July 8, 2024

Beaver Bay to Blueberry Hill Campsite

14.7 miles

I am determined to have chill morning coffee time in the gorgeous lobby of the lodge, and that’s exactly what I do. It’s quiet as I write and sip my alive juice. I wouldn’t consider myself a morning person, really, because I don’t enjoy the act of waking up early with an alarm, and without the artificial stimulation of coffee and two hours alone before I have to interact with anyone, I am a goblin. But I do absolutely love being up early, when no one else is around, when it’s quiet and I can simply exist with my favorite beverage and the calm of the day beginning.

Machine joins me after a while for the breakfast buffet. It’s Scandinavian inspired, so there are things like yogurt with granola and lingonberries, pickled herring, salmon salad, Wassa crackers with cheeses and meats to put on them, and little rolls with crackly crust. The lingonberry parfait is delicious, as is the salmon salad. We sit at a table next to the window and get to enjoy the lake as we eat and talk over our plan for the day.

The SHT has a spur trail to see Split Rock Lighthouse, but it would require a lot of annoying backtracking and we wouldn’t have enough time to go there today and still get to Two Harbors by Wednesday. So naturally we decide to walk on the Gitchi-Gami to the park and then pick up the SHT from a spur trail there. Since we take this bike path so often as an alternate, we’ve decided to call this hike the SHTchi-Gami. Why would the SHT not go closer to the lighthouse? It’s madness to me. Lighthouse side quest > “real” trail. Easy.

We pack up and bid farewell to the lingering sense of being clean and mud-free, and we head out. I get one last free hot tea from the lobby before we go, because this is a road walk, baby, and road walks are for beverages. It’s a lovely morning, we pass a few people on bikes, and at one point the trail diverges slightly from the road and it gets quiet. After about five miles of easy walking we arrive in the park and walk to the visitor’s center, noting all the nice benches and picnic tables where we can have lunch later.

We pay the admission fee for the historic site and meander around the center before going into watch the informational film about the lighthouse. If is very over-dramatic and Machine and I struggle not to giggle at points, but we learn a lot about the history of the light. There was a big storm in 1905 that killed 33 people and caused millions of dollars in damages to the iron ore and shipping industries, and so congress approved $75,000 to build Split Rock Light to prevent another similar wreck. (Wow, 33 people died and Congress immediately did something about it? Amazing!)

After the film we tour the actual lighthouse. It’s amazingly well maintained and absolutely beautiful. It’s not a navigation aid anymore, but it still has the light and the original third-order Fresnel lens, which we can see rotating from the tower room. I love lighthouses. It is so exciting to go up into one with the light still there!

As we’re descending the light we pass a couple that I only clock as we pass them: I notice Altras, a Hyperlite fanny pack, and sunglasses with a toggle, and my brain goes “thru hikers!” but by the time it comes to this realization we’re already out.

After the lighthouse complex we tour the keeper’s house, which has all kinds of artifacts from the time period of the first principal keeper and his family. As we’re coming out and walking over to get our packs, one of the people I noticed in the tower appears again and asks, “Are you guys hiking the SHT?”

We walk over to him and start chatting excitedly. It turns out that he and his hiking partner did the trail last year and are now road tripping to see some of the places they missed along the way and then visit Isle Royale National Park. He asks us how the bugs have been and we say terrible, and we ask him when he did the trail and he answers September and October, which reinforces, once again, that we picked the wrong season. His name is Taco, and he’s hiked part of the AT as well. I’m bummed that we won’t see them out on the trail but it’s nice to talk to new hikertrash!

Naturally, we visit the excellent gift shop before we leave, and I wind up with two loon stickers (I’m obsessed), another loon magnet, and a Split Rock magnet. I am gift shops’ target market. People like me are why knickknacks exist. By the time we leave we are getting pretty hungry for lunch so we resolve to walk to the picnic area farther down the lake.

However, we see a side trail that looks like it leads to a spot with a good view of the light, so we follow it out. Good view indeed. It’s sunny and clear and we are the perfect distance from the lighthouse to admire it, so we decide to have lunch right there. It’s possibly the best lunch spot on the entire trail so far, maybe one of the best lunch locations on trail ever.

We follow the network of trails out of the park until we’re on the Gitchi-Gami again, and then we take the SHT spur back up to the trail. It’s immediately wet and muddy. Welcome back!

There’s a day use shelter where we sit for a while while Machine manages a package issue with the SHTA, then I have the realization that there have been numerous signs with mileage to the “Split Rock river crossing.” This strikes me as strange, since there haven’t been any other signs pointing out mileage to a river. I check the SHTA site, and sure enough, there is no bridge over the Split Rock River. The page mentions that in normal conditions it’s a shallow ford, but high water events can make it dangerous. Considering the level of the other rivers we’ve seen, we decide not to take our chances. So we follow the official SHTA alternate which is, pleasantly enough, the Gitchi-Gami. Back down we go, across the river on a major bridge, and back up the muddy hill to the actual trail.

When the spur meets up with the SHT there’s a lovely waterfall on Strand Creek. We admire it, gather water, and continue hiking the few miles left to camp.

The few miles to the campsite are muddy and overgrown basically the entire way. I listen to some music and zone out. Soon we arrive at Blueberry Hill Campsite, which has a cute name but not great tent sites. It’s thick and damp and there are slugs. But alas. We set up our tents and cook dinner and get to sleep.