Volunteers! - Day 294

  I encountered this group of four people working on the trail today. Three are volunteers and one was being paid. The SHT does use some paid trail workers, but volunteers are the biggest work force on the North Country Trail.


That crew did not build these rock steps, but some other crew did. Look at the nice workmaship.


The day began with a walk past Lake Agnes. It was perfectly still and I took a lot of pictures. I decided I like this one best.


There were a lot of climbs today, but only one of them was very difficult. This is a view of Caribou Creek.


The trail goes beside the Poplar River for a ways. Here, it was a wide flat waterway. Not exactly placid, but low energy.


However, by the time the trail crosses it on a vehicular bridge, it begins to gain more energy.


But look at it downstream of the bridge where it begins to fall more steeply toward Lake Superior!


I had several people encounters today. I met three ladies who were hiking a loop from the Lutsen Ski Chalet. But no one had told them the the SHT portion of their route was steeply downhill and root covered. (This was my one long and difficult uphill.) Two of the ladies were doing OK, but one was considerably older and she was having a pretty hard time. They had a map provided by the ski lodge that was inadequate. I gave them some info about what they had ahead to complete the loop, and they appreciated it, but the bottom line is that they had 3 more miles to hike and were moving very slowly. I sure hope they made it OK.

In other news- I was recognized by another group of hikers again today.

Miles today: 12.6. Total miles so far: 3477.6.

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