July 3, 2024

Fredenburg Creek to campsite in Manitou State Park

15.8 miles

There are slugs all over my tent. The more I look, the more I see. Come on, guys. One is cute but this many is just nasty. Did you know slugs are mollusks? I feel like I used to know this, but the other day when Machine and I were playing Questions and the thing I was guessing was a snail, we went into this whole conversation about what a snail actually is, like what category it belongs to. It’s mollusca, same as slugs, and apparently a good quarter of ocean life is in this same phylum! Now you know.

Anyway.

I eventually become awake enough to shake the slugs off and start getting ready. Packing my tent away, I realize that there’s a slug that got stuck in the slot where the top of the trekking pole goes. It’s all gooey and squishy and I turn into a squealing little child and Machine gets it out for me. Ew.

Then we start hiking out of the campsite, turn the wrong direction, realize we turned the wrong direction, turn back, then end up back at the campsite, and finally exit again and find the actual trail.

“Well, today’s not going great so far,” Machine says.

But then we get going and the trail is pretty good. Slop for a bit, but there are nice views and it is actually sunny so we can see Lake Superior in the distance again, which is very exciting. Then for a while the trail is very flat and very dry and I am thriving.

We start playing the game where you have to say an item, then say another item in the category that starts with the last letter of the previous one. Today the category is food. It goes on and on for a while until we reach Dyers Creek campsite, where we take a breather while we lay our ground sheets out to dry in the sun. I’m running low on fuel so I have a cold brew coffee and a fig bar.

We continue on, each listening to our chosen audio content. I’m still working on One Hundred Years of Solitude, and Machine is doing Gone Girl, which I will read when I finish this book and we will compare, book club style. The terrain has some nice cruisey moments in this section but also a lot of horrible slop and bog. All of a sudden I spot a very nice looking pond to my right with benches! I take a seat, Machine joins, and we absolutely revel in the sunlight, the breeze, and the view of the pond (which is actually Ruffy Lake). Joy comes flooding back into my body as I look at the water. This is why we are out here! This is the point! Nice views, beautiful day, good vibes.

We walk through some more bog, take another break at the turn for Sugar Loaf Pond Campsite, and then head for the Sugar Loaf Road trailhead. We had been hoping for a picnic table on which to eat lunch, but there isn’t one. We’re hungry, though, so we make do with the little clearing and lay out our remaining wet gear to dry.

As we’re eating lunch, a car pulls up to the already crowded lot and a couple gets out—the same couple we saw two days ago! The lady with the “This cock is for you” shirt! We chat with them again for a bit. When they go back to their car to get ready to hike, I say to Machine, “She’s cool. I bet she used to be a teacher. Or maybe a librarian.”

A white van pulls up looking to park in the lot just then. The woman driving it gets out and consults with the couple. After a while she drives away.

The couple, starting their hike, come past us again. “Boy, I really feel for them,” the woman says, her eyes wide behind her cool blue circular glasses. “They didn’t know where they were camping. I mean, I’m a retired teacher—“ I look over at Dan pointedly. “—And I wanted to help them.” We go on to chat about teaching; she used to be an ESL teacher. I tell her that I’m a teacher too. But her husband seems eager to get hiking, so we don’t get too far into the chat. “Well, we’ll let you get to it!” she says cheerfully. “Maybe we’ll see you in Duluth!”

We eat our lunch and continue to turn over our gear as it dries in the sunlight. It looks like the worst yard sale.

“Yard sale!” I say.

“How much do you think people would pay for this?” Machine ponders.

“Nothing.”

“Yeah. It would be like, ‘I’ll pay you five dollars to get this out of my sight.”

After lunch we both have little cat naps. I wake up when a truck goes thundering down the road. I have to put my sad, disgusting shoes and socks back on and suit up again for the slop.

Back to the audio world of Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Hearing this book aloud makes me realize even more that it’s a giant fever dream. It also makes me realize that the war part is long and tedious but could also be relevant to today: in the end, as Colonel Aureliano Buendía realizes sadly, it was all about power. The movement he was supposedly fighting for acquiesces to the regime and sacrifices their values to remain in power even if it means going back on their principles. Huh. Sounds familiar. Maybe I can relate this to students’ lives after all.

I see the couple again coming back from their day hike. I pass them in the midst of a giant mud pit.

“How’s the trail up there?” I ask, hoping to hear that it’s magnificent, flat, dry, and free of all obstacles.

“Oh, it’s great,” the woman with the rooster shirt replies. “I mean, there are some parts like this but then it’s gorgeous.”

“But be careful,” the man chimes in. “She found a few wood ticks on her.”

“Yeah, they were climbing up my socks.”

I thank them for the info and internally shudder at yet another thing to worry about as I walk, and we wish each other happy hiking.

The trail is okay for a while, as promised; there are a lot of ferns and it’s open so the sun hits me, which feels nice but also hot in the bug net. After a while I come to a little covered bridge over Crystal Creek and collect water. Machine catches up then and I give him the water bladder to hold against his neck because he looks hot. He got black pants in Grand Marais hoping for it to deter bugs but now that it’s warmer it’s looking like the color may not have been the best choice.

