SHT in Duluth

Bridge over Sargent Creek
Originally uploaded by cageyj

"You don't actually call it SHT!

Do you?"

Even without the emoticon for surprise :-o, the common abbreviation for Superior Hiking Trail amazed the fellow.

He sought information about the trail on the Web a few days back. Indeed we do shorten the name of this most amazing of trails to SHT.

Understand, lest you read no farther, the incongruity between what the abbreviation might imply and quality of what actually exits.

SHT is wonderful.

The Superior Hiking Trail has a beauty as bold as the idea of walking from Duluth to the Canadian Border along the ridges of North Shore of Lake Superior

Trail Near Spirit Mountain
Originally uploaded by cageyj

The Duluth News Tribune announced completion of the Duluth section of the Superior Hiking Trail. Sam Cook notes, "it’s difficult to imagine an urban setting anywhere in the country that encompasses more natural splendors than this trail does."

This trail demands that you see the true beauty of Duluth on foot just as you must see the beauty of the North Shore on foot.

A few days ago I hiked the portion of the trail from the Grand Portage Trail in Jay Cooke State Park to Becks Road. (Last year I hiked the Beck's Road to Spirit Mountain portion.) This 14 mile burst (7 miles to and 7 miles return) of enthusiasm crippled me for three days.

Actually I added a couple mile by beginning further west up Highway 210. The secretary at my grade school had a wise saying for this. When students appeared at the office without the necessary hall pass, she sent us to retrieve them. She reminded us, "He who doesn't use his head, must use his feet." I added another mile or two checking on two old friends: the Mission Creek Parkway and the Mission Creek Trail.

Backpacker magazine ranks Minnesota's Superior Hiking trail (SHT) as one of the 10 best hiking trails in the country and one of the top 10 in the world!

The 39 miles of the Duluth SHT proves equal to other 246 miles of the trail.

Trail Runs from Here to Distant Peak
Originally uploaded by cageyj

Unlike older trails built straight and flat for utility, this trails follows the ridges flowing up and down and swaying side to side with the lay of the land. It has no desire to get you to your destination quickly or without exertion but only to deliver you with beauty and the satisfaction earned from toil.

Volunteers designed and built the trail with skill. This should aid keeping it in good repair.

I planned to take photographs of spring wildflowers. That project certainly did not require 14 miles, but the trail seduced me. I love these deep valleys and hardwood clad ridges that hover unused above the City of Duluth.

Find a portion of the trail that suits your stamina and experience the grandeur of the SHT.

Begin your hiking tour of Duluth wonderful green space.

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The SHT crosses two historic trails and ways. I stopped to walk a bit of both the Mission Creek Trail and the long disused extreme western end of the Skyline Parkway. These trails suffer sever erosion and damage from neglect and abuse by off-road-vehicles.

The Ojibway used the Mission Creek Trail long before Duluth existed (I notice a work crew will be organized to repair this trail.)

The Mission Creek road opened as a western extension of the Duluth Boulevard system in 1926.

An article in the November 26th, 1926 edition of the Duluth Herald begins, 'Determination and long hours of labor, even to work with a pick and shovel is finally bringing Mayor S. Snively reward for his dream of a short-cut road from the western extension of the boulevard through Fond du Lac to Jay Cooke state park.'

Shared Bridge on Mission Creek Road
Originally uploaded by cageyj

Mayor Snively himself frequently donned work clothes, took up a pick or shovel and worked side by side with the road laborers. The road opened in the summer of 1927. The road passed over two railway bridges and entered the Mission Creek valley. It crossed the Mission creek five different times over 'artistic stone and cement bridges'.

The Mission Creek Road closed in July of 1958. It closed because of the disastrous July 1, 1958 Mission Creek Flood.

Two retired Duluth street maintenance personnel from the Far West Tool House, reported that a severe storm on July 1 dumped almost 6 inches of rain on the city. Mission Creek washed out the Highway 210 closing the road in Fond du Lac.The storm washed out two of the lower bridges on the Mission Creek Road. 'The city had no money back then,' reported one foreman, 'so we put up the barricades.' A newspaper report in the Duluth News Tribune called it the worst storm since 1909!

