Mosquitos and frenchmen and bears, oh my

I decided to take a solo night on the Superior Hiking Trail during a weeklong trip to the North Shore. In anticipation of a longer solo journey that I 'd like to do at some point, I thought I'd test my limits and get a feel for a small leg of the trail for some one-off nights whenever possible in the meantime, troubleshooting my gear, testing my endurance, and refining my navigation skills for when the multi-night journey starts. I originally thought I would spend the entire week hiking the trail, but having no experience with solo backpacking, my anxiety got the better of me and I opted to just dip my toes in first.

Overall, the hike I picked out was simple, one of the shorter hikes, and a good opportunity to learn without feeling trapped in the situation, knowing it was only a night long.

I came away from the experience with an amusing portrait of my naivety, a newfound love and respect for the Superior Hiking Trail, and a much stronger respect for my instincts.

Throughout the pitch black, balmy Northwoods night, I was more scared of seeing the ghosts of voyageurs than I was of encountering black bears as I laid sleeplessly in my hammock in the middle of the pitch dark woods above the roaring Cross River, working overtime swatting and flailing my extremities in a futile effort to fight off mosquito armies. At least, that's what I kept telling myself, since ghosts actually sounded much better at the time. In reality, I was doing whatever I could to take my mind off of the reality check the wilderness was giving me.

I had spent the day in Grand Portage after my first night of the trip camping in my favorite place, Judge C.R. Magney State Park. I had already enjoyed an invigorating and spooky solo trek at dusk out to the Devil's Kettle the previous night, and after coffee and pie at Chicago Bay Marketplace the next morning in Hovland, which is one of my favorite places and is straight out of Twin Peaks, I revisited the Grand Portage National Monument to glean some inspiration for my Superior Hiking Trail trek from our Ojibwe predecessors and from voyageurs who paddled and portaged great distances and carried tremendous amounts of weight on their backs through dense forests. I kept a little piece of the past in my pocket for guidance.

I drove south toward where I'd be starting the trail. I spotted the faded sign for Skou road off Highway 61, just like it says in my dogeared copy of the seventh edition of the Superior Hiking Trail Guidebook, and pulled my Volvo wagon around a long bend into the dirt lot, which overlooks Lake Superior across a sweeping vista. My backpack was already loaded, so I bid my car farewell until the morning and headed toward the starting sign with a spring in my step.

That springy step slowly turned into a trudge, since I got lost within the first half hour of my journey when I ended up on a snowmobiling trail instead of the Superior Hiking Trail. Looking back through the guidebook and recalling the signage, I can see how it was a little confusing, but it took me three damn tries to get the correct trailhead, which can really break your spirits when you're carrying 30 pounds and it's roughly an hour away from sunset.

I crossed a bridge over what I thought was the Cross River, thinking it was the bridge referenced in the guidebook. I was surprised that I'd apparently be crossing the river this early, then crossing it back over to get to the campsite, but just assumed the map was zoomed out and that this bridge wasn't visible. The sun was at a lovely angle and casting some vibrant lighting over the water, so I stopped to snap some photos. "Wow, what a sight, and I'm not even a quarter of a mile in yet!" I thought as my brain buzzed with nervous energy and enthusiasm. "I'm going to make it in before sundown," I mulled, my presumptuous, yet-unbroken spirit aglow as I trekked onward into a spacious woods like I owned the damn place.

I was surprised by how wide the path was and how gentle the terrain was. Even more surprising was the fact that I could still see Lake Superior, and that the hike was nearly parallel to its shore, carrying me southwest. The trail to my campsite ran northwest, away from the lake. I was becoming unsettled, but I tried to bury it since I had anticipated anxiety and trepidation on my first solo trip of this kind.

"I'm on the Superior Hiking Trail! I'm in love! This is the greatest place on earth! I can't believe I was so nervous about this!" sang the chorus of audacious enthusiasm in my head, drowning out the somber interlude of worry humming beneath.

I got about a mile in, give or take, before most of the wires in my brain started sternly insisting, "SOMETHING IS OFF." Of course something was off--I had been walking (not hiking) parallel to the lake going southwest for way too long, the water of the world's largest lake still shimmering far on the distant horizon, and with no sign of a switchback or adjoining trailhead to cut away in the direction I needed to head. I could sort of see cars driving up and down Highway 61, which was vaguely comforting given my growing suspicion that I might be lost.

At some point, something told me to turn around. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up and my stomach was becoming a butterfly terrarium. It's a gamble as to whether I was possibly missing a trail just after where I came from, but I was less convinced of that by the minute. Fortunately, I was confident I knew the way back, and I was right about that.

