small deep stones.


A young man was donning a wet suit as I approached him. His surfboard was on the beach. So I waited until he was suited up. He said he took off work today to come out and find some waves. (He also said he's hiked the SHT from the northern terminus to Grand Marais in 2 days. That's almost 30 miles a day.)


I hung around until he had a successful run. It was short. He said the waves will be twice as high tomorrow (the big storm that's coming), and he'd be back again for those.


The other most beautiful place today was the Kadunce River. Here you can see where a lot of that red shale came from.


I thought this was odd. Not far downstream from the blocky shale that was still part of the solid rock, there were rounded rocks composed of the same stuff.


Fortunately, this river and the next two waterways had big bridges. We'll talk more about bridges on the SHT another day. The final 3 miles of the day had had a lot of recent trail work done and they were easier walking.

I won't be hiking tomorrow. Lots of rain and wind. The rain started in earnest this afternoon. They are supposed to get 2 inches here in the next 24 hours. Hopefully, I won't have any trouble with seriously flooded creeks on Saturday.

The road crossings are consistently spaced poorly for my desired mileages. I have to either do days that I think are too long in this terrain, or too short. I'm choosing shorter. Trying to push hard on rocky and hilly trail is a good way to get hurt. I'd prefer to do about 13 miles a day, but my choices are usually more like 11 or 18. Anyway, I have tentatively planned the next week or so.

Miles today: 10.7. Total miles so far: 3428.0.

See Devil's Kettle