Stone Harbor Wilderness Supply

I am looking for a trail guide to The Kekeabic Trail which is close to our campsite in the Superior National Forest we will visit later this summer. The "Keke", as it is known, is part of the much longer North Country Trail (NCT).  I had a very nice email exchange with Jack Stone of Stone Harbor Wilderness Supply in Grand  Marais, MN.

Grand Marais is located on Highway 61 (hmmmm, just struck me. Is this the same highway of Bob Dylan's song "Highway 61" who is from Minnesota?) which follows the northwestern shores of Lake Superior from Duluth to Canada. The trail along the cost is the Superior Hiking Trail (SHT) also part of the North Country Trail.

Jack has the trail guide and I will order it soon. We also plan to hike two sections on the SHT during the same trip. Jack offered some advice on the SHT shuttle situation. We plan to stop in and visit the store during our trip.

Stone Harbor Wilderness Supply
22 E. 1st Street
Grand Marais, MN 55604
218-387-3136

We Pick A Trail

As we hike this weekend, Michelle and I decided a trail we want to complete. With our personal lives, jobs, child care and other obligations, we are simply not able to thru-hike any trail. The only way we can hike a full trail is in sections. The distance from our Illinois to the trail also limits our choices making the big three of the Appalachian, Pacific Coast and Continental Divide Trails beyond our the possible.

Yet we want to hike and spend a few days at a time on a trail. My first thought was the Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin which is the closet long trail. However, after some research many parts of the trail is not complete or many miles on roads. More research was needed.

After listening to The Trail Show Podcast (a good show, nice folks, serious hikers) a host mentioned The Ozark Trail. The northern trailhead is lonely about six hours away and the trail is about 350 miles long. Another plus is per the trail website shuttles are available for section hiker and being south a longer warm weather season.


We have lots of hiking and gear accumulation before we can hike overnight and longer distances. But at 66 years old, a goal of hiking a complete trail is compelling.  If we can get up to 20 miles a day, on average, The Ozark Trail is doable in about seventeen to twenty days. With Michelle's work vacation days our belief is we could do it over a two year period. Having a goal is invigorating!

Some Hiking

This weekend we took our camper George and headed to our annual first camping weekend at Rock Cut State Park located in Loves Park, IL. We left Friday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend and headed an hour north. My step-son and mother-in-laws accompanied us for the weekend.

Rock Cut for a state park has an amazing amount of hiking trails as you can see on this map. We brought our packs along and the new trekking poles to get the full effect. As we learned, Rock Cut land is very hilly at times meaning we hiked with some elevation, better than walking on our suburban neighborhood.








As best we could figure out the hike was about 9 miles. This is three times further than we have hiked before. So how did it go, fine. How did we feel afterwards? Speaking for myself I ached especially in my knees and a new ache in my left hip.
Michelle was tired but did not seem to ache as I did. But in the end hiking felt good and we are ready for more!

Trail Names

After reading the Stumbling Thru books by A. Digger Stolz I have been thinking about a trail name. Having no real trail hiking experience having a trail name at this point might be premature.  The books had plenty of folks who received their names from other hikers on a trail. Also we are not nor ever will be long distance hikers or thru-hikers, so might not ever be named by other hikers.




I have decided on the trail name of Root66. Root is a play off Route 66 from the great song of the same name. While the town named in the song are not trail towns, it still has the feeling of a long distance across the country. Root comes the mind thinking of the tree roots that we hiked over on the AT going up to Charlie's Bunion in the Smokey Mountain National Park. The sixty-six is my age in a few days as we start our hiking experiences.


Mickey

Michelle is a big fan of Mickey Mouse so she thought Mickey would be a good trail name.

So welcome Mickey and Root66 to the hiking community!

Trekking Poles

Tomorrow we are heading for Rock Cut State Park for four days. We plan to do hiking on trails through the woods versus on our suburban streets. Yesterday the Black Diamond Trail Back trekking poles arrived from REI. So we are looking forward not only hiking on a real trail but to try out the poles.

This morning we went on our usual 3.1 mile training hike and here we are at a little 5am:

The lovely Michelle!

Indiana John?

Gear, George is home and Practice

I am adding a new blog to My Blog list, Walking With Wired. After thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in 2011 and the Continental Divide Trail in 2013, she is finishing the triple crown by hiking the Appalachian Trail. She post everyday and finished day 31 yesterday. She post full, detailed posts with wonderful pictures. She has posted her gear lists which is a gear source as we put together our gear list. Her blog is well worth following.

Two days ago we picked up our camper, "George", from Kramer's Kampers. We purchased George at Kramer's and had him in for his annual check up and maintenance. Our experience with Pete and the folks at Kramer's has and is a great experience, we highly recommend Kramer's!

On the way home from Kramer's we stopped at Bass Pro to check out their camping and hiking supplies. Due to our personal lives and situation we are unable to hike for days on end (wish we could). We plan to take a two-night overnight hike in Glacier National Park in 2015. I have been preparing a gear list based on two hikers that do through hiking and long hikes.

Hiking long distances I can understand the very best equipment especially for a tent and sleeping bags. However for our limited opportunities for overnight hiking, are $300 plus tents and $400 plus sleeping bags worth the expense? At Bass Pro we found the Eureka Spitfire 2 which is $170 and had excellent reviews on Bass Pro and Amazon.

We were up at 5am and out with our packs. We did our usual 3.1 miles and the packs feel much more comfortable - a super sign. Our morning hikes will continue on Thursday and Friday as we prepare George for our first camping trip starting this Friday.

George & First Camping Weekend

Last year we upgraded to a pop-up trailer which we have named George. We are going out for our annual "shake-down" trip to Rock Cut State Park just north of Rockford, IL in a few weeks. We can not wait and hope to also do some hiking in the real outdoors.

Camping season is finally going to be here!!

 

 

Our plans this season are:

 

• Mississppi Palisades State Park (IL)
• RB Winter State Park (PA)
• Hickory Run State Park (PA)
• Elk Neck State Park (MD)
• Superior National Forest - Fall Lake (MN)
• Mirror Lake State Park (WI)

We will hike as much as possible in each location. We do plan hiking parts of the North Country Trail in Minnesota and the Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Michelle and started our practice walks yesterday morning. Our backpacks average about 17 pounds each. The weight is certainly not much but newbies have to start somewhere. We rise after at 5am and after dressing and petting the dog we are off.

We walk through our suburban neighborhood a mile to a local park. The park has a circular path which is another mile. After walking on home we complete a tad over three miles. I was doing this loop solo during the last weeks so Michelle is catching up.

I certainly felt it in my knees and shoulders during these walks. However each time feels better. Michelle noticed my pack was hanging off my shoulders and tightened my straps which made a huge difference. For me each walk feels more comfortable, but my body is still absorbing this new adventure we are undertaking.

I recently purchased The Backpacker's Handbook by Chris Townsend. The manual covers like everything about backpacking and I am having great fun reading.