I exited the woods where I had started and was comforted by the site of my car, which beckoned me to hop in and forget about the trail. I shot down the temptation, my determination not to fail at a relatively simple excursion overriding the pull of comfort and familiarity. I breathed, then headed back in.

I managed to hike back and forth from the parking lot and then back to the same point on the trail where I had first turned around two whole times before I realized my million dollar mistake: I was following a snowmobile trail.

On the second try, I came across a smaller, unmarked trail a little further up from where I had first turned back. I thought I had finally found the right trail, and walked through a narrow, overgrown tallgrass path before ending up in someone's backyard. Ahh, shit!

I retraced my steps and was back on the wide trail. I bent down to pick up a barred owl's tail feather. I thought about how animals live there and never go through this crap, especially owls, and felt a surge of jealousy. It was notably gorgeous outside, but the soft, pastel glow in the sky meant dusk was looming. I had to figure something out. I knew I wasn't in danger, but I wasn't excited about potentially hiking back to the beginning and sleeping in my car in a parking lot on the edge of one of the most pristine woods in North America, defeated and frustrated that I couldn't even tackle one trail on my own. To tell you the truth, I was also more afraid of other humans than I was any wildlife. Would creeps or killers ever bother get on the Superior Hiking Trail, I asked myself? Highly doubtful, but in the elevated state I was in, it's easy to think paranoid thoughts. I resolved to leave my city worries behind and focus on threats like bears or startled moose.

My heart started racing as I took my third swing at finding the trail. I had just done around 2.5 miles going back and forth, a grand waste of daylight. I called Gwydion, trying to laugh off the panic. I faked being cool and collected, making it seem like I was more annoyed with the guidebook than frightened by disorientation. I was embarrassed by my haplessness, but knew that I was never truly lost if I could still see the lake.

It was during my third attempt that a lightbulb went off. This trailhead I kept passing near a small shelter (that had originally sparked my concern about backwoods degenerates), and which at the time I thought, based on my guidebook, was a marker for a different SHT campsite that was much further away than I had time for, jumped out at me suddenly, and a voice in my head barked, "TURN HERE, YA DINGUS!" A sense of relief washed over me as I realized it was the real spur trail to the Superior Hiking Trail. The snowmobile trail, on which you start if you're coming from the parking lot, is just a means of getting to the spur trail, not the spur trail itself. (Ahem, I suppose that could have been made more clear in the book...)

I made my way through the spur trail, which felt much more true to the backcountry setting of the Superior Hiking Trail. Finally, the official trail began with a wooden sign listing the distances between campsites. My heart sank one last time as I noticed the campsite I was destined for was 2.6 miles away rather than around 1 mile as I previously thought. I felt enough pride over my devotion to finding my way, and started a long ascent up a steep trail, through the Superior National Forest, alongside the Cross River. It felt much longer than it was, considering that the sun was rapidly sinking and the site was further away than I had thought.

Eventually, I climbed a shabby wooden staircase, crossed a small bridge over the river, and emerged into a large clearing.

Suddenly, before my eyes, there was the South Cross River Campsite sign!

I saw a woman around my age arranging her pack and belongings near the benches surrounding the fire pit. I walked up and said hello. I wasn't expecting another hiker to be there, but it was a major relief to know I'd have company after a rough start to the trek.

I set up my hammock between two trees, complete with a tarp stretched out over it in the event of unforeseen rain. I was so proud of my makeshift sleeping arrangements, which I had cobbled together myself without the purchase of any significant equipment and practiced stringing up in the weeks before the trip. I felt like fucking MacGyver.

Meanwhile, Wendy popped a lightweight tent. I felt some envy of her closed-in sleeping quarters when I started realizing there wasn't enough DEET in the world for the levels of mosquitos that were picking up around us. I had read online that they weren't terrible on the trail, but it was clear this was not true, and that our unofficial state bird was arriving in droves for the dinner rush.

Wendy happens to live in St. Paul, and I live in Minneapolis, so our meeting at one of many campsites on the 205-mile Superior Hiking Trail on that specific night felt serendipitous. We ate freeze dried backpacking meals and chatted around the fire pit, which we didn't build a fire on because the mosquitos were getting worse, and we figured we'd retire to our camps long before a fire could be properly extinguished. As we exchanged stories, we realized we had a friend in common in Minneapolis. But while a new friendship was taking flight, so were the mosquitos, and soon it became unbearable to be in the open.

Wendy disappeared into her tent. As I slid into my sleeping bag I had hung across the clearing, I had the sinking feeling this was going to be a long night. It was already too hot for the completely-buttoned flannel shirt and long pants tucked into hiking boots I wore to shield my body from the bloodthirsty insects. Now I had to wrap myself in my trusty highly-insulated mummy sack meant to handle extreme cold conditions, rated for survival in sub-zero temperatures. It's gotten me through some frigid nights under the stars, but I don't typically have to bundle up in it during the summer.

