DAY 1 – Mile (-1.9) to 13.7: 40k steps, 160 flights of stairs, 6.5 hours

Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man played over my car’s speakers as I pulled into the Wild Valley trailhead parking lot. Fitting, I thought, feeling my bravado swell with the brass crescendo. It was 11:00am after running errands and driving 80 miles north, and daylight was burning quickly behind low-hanging clouds, so I wiped peach juice from my chin and plunged into the forest.

My feet fell softly on the single track of moss-lined hardpack clay, weaving through stands of aspen, genets of ferns, crimson thimble berries in their final hurrah, and red trillium fruits hanging in solitude beneath their tri-gabled roofs of leaves heavy and dripping with foggy dew. The day’s high dew point made me grateful for temps in the low 60s as my arms grew cool and slick.

I started walking the wrong way, 1.9 miles south in order to tag the SHT’s southern terminus at the Wisconsin-Minnesota border. I pushed my pace, realizing that what I had planned as three full days to manage Duluth’s 53 miles without backpacking sites was working out to be about two days of hiking, and I’m struggling to reach 2 mph on rugged trail when I’d hoped to average nearly 3 mph. My fitness tracker keeps buzzing congratulations on my multiples of stair-climbing goals, as if my glutes weren’t already notifying me.

10 miles into my afternoon, I reached Jay Cooke State Park. I realized with a bit of a start that my last visit here was 6 months ago during my weekend cooped up in a shack on a chicken farm, an intentional step away from busyness and into solitude in order to do some soul-searching and praying. I crossed the swinging bridge over the St. Louis River 6 months to the week from the time God told me it was ok to leave one dream to pursue another. He is faithful!

Julie pulled into the trailhead seconds before I did: my hips aching, right knee squeaking, and feet throbbing after 15.5 miles. After a quick shower at the motel, we went out for dinner and Julie laughed as I waddled into the restaurant. Sigh – it’s a good thing she’s helpful and cute, otherwise I might look for a trade-in. 😉