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java
09-13-2005, 12:19
Has anyone on Whiteblaze thru-hiked the SHT (Superior Hiking Trail)? If so, can you PM me?
Thanks,
java

map man
06-01-2006, 21:57
I just finished a fifteen day hike of the southern three quarters (a little over 150 miles) of the Superior Hiking Trail and I'll use this thread to talk about the hike rather than start a new thread.

It's a great trail through beautiful country! You see so many spectacular waterfalls on this trail that you almost start taking them for granted after a while. Northern Minnesota was under a miles thick sheet of ice during the last period of glaciation, and all that weight depressed the land some, so in the twelve thousand years since the ice retreated that land has been slowly rising back up, and yet the waters inland still need to find their way to Lake Superior somehow, so rivers and streams end up carving their way through the weakest spots they can find in the vulcanic rock (and there is a surprising amount of variation in the different kinds of vulcanic rock you find in the various stretches of the trail) and the result is breathtaking rapids and waterfalls on all the rivers that I saw between Two Harbors (a little north of Duluth) and Grand Marais (and there are lots more falls between Grand Marais and the Canadian border on the northern-most 50 miles of trail, but I'll have to see that part of the trail in my next trip). And the people responsible for routing the trail did a great job of winding the trail up and down these river valleys to give a hiker great views of a large number of these falls.

The trail is also routed to take advantage of many views of inland lakes as well. There are several places where the trail runs up on bluffs or pinnacles with hundreds of feet of vertical drops just below your feet and this results in some pretty spectacular views. And between these overlooks the trail winds through a surprising variety of landscapes (ridges, mountains, valleys and lowlands) and flora, never straying more than a few miles from Lake Superior (and thus supplying lots of views of the lake itself). I was particularly surprised at the variety of plant life communities you hike through on this trail. Like the AT, virtually all of the land the trail runs through has been logged at one time or another over the years. But a stretch logged just 15 years ago has a lot different forest look to it now than a stretch logged 100 years ago and of course the ridges vary wildly from the lowlands, south facing slopes form west facing slopes, etc, etc. The different plant communities lead to different animal life, too, with moose, dear, wolves, coyotes, and bears (just to name the bigger animals) present or not present in various sections of the trail. One member of our hiking group got to see a moose wandering out in front of him on the trail for a few minutes one day, and all three of us got to hear wolves howling in the night on our fifth night out on the trail. The wolves were the highlight of my two week hike -- I'd never gotten to hear them in the wild before.

Now, on to more practical hiking matters. The trail is fairly well marked. They are in the process of blazing the entire trail in 2006 in order to solve a problem they've had in various places on the trail: the signs with the SHT logo they've used for years are so attractive to people that they've had a problem with getting them stolen. That problem should be taken care of by the end of this year with the blazing. The trail uses tent sites and not shelters. Tent sites are plentiful -- there are over 80 of them in the 205 mile trail -- but if you prefer shelters the SHT is not the trail for you. And the people at the SHTA (Superior Hiking Trail Association) must believe that walls around priveys are for wimps because they don't have any. Every tent site has a latrine, and the latrines are almost always a discreet path away from the tent-sites, but if you're a stickler for facilities privacy, again, the SHT may not be for you because the latrine consists of one fiberglass stool over a small pit, and nary a wall in sight.

The trail runs through seven different Minnesota State Parks. You can get tentsites, which are outside and in addition to the official SHT tent sites, in the state parks, but on summer weekends you had better have a reservation if you are counting on staying in a state park. The state parks do provide a good place to get an occasional shower as six of the seven state parks have running water with accompanying bathrooms and showers.

And speaking of water; creeks, rivers, lakes and ponds are plentiful on the trail so filling up the water bottles in timely fashion was never a problem. In fact, after using chlorine tablets (Katdyn micropur) to treat water that was pretty darn clean in the first place (agricultural and livestock waste runoff into water sources is not really an issue in that part of Minnesota) I found that my biggest adjustment to life after getting off the trail was getting used to "funny tasting" treated city water again.

You will not find hostels in this part of Minnesota the way you do on sections of the AT. Lots of expensive lodges, B and B's, resorts and motels (not all the motels are expensive), as the north shore area of Minnesota has been popular with tourists for many years. But even in high tourist season, the trail is remote enough from Highway 61, the heavilly traveled road that runs near the lake shore form Duluth to the Canadian border, that you will still find the isolation most people are looking for in the backcountry.

Resupply on the trail is fairly convenient. You can hike just a mile or two off the trail (or hitch a ride) to get to one of six towns with most hiker services (Two Harbors, Silver Bay, Tofte and Grand Marais in particular, but also Beaver Bay and Finland) and none of these towns is more than 50 trail miles from the next nearest trail town. Transportation to this area is also not too bad: Duluth has airline service, and the cab companies in Duluth provide service to the southernmost trail town, Two Harbors (the SHTA is also good about getting you in touch with people willing to shuttle you if you need it). On weekends from mid-May to mid-October the Superior Shuttle is in operation Friday thru Sunday and makes regular stops at all the major trailheads.

So all in all this is a long winded way of saying that the SHT is very much worth checking out by WhiteBlaze members. An absolutely beautiful and well organized trail for a day hike, section hike, or 200 plus mile thru-hike (and within the next few years it will become almost a 300 mile thru-hike when portions from Two Harbors to the Wisconsin border are completed).

Mammoth
06-14-2006, 10:14
Thanks for the info! I was just about to start a new topic about SHT resupply but you covered that very well. I'm going to do a northbound thru is August (hopefully), starting from Two Harbors. They just finished a new section in Duluth, but the new part isn't attached to the rest of the trail so I'll just be doing the completed trail. Thanks again.

map man
08-05-2006, 19:01
I just hiked (July 30-Aug.4) the northern end of the trail beyond Grand Marais that I did not finish in May. More beautiful trail. This northern end, particularly north of Magney State Park, is a little wilder and less used than the rest of the trail -- I did not see another soul on the trail in my last three days of hiking. One highlight of this leg was I got to hear coyotes howling just before dark on my first night on the trail (a nice complement to getting to hear wolves howling in my May hike). Another highlight of this northern part is "Hellacious Overlook," with views that lived up to its name. I was fortunate to arrive on a day clear enough that I could see Isle Royale out in Lake Superior.

When my hike was over I had a very pleasant experience with the Superior Shuttle. I had made advanced reservations to be picked up at the remote Arrowhead Trail trailhead at noon on Aug. 4, and they were right on time. The driver was very professional and friendly. Since I hadn't seen anyone in over three days when he picked me up, I believe I might have talked his leg off. He didn't seem to mind. The Superior Shuttle has been running for twenty years now and picks up and drops off hikers Friday thru Sunday at the popular trailheads throughout the hiking season. For most stops you don't need an advanced reservation -- it runs on a set schedule -- but my stop was little used enough that they only go there if they know there is someone waiting.

On my drive back down the shoreline I stopped in at the Superior Hiking Trail Association store and office in Two Harbors, and by lucky chance I got to meet and thank Ken Oelkers, the head honcho for SHT maintenance, and his assistant, Han Taylor. Thank you again, guys. I told them about a great experience I had on the trail. It was very dry on the northern end of the trail on this hike, and the Little Brule River had no running water in it. I came to one of the Little Brule tentsights at the end of a very long and hot hiking day down to my last liter of water. Well, someone had hauled in water containers with at least 10 gallons in them to each of the three Little Brule tentsights. These sites were over a mile from the nearest road so that was a heck of a lot of work. Gayle, the executive director of the SHTA, and Ken and Han had no idea who might have done it. My heartfelt thanks to the kind hearted soul(s) who busted their rear end(s) to do this.

My August hike reinforces my thoughts from my May hike -- the SHT is a great trail to hike.

Mammoth
08-05-2006, 22:05
I'm leaving tomorrow morning for my end-to-end hike (north to south now). Too bad I couldn't have left a few days earlier, or I might have met you. Thanks for the info. I hope that I hear some coyotes too.

map man
06-03-2007, 21:32
The Superior Hiking Trail Association just opened the remaining stretch of trail in the Duluth area on National Trails Day, yesterday (June 2), so that 39 mile section of trail, from a little south of Duluth to its northern fringe, is now ready to hike in its entirety. This section of trail has no tent sites at this time, though, and it's my understanding camping is not allowed, so I'm not sure how I will tackle this southern-most part of the SHT. I hope camping, through tent sites, is allowed in the future. For the time being it just seems geared to day hikes. The SHTA just published a new edition of their SHT guidebook (in April 2007) that adds the pertinent info for the Duluth section of the trail.

Construction begins this year on the remaining part of the trail which will connect the Duluth area to the current southern trailhead near Two Harbors. This construction is starting at the Two Harbors end and will take three to four years, I believe. The entire trail will be around 300 miles long when it is finished (about 244 miles are done now).

The southern part of the trail, from near Two Harbors to Temperance River State Park, was blazed in 2006. I hiked most of this stretch this May and it seems to be very well done. The painted blazes are being done because the nice plastic signs that have marked the trail in the past have had a tendency to get stolen. That shouldn't be a problem now. They anticipate that the rest of the trail north of Temperance River will be blazed this year. One thing that will take getting used to among hikers from other parts of the country is that the trail blazes are blue, not white. In an exact reversal from the custom at many other trails, the white blazes on the SHT denote spur trails, while the blue blazes mark the main trail.

I mentioned that I hiked the SHT again this May. I hiked for fifteen days starting at the north end and going to Split Rock Lighthouse State Park (about 180 miles). The highlight this year, without a doubt, was two bear sightings, my first time seeing bears in the wild. The first time occured just three miles from the very north end of the trail, near Andy Lake. Dave Pope (one of the guys I hiked with this year) and I saw a mother and two cubs sauntering away from us. The second cub was kind of comical because it couldn't decide whether to scale trees to safety (it did this twice) or keep following mom, who was simply walking away.

The second sighting was of a lone bear walking along the shore of Sonju Lake (very near the North Sonju Lake tent site) and was a little disconcerting because it showed signs of being at least mildly habituated to humans. It stayed in the vicinity no matter how much noise I made. I ended up moving on three miles to Egge Lake to pitch my tent that night just to be on the safe side.

Another thing that really struck me this year is that I saw Lake Superior on just about every one of the fifteen days I hiked, and every single day the interaction of the light and the lake was different than any of the other days. Different amounts of cloudiness. Different levels of humidity, mist or fog. Different times of the day. A different beauty to behold every day. I love this trail more each time I hike it.

samh
11-13-2007, 00:59
I'm not going to say much here, but considering that there's a SHT thread here on Whiteblaze I would be wrong in not posting to it since it's kind of like my second home.