June 29, 2024

Grand Marais to South Bally Creek Pond

6.2 miles

When I say this hotel is nice, I’m talking huge cozy common room nice, six varieties of coffee nice, hot breakfast labeled in aesthetically pleasing font nice. I’m talking, an hour of quiet early morning to myself to eat my Chobani yogurt and drink my coffee while I post to my blog nice. This perfect unhurried morning is so, so nice in so many ways.

After I’ve had my requisite solo morning time in the lobby, Machine joins for breakfast just as it starts getting busy. We then escape the crowds and finish up our back-to-trail tasks, like sending some stuff home from the post office, dumping last minute trash, and packing up.

Around 11 we go down to the lobby to meet up with Slapshot and Feather Blue of PCT fame, who drove up together today to do a little hiking and camping with us. I haven’t seen Feather since Washington at the end of the PCT, and it’s so good to see her. It’s the oddest feeling—it’s been nearly two years since finishing the PCT, yet it could have been five minutes ago now that she’s here in front of me and we’re talking.

They drive us up to the Pincushion Mountain Trailhead where we got off the trail two days ago and we start hiking south. Meanwhile Feather and Slapshot hike Pincushion and dip into town to bring us treats for the night since they’ll be meeting us at camp. They also take our food bags while we just pack the food we’ll need for the day. So it’s semi-slackpacking, I guess?

The trail is largely slop, which isn’t surprising given the rain, but it doesn’t bother me that much because it is absolutely gorgeous. Blue skies, sunshine, fluffy clouds going by. It does get cold and chilly for a bit, but never for very long, and it’s the perfect hiking temperature.

The trail makes a turn up a hill and in a straight line through an aspen forest, and yet again, I’m reminiscing about living in Flagstaff while simultaneously thinking about how gorgeous this trail would be in the fall. Then we enter a section that I would well and truly call “bog.” It’s got solid bog boards above a deep green collection of leafy plants and moss. Among the green I spot a pink flower that I recognize as the pink lady’s slipper orchid. I am so excited as I crouch down and snap a photo.

For a long time we follow a snowmobile track that starts as a soft dirt road and morphs into wet bog, but not true bog, just very, very wet, ankle- and calf-deep water among grasses. It’s better than the slop, and it feels nice and cool on my feet, but it’s also gross and it makes me wonder what’s in there, so we don’t stop moving for a while when the terrain is like this.

We find a dry spot and have a short lunch, in which I also drink a Coke Zero and Devil’s Kettle IPA from Voyageur that I packed out, and afterwards I’m feeling all good and fuzzy and I put on some Chappell Roan and absolutely cruise for a while. The trail is also very, very nice in the latter part of the day. Just flat, well maintained, normal, dry trail. It’s breezy and cool and the wind wafts the scent of the trees.

I descend the trail towards an open space and find myself on a fresh, clean, beautiful, obviously recently constructed boardwalk over what appears to have once been a beaver dam. As I’m thinking about this, Machine comes up to me.

“Do you think beavers built this?” I ask, meaning what looks like the old dam holding back some water.

“What? No, I don’t think beavers built this boardwalk,” Machine replies, laughing at his own joke.

“Ugh! You know what I meant!” I laugh and roll my eyes.

We exit the boardwalk and see a bench. Neat! We’re kind of developing a bench rating system, so we have to try every bench. For science.

It’s not a great bench view and height wise, but the construction is good. We settle on a 5/10 before deciding to move on.

“Ok, goodbye, boardwalk!” I say.

“Yeah, thank you, bridgie boys! … and beavies!” Machine adds.

We make it to the chosen campsite, South Bally Creek, before our goal of 5:00. Feather texts saying that they’ll be there in a bit, so we set up camp and then go meet them at the road. They’ve brought us pizza from Sven and Ole’s, an unsweetened iced tea for me and a Coke for Machine, and a whole lot of other drinks. We carry it all back to the campsite and settle in for a cozy chat.

We sit around the fire ring for hours talking, eating, and drinking. Large swaths of the conversation are about hiking, naturally. It feels so good and right to be sitting here along a long trail with people I met on an even longer trail. We build a fire and enjoy both the warmth and the lack of mosquitoes from the smoke. When I eventually bundle in for the night, I feel warm and content.