I thought I was so smart bringing a tarp on this clear night, but of course, a goddamn mosquito net didn't even cross my mind.

I was doused in sweat. One hand had to remain exposed to swat the area around my face, since I couldn't tolerate burying it inside the hot sleepingbag for very long periods. Like a broken record, I'd come out gasping for breath, and about two seconds would pass before I heard a mosquito in my ear. Some of the little bastards managed to squeeze into my tightly wound cocoon, floating around with their greedy, wispy desperation.

I also had to balance my water consumption with my sweat output, but conserve enough water to prevent taking a trip down the hill to the river with my filter and to avoid having to exit the sleeping bag to visit the open-air latrine, where the mosquitos would most certainly enjoy feasting on some uncharted territories. A vague feeling of loneliness crept up on me.

This ordeal would go on through the morning hours as I watched dawn break. I oscillated between a growing fear that I would have all of the blood sucked out of me before sunrise and thinking of worst-case scenarios involving black bears, planning ways I could scare them off. I'm embarrassed to admit that in order to cope, I used my phone for its spotty internet connection way more than I feel comfortable with, buried for short intervals in my sleeping bag to connect with the outside world in desperation. I quickly learned that the glow attracted both moths and mosquitos, so I had good reason to shove it in my hammock's pocket for good after a moth scared the living hell out of me by flying up a pant leg inside my sleeping bag.

Then there were the rare breaks when my mind was free of mosquito or bear-related thoughts, when I could lie still and listen to the roar of the Cross River beneath the hill. It was those in-between moments when I'd pretend that I could hear the distant voices of voyageurs coming down the river in a procession of canoes, getting closer by the minute, then stopping at the bridge, portaging their vessels up those stairs, and emerging in the clearing at the same point I had come in, the ghosts of red-capped French Canadian men looking for a place to set up camp for the night. I envisioned them as transparent and spooky, but felt bizarrely comforted by the thought of them. Ghosts were a nice escape from the all-too-real insects and large mammals threatening my peace of mind.

As morning slowly returned the woods back to its business as usual, I managed to sink into a restless doze for maybe half an hour after trying in vain to go unconscious for over eight hours. Around 7 a.m., I sprung out of my hammock. I was relieved that the sleepless night was over and that I finally had permission from the sun to resume my life. I said hi to Wendy, who was arranging her pack and breaking down her camp, and we retrieved our food sacks from the tree we had hung them in the night before about 30 yards from camp and ate leftovers. The mosquitos were still biting, so we both skipped out on taking the time to boil water for instant coffee (and skipping morning coffee is a very difficult sacrifice for me to make) and started the hike out together. Before long, our trail split between our two destinations, so we bid farewell to one another and took off in separate directions. (Side note: later that afternoon I would find Wendy hiking into Tettegouche State Park. We've been friends back home ever since.)

The renewed day and bright sunshine, plus the allure of instant coffee prepared in the parking lot, a day of freeform explorations, and a campsite in Grand Marais that night right on Lake Superior, in a tent (!), restored the spring in my step in spite of my sleeplessness. I descended in elevation and caught a head-on view of the lake glistening miles away. This time, I was able to pay attention to the surrounding woods and note the types of trees, the textures of the forest, the bird calls, and the fresh scent of wilderness. With those surroundings as a balancing force, the sleepless night before that had stretched seamlessly into that moment instantly morphed into something of sheer exuberance. I was overcome with euphoria and a rare lightness from the dynamic presence of existence, humbled by the lightweight exposure to primal fears. I'm almost certain that feeling was real and not just a hallucination from sleep deprivation.

An older couple pulled in next to my car as I had my back hatch open, my Jet Boil on the ground preparing a second cup of coffee, and the disordered contents of my pack strewn across the backend of my station wagon. I was aware of how bedraggled I looked, with my hair matted from shifting restlessly in a hammock all night, yesterday's sunscreen and bug spray casting a pallor and sheen across my face, and dark circles under my eyes. They were from Northfield. We chatted about the North Shore, and I told them I had just camped overnight. They acted a little too impressed, as people tend to do when solo female travelers talk about their expeditions, but I went along with it, since this was my chance to pretend I had known exactly what I was doing the night before. They were going for a day hike and wanted some tips on the trail. They had the seventh edition of the Superior Hiking Trail Guidebook

I left them with some wisdom which, if nothing else, allowed me redeem my own sense of control. So I says to them, I says, "Just past the wooden shack, there's a small trailhead on the right. Take that one--you can't miss it."

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