Pincushion Mountain and Devil Track River. Superior Hiking Trail. August 6-7, 2015

Part 2

While my feet were airing, I skipped rocks to amaze the children. One skipped across the river and shattered on a rock on the far side (there were a lot of brittle rocks there). By the time dinner was ready, all the kids had succeeded in skipping rocks somewhat consistently and had moved on to throwing big rocks in to make the best splashes.

Dinner was made by soaking the dried food cold in the pot, and once it had rehydrated, warming it up. It seemed to take forever, but food always does when you're hungry. I think it was a successful experiment. We'd failed to get more denatured alcohol and were cooking over isopropal. Man that was smokey! But the soot wiped right off... We inhaled all the food, with no leftovers and nobody still hungry. Perfect.





The kids played "predator and prey", which is hide and seek with animal noises. R has a terrifying growl that startled me every time.I took a little walk back to the bridge, since I'd been tuckered out and missed enjoying that section of trail.

Several other people came down to our campsite and looked a little taken aback at how full it was. We told them all that we would figure out how to fit them in, but the other campsite is close and looked bigger and probably didn't have children. They all moved on and didn't come back. We learned later that the other site had 6 people in it by the end of the day.

As it got dark, we tucked into bed. It started to sprinkle.

When I woke up in the dark for a pit stop, I realized we have some learning to do about the tent. The lightweight fabric gets caught more easily in the zipper. That's a small problem, until it's wet and gets more caught. I ended up crawling out of the vestibule on my stomach and getting it unstuck from the outside. The rain (and perhaps just being new?) also made the tent floppy, so I tightened the ropes.

In the morning we had oatmeal in the rain. While the water was heating up, I made coffee sludge with dehydrated coffee and rain drops. That was not as effective as waiting for hot water, turns out. Boo wanted a sip, as she often does. But I usually pollute my coffee with sugar, and often milk. Not on the trail! Her "ewww" face was wonderful!



Packing stuff up was a little awkward. The rain had drizzled down the trail under the vestibule, so the belt to my pack was muddy. We got most everything that had been dry, into packs dry. We did not add much mud to the tent in taking it down. With the one vestibule muddy, the doors of the tent were a little tricky. If I had a redo, I'd pack up from the vestibule that wasn't muddy! Packing was made a little easier by strapping the tent to the front of Lee's pack, under the compression straps, instead of trying to jam it inside.



As we'd camped at the bottom of cliffs, first thing we had to do was climb up. The rain made things a bit wet, but nothing difficult. (Stairs! All those stairs!)



The fog was amazingly beautiful.  Again, nothing I could get a picture of. The Devil Track River soon was just peeks and hints through the trees. There's some beautiful river down there, but don't bother bringing the big camera. The cliffs are also very pretty. The rain tapered off as we walked.

I haven't been hiking much, or backpacking at all, for 2 years. Turns out I've lost the knack of properly snacking on the trail. I stopped to take pictures off a bridge, and .... bonked hard. Suddenly I could barely put one foot in front of the other. I hadn't snacked when the kids had, and I missed my warning signs. Lee saved me and stuffed food into me, as I was at the point I couldn't even figure out that food would help. Oops.

Shortly after 11 (I think, I didn't have a timepiece with me), we reached the parking lot. Our ride wasn't there, as she was running a rescue shuttle for some folks who'd had gear failure in the rain (tent and rainjackets both). We ate lunch. The girls had peanut butter packets with bread or crackers. Those went well. The rest of us had tuna and crackers.

The hike was very short (I think ~5 miles both days). But that was good for my level of walking with a pack, and it was the first time the girls carried full-sized packs (with room for sleeping bags). It was a lovely walk. The raspberries were wonderful. Pincushion Mountain is easy to get to, easy to summit, and very nice views. The river was beautiful. The rain wasn't unpleasant (though it could have stopped an hour earlier for drier breakfast...). Success.

Part 1

Pincushion Mountain and Devil Track River. Superior Hiking Trail. August 6-7, 2015

Part 1

The regular crew is 3 adults (me, Lee, DvA) and 3 kids (Boo - 7yo, R- 8yo, and J - almost 12). It's my first trip with R, since the 2 or 3 overnights she's been on were all after I wrecked my back and wasn't hiking.

We started after lunch, from 53, just off the Gunflint Trail, which leaves 61 at the north end of Grand Marais. The parking lot has a nice overlook of Grand Marais, where we were carcamping for the week. There were enough of us we took both cars, and left one overnight. Many tails we hiked that week had boot brushes at the beginnings to reduce the spread if invasive plants. The kids were really good about brushing their boots. The trail starts along a cross-country ski trail. So it's really wide. There were a lot of raspberries along the edges!




Between the kids getting bigger and my back, I was by far the slowest in the group.It was lovely and solitary, but a little lonely. And I didn't get very many pictures of peoples' faces!



It wasn't very far along, just in time for the kids to get hungry, that we came to Pincushion Mountain. We left our packs at the bottom, and scrambled up the bare rock face. The kids were almost on all fours. At the top was lots of bare rock and some nice views of Superior and the inland. The Devil Track valley was pretty obvious. The breeze was nice after being in fairly dense woods. There was a big pile of deer scat up there, but I have no idea why a deer would have gone up.





Going back down the bare rock, I scooted down on my bottom. I threw my hiking sticks down ahead of me, which Lee accused me of throwing pointy sticks at her. Pfft, whatever.