Breath of Lake Superior

Lake Superior
Originally uploaded by cageyj.

I love Lake Superior!

Lake Superior embraced me in my garden last Saturday. Her breath, that 10,000 year-old echo of the great ice sheet, suddenly touched me at my digging.

After a few warm spring days high pressure and the east wind drove cold temperatures deep inland from the lake.

Spring Tulip
Originally uploaded by cageyj.

The temperature dropped to freezing during the night and barely surpassed 40º during the day. Snow fell. Folks layered on more clothing. Plants paused in their growing. City Hall, where I worked, turned on heat today after a cold day yesterday.

Right now it is colder by the lake 46º and warm at home 66º.

A refrigerator kept at 46º prevents stuff from rotting, turning green or wrinkling. Will this cuddling with Lake Superior keep younger?

Wildflower Photography

Blue Marsh Violet
Originally uploaded by Ken Jackson.

I will spend the season taking pictures of wildflowers.
My new Macro lense (Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM) captures nice close up photographs.

Bellwort, Uvularia grandiflora.

When trying to identify the flowers I realize that I must take pictures of the whole plant, in addition to the flower. Often the plant is needed to positively identify the flower. I will also try to have my GPS unit available to locate the flower.


I purchased a 1976 edition of Wildflower and Weeds by Courtenay, Booth and Zimmerman. My current copy got wet on a canoe trip. I also purchased a copy of Peterson field Guide to Wildflowers. Even with the two books I am unsure of some identification. I hope to identify the flower at the same time I take the photograph.

The Woods

A Reflection on the Fire

Some call it Brush, others the Bush. I call it the Woods.

I love the woods.

I contemplated this love as I listened to the recent news of a large wildfire at the end of the Gunflint Trail.

I love the Northeastern Minnesota woods. I love its surprises.

Sometimes I enter the official wilderness. Other times I enjoy instead 'the woods'. Sometimes - hiking in a majestic stand of towering pine, these primeval beauties suddenly line up in neat rows. I'm in a Civilian Conservation Corp planting of the 1940s - seemed like a wilderness. I realize these majestic beauties are hardly older than me. Oh yes, a few are older, but they are rare like an elderly man in a Senior Citizen's High-rise.

Other times I will blacken my legs climbing over ancient charcoal stumps. Evidence of fire.

This lonely land can muddle your mind. During time in the Boundary Water Wilderness, I often remind companions this lonely wilderness once served as the superhighway of the North American Continent.

IMG_1527
Originally uploaded by cageyj.

I hiked to the site of Fort Charlotte at the western end of the Grand Portage. Voyageurs travel it longer than our Macadam Roads have existed. It was a busy place. Now it seems untouched.

A newspaper lamented the fire-burned area as a "wilderness largely pristine but wounded." "In some sections the birch, spruce and jack pine stand postcard-perfect." In other places fire has destroyed the land.

Most of our 'ancient' forests are about 100 years - old. Within 5 years the burnt-land will be a tight-knit stand of saplings. After 20 years we will be able to walk under the trees. Thirty years of now, we will see the 'ancient' forest again.

We lost no life. We learned how to better protect human property. We have begun renewal on another section of the woods and wilderness I love.

Spring Beauty

THE SPRING BEAUTY

Last week hiking in Cook County on my annual spring outing I discovered a huge area of Claytonia Virginica (a wildflower we call Spring Beauty). It brought to mind this story.


AN OJIBWA LEGEND

BY HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT

An old man was sitting in his lodge, by the side of a frozen stream. It was the end of winter, the air was not so cold, and his fire was nearly out. He was old and alone. His locks were white with age, and he trembled in every joint. Day after day passed, and he heard nothing but the sound of the storm sweeping before it the new-fallen snow.

CRW_5934-1
Originally uploaded by cageyj.

One day while his fire was dying, a handsome young man approached and entered the lodge. His cheeks were red, his eyes sparkled. He walked with a quick, light step. His forehead was bound with a wreath of sweet-grass, and he carried a bunch of fragrant flowers in his hand.

"Ah, my son," said the old man, "I am happy to see you. Come in! Tell me your adventures, and what strange lands you have seen. I will tell you of my wonderful deeds, and what I can perform. You shall do the same, and we will amuse each other."
The old man then drew from a bag a curiously wrought pipe. He filled it with mild tobacco, and handed it to his guest. They each smoked from the pipe and then began their stories.

"I am Peboan, the Spirit of Winter," said the old man. "I blow my breath, and the streams stand still. The water becomes stiff and hard as clear stone."

"I am Seegwun, the Spirit of Spring," answered the youth. "I breathe, and flowers spring up in the meadows and woods."

"I shake my locks," said the old man, "and snow covers the land. The leaves fall from the trees, and my breath blows them away. The birds fly to a distant land, and the animals hide themselves from the cold."

"I shake my ringlets," said the young man, "and warm showers of soft rain fall upon the earth. The flowers lift their heads from the ground, the grass grows thick and green. My voice recalls the birds, and they come flying joyfully from the Southland. The warmth of my breath unbinds the streams, and they sing the songs of summer. Music fills the groves where-ever I walk, and all nature rejoices."

And while they were talking thus a wonderful change took place. The sun began to rise. A gentle warmth stole over the place. Peboan, the Spirit of Winter, became silent. His head drooped, and the snow outside the lodge melted away. Seegwun, the Spirit of Spring, grew more radiant, and rose joyfully to his feet. The robin and the bluebird began to sing on the top of the lodge. The stream began to murmur at the door, and the fragrance of opening flowers came softly on the breeze.

The lodge faded away, and Peboan sank down and dissolved into tiny streams of water, that vanished under the brown leaves of the forest. Thus the Spirit of Winter departed, and where he had melted away, there the Indian children gathered the first blossoms, fragrant and delicately pink,--the modest Spring Beauty.

A Teenager's Bedroom

CRW_6000
Originally uploaded by cageyj.

I firmly believe a young man should learn to pick up his yard as well as as women.

Hiking in the deep north woods this past weekend, I passed a number of properties which looked like the inside of many a teenagers bedroom: junk and disorder.

On one piece of property a red tailgate with a sticker reading, "This is not an abandoned car!" caught my eye. The vehicle was gone without it's tailgate. However, much else in the area appeared abandoned. I hiked by to see a few abandoned, crude wood buildings, an abandoned truck, an odd machine, piles of rotted lumber and, in the distance, an uninhabitable mobile home.

I suggest we institute some changes. In addition to a good credit rating and a clear title for purchasing real estate, a Certificate of Regular Cleaning should be required. Certification might include a tour of the local recycling center with free coupons issued for the first 100 pounds of junk.

Bottled water containers proudly proclaim, "ME-HI 5¢ CA CRV". In Michigan and Hawaii you get 5 cents. California thought ahead. The California Refund Value, CRV, can increase from time to time. Pick up a few beside the road for a 'free' cup of coffee.

Let's pass a law replacing the car dealer's name on the back of our automobiles with "MN $250".

While waiting for nagging to work, you can close your teenagers door. Closing a door doesn't work outside.

Plum Aroma

CRW_6196-1
Originally uploaded by cageyj.

The white blossoms on my golden plum tree popped today. The heavy sweet aroma of plum blossoms fills my yard. Vintners labor to impart a hint of this aroma to wines. Plum perfume floods my backyard at no cost which is considerably cheaper than $20 to $25 per bottle.

The warm weather also swelled the blossoms on the purple plum tree. They should open within a few days. Overlapping blossoms of these two different plum trees greatly improves chances for fruit in September. Last year I had so many, the neighbors each got a large bag. My family could not eat them all before they spoiled. Too many fresh plumbs 'unsettles' the digestive system.

However I need bees or bugs to flit from three to tree with the pollen. Unfortunately news accounts say that bees are in short supply.

Pin Cherry and other shrubs blossom in sync with these plumbs. I paddled my canoe around a small lake yesterday. I saw white puffs of blossoms throughout the woods clearly visible since the trees ad not yet fully leafed out.

However, nothing smells like the plums.

(This morning the shifting wind brought the smoky smell of the Ham Lake fire which masked the aroma of the blossoms.)