There is some genuinely nice trail after this. We’re talking, flat, no roots or rocks, dry, level. No plants touching me. No mud. It walks through a stand of birch trees and I almost want to dance it is so beautiful. If the trail was always like this, I would be loving life. Yet again I think about how beautiful this would be in the fall right here, and how we may have made a mistake coming in this wet, buggy season.

We come to a bridge over another rushing river and I spot a logbook in its characteristic blue box on a post with the SHT logo. The logbooks have been fun! If only the trail were as well maintained as the logbook posts! Ha! I am being so salty right now. I write a little note and we continue over the bridge, mesmerized by the rushing water.

Of course, the nice trail doesn’t last. It gets rockier and rootier until there are constant roots, and in between the roots there is mud. The ibuprofen I took at lunch must already be wearing off, or my plantar fasciitis is worse than I realized, because every time I have to step on a root with my left foot it sends a jolt of pain through my leg and up to my brain. It gets progressively muddier until I arrive at an enormous pit with a couple of boards tossed across it, not even a bridge. I balance precariously on one of them and make it across just as a hiker (or perhaps trail runner by his vest) passes me, looking sprightly and fast. Ugh. I am dumpy and slow. How can he be in such a good mood. Perhaps it means the trail ahead is nicer?

My hopes are instantaneously dashed as I take a step that I think will be solid but turns out to be thick, juicy mud. Not slop; not the wet watery mud—genuine mud. I sink to my ankle and curse loudly. This happens again not long after. Also, in between the mud, there are those overgrown plants that make it hard to see where I’m stepping. All the while the gnats are swarming and mosquitoes are biting me. I try to focus on my audiobook but I can feel my temper flaring with this stupid trail.

Out of nowhere, the trail starts going up. The plants don’t thin out much though, so I’m climbing, avoiding roots, having wet plants touch my legs, breathing hard, trying to keep the members of the Buendía family straight, and doing math thinking about our pace and whether or not we’ll make it to our planned campsite tonight. The path is steep, straight up, vertical, AT-style. By the time I get to the top I am fuming. I feel an anger that makes me want to throw something off the edge of this stupid mountain. Yell. Stomp. Like a kid.

Machine catches up and waits for me to continue hiking.

“Go ahead of me,” I snap. “I just want to have a little fit.”

“Okay.” He continues on.

I stop at a little viewpoint and sit down on a rock without even taking my pack off. I have service, so I text my mom, trying to make it sound like I’m having a good time despite the bugs and mud (I’m not) and get on Instagram and post a cute photo of the pond from earlier followed by a picture of a mud pit. What is this impulse? Why do I need to codify my experience on the internet? Why am I so honest in my blog but so determined to show the positives on social media? This era has done weird stuff to our brains. Like, do I even remember what it was like before I constantly felt the urge to post a story to Instagram?

My mind is swirling with mild self-loathing by the time I’m done, but I am a little calmer about the trail, so that’s good. I continue my book again and keep hiking. The calm doesn’t last. It gets hillier and rockier and my foot hurts with every step. I find Machine at another viewpoint (there have been views all day today and I am still cranky!) looking like he is also not having a good time.

“How are you doing?” he asks tentatively.

“This trail can go fuck itself,” I seethe, even as I am aware deep down that it’s not the trail’s fault, that this is an absolutely gorgeous hike in the right season, that if we were here in the fall I would be loving it, and that it was our fault for coming out here when we knew conditions wouldn’t be great thinking that we could make it be a good time anyway.

I go ahead of Machine and switch to music. It’s the album We by Arcade Fire, and the song “End of the Empire I-III” hits particularly hard, and I realize too late that it may not have been the best choice for my mental state today. It’s about the downfall of America and dancing “at the end of the empire.” Watching as it all burns down. It feels a little too real, given what’s happening right now. Presidents have full immunity, apparently. What was enough to make Nixon resign is now a badge of honor, apparently. Project 2025. No good candidates. What would have been a disgrace or a joke for a president in the past is now power. A wave of sweeping laws targeting transgender people. Guns have more rights than women. We legislate the shit out what teachers can do and say but do nothing to address systemic inequality. Homeless people can now be arrested for being homeless. Bribery is legal. Running in circles serving only the elites. If it wasn’t apparent before, it is now: we’re burning ourselves to the ground.

Okay, but then the song changes and it’s happy and upbeat and I actually cruise up a hill which feels nice! At the end of the album I sit down on a rock and wait for Machine.

“Are you feeling interacty?” I ask him when he comes up. I’m tired of floating in my own mental stew.

“I can be.”

We walk together and play an easy round of Questions (the answer is mud) which morphs into commiseration about the trail. What we agree on is this: we are not having a good time. We came here in the wrong season. We got a series of warnings from Minnesotans about the bugs, mud, and flooding, and we still chose to do this trail. But it’s making us feel horrible and it seems a little pointless to keep going if we aren’t enjoying anything about the hike.

As a case in point, the trail turns sharply down to the Manitou River, crosses it, and turns vertically up the other side. Ok, not literally vertically, but close. It’s sharp and endless and we are breathing hard. It’s already 7:30 by the time we make it to the state park backpacker’s campsite. It’s supposed to be reservation only, but it’s late and no one is here so we take it, planning to pay the fee, whatever it is, if a ranger comes by. (No ranger comes by.)

I wash off my socks and legs in the river (it feels amazing) and then we cook dinner. We decide to sleep on it and see how we feel about continuing or not in the morning.