We saw several berry-ful bear scats on the trail. I was glad to see that the bears are well-fed this time of year, since Boo still uses her shirt as a napkin more often than not.



Eventually the Superior Hiking Trail turned off the ski trail and narrowed to a more standard hiking trial width. As normal for the SHT, it was in lovely, well groomed condition. Well blazed. And full of steps. Oh god the steps. Down down down to the Devil Track River. Up and Down along the river. So much up. So much down. (I was fine with the up, but the down was kind of awful, even with my sticks.)



Along with the horrible steps, we started to catch occasional glimpses of the river, and more views of the cliffs making the opposite bank. Just like the SHT book said, not much for the camera, but very good for the eyes. There were nice little overlooks and pull-offs to look at the river.




We reached the West Devil Track campsite by mid afternoon and found it already occupied. Since we have plenty of time in the day and oomph in the legs, we decided to check out the East Devil Track campsite across the river and up a bit. DvA signed us in the trail register. The bridge across Devil Track is awesome. I did not get any great pics of it, but I love that bridge.




East Devil Track campsite was unoccupied, so we moved in. The book says it has 2 tent pads, but maybe 4 could squeeze in if some were small or everyone was friendly. We pitched our Big Agnes Copper Spur 3 for it's first backpacking use. We placed it at the corner of the tent pad, as it looked like if it rained, the rain would run down the trail and through the tent pad area. The tent pad was hard and rocky, but there was a convenient large rock to use as a hammer, so we got our stakes in.



The "completely exhausted, couldn't take another step" kids clambered down to the river and spent some time throwing rocks, building dams, and in general proving that kids are sprinters. I gave my feet a nice cold soak and an airing.


 

Part 2: In Camp, Dinner, Night, Next Day

A Wet Night in North Carolina (Part 3 of 3)

Monday-Tuesday, July 2-3, 2013.  Pisgah National Forest. Black Balsam, through Graveyard Fields, to the Skinny-dip Falls Trailhead.

Morning: Escape

It was still raining in the morning. Even though I had been careful, my bag got wet. Wet legs? Sweat? Condensation? Oh, the little puddle at my feet… The down was only ~1-2” deep over top of me. Boo was curled into the corner of the tent, in another puddle. We were both warm enough, but it was a good thing it wasn’t cold and we weren’t sleeping out another night. We had a small creature (lizard? salamander? newt?) on the tent. We took a picture of its shadow, but we never got a look at it.

Eventually the rain let up enough that we got out of the tent to start breakfast. 

The worrisome waterfall in the trail out was down to a reasonable stream size. We could all walk that with our packs. But we had almost as long a day planned for Day 2 as Day 1. And the trails would probably be wetter and slicker. The rain had really demoralized the kids, probably because they were cold and wet starting out. 

Breakfast helped, but we decided that, instead of pushing for our planned pickup point, we’d bail, and head for the trailhead less than a mile away by Looking Glass Falls. The bridge across the river was high, so it should still be in place. We texted G our alternative pickup plan. 

Breakfast was good for the kids. Oatmeal and hot chocolate. S and J had homemade oatmeal with stuff. J insisted at length that it was the best oatmeal he’d ever had. My coffee was half rainwater and half hot water. Once we got confirmation from G that she could get us, we told the kids they only had a mile to go, and that cheered them immensely. Boo went from whiney floppy to excited in 2 sentences. 

And the heavens opened again. But not the flooding rain of the night before. 

Then we had to pack up. (Mostly) dry sleeping bags in the plastic trash bags we use for backpack liners. Wet clothes and food bag in Lee’s bag. Wet tent in my bag. I usually roll the tent, but I just wanted to get going. Oof, everything’s a lot heavier! 

J and S have raincovers for their bags. They fussed a bit getting the covers over their sleeping pads.

J was shivering in his shorts as we did a last sweep of the campsite, making sure we’d gotten everything. Lee fed Boo a double chocolate espresso granola bar as everyone loaded up. 

I chose to hike in my raincoat over wool shirt, and nylon shorts. Keep my torso warm and dry (mostly), and let my legs get wet. It wasn’t any colder than 60F, with very little wind, and it worked for me. Boo started with the bottoms of her pants on, but requested them off soon after they got wet.

It was slow going. Yes the waterfall was down, but the trail was 1-2” deep and rocky. Boo needed a lot of help. We generally kept much closer together than the previous day, but there were many more places where we went one at a time so we didn’t fall into each other (a lesson the kids have not yet internalized). 

The kids were troopers. The wet rocks were harder on Boo’s little legs. She usually keeps up pretty well, but she was hands down the limiter on speed. The kids weren’t allowed to hike next to each other; we wanted an adult on either side of both of them Just In Case. 

Skinny Dip Falls was very high. We found an abandoned Angry Birds t-shirt. It amused us so much we took it home.

We emerged from the woods, stomped through one final rivulet of water, and were at the road. We couldn’t see far between the twists of the road and the fog, but we listened carefully and crossed like a family of ducks (single file, kind of scattered, hoping everyone would make it). As we walked into the pull-off, G turned in behind us! 

G took our picture, then we stripped off everything we could and threw it in the truck before the rain picked up again. We stopped at our planned take-out point, and, no, there was no way Boo could have made it, and the rest of us wouldn’t have had a good day, either. 

Back at the house, there was just enough sun that afternoon to dry our things on the porch. It was the last sun we’d see until Friday afternoon. