Better Late than Never - Hiking Trip

Sorry for the lack of posting. Life has been crazy the last few weeks.

Anyway, this is a recap of my hiking adventure.

Well, I survived the weekend...barely.  We had planned on hiking and camping for 3 days, 2 nights, but we cut it short and only did 2 days, 1 night.

Apparently not all the campsites are "first come, first serve" as we found out when we reached Tettegouche State Park Friday afternoon. All the campsites had already been reserved.  By this time we has hiked 8 miles or so, each of us carrying a 20+ pound pack.  The next campsite was East Palisades...another 5miles down the trail.  So, short of just hopping off the trail and setting up a tent in the middle of nowhere, we trekked on.

Thoroughly exhausted after 13 miles we quickly set up the tent, boiled dinner, strained and sanitized water from the stream and promptly collapsed in out sleeping bags.

Day two in the wilderness dawned hot and sunny with a sultry breeze.  This would normally be a wonderful hiking day for most, but our battered and bruised, dehydrated bodies, begged to differ.  We ate a quick breakfast while planning the day. We has only 10 miles of trail left before we reached our car.  This left us with two options:

1.  Hike our planned route of 5-6 miles that day and make camp. Then, hike the last bit Sunday.
2.  Hike the whole 10 miles and drive into Duluth to stuff our faces with delicious, greasy burgers. 

You can guess which option won out. So, we started our 10 mile trek to the car. We ended up in the sun for the better part of the day.  I was even sporting sock tan lines at the end. Dehydration became so bad for me that I hadn't had to use the bathroom since I woke up that morning.  This is a bad sign!!

Now don't get me wrong, even though this was a disaster of a hiking trip, I enjoyed it in many ways. We saw bear paw print, took cute photos of each other with breathtaking views in the background, and the quiet of the forest was wonderful.

I enjoyed the experience not only because I found inner strength to persevere when I though I would simply keel over from exhaustion, but I spent two stressful days with my husband and we did not take out our anxiety or exhaustion on each other.  We worked as a team to get through 23 miles in 2 days and I am so very proud of this.

It's situations like this that make me truly grateful I met ( and had the good sense to marry) this man. Hiking 23 miles over one of the toughest parts of the Superior Hiking Trail is a personal accomplishment for me. An adventure I will always remember with my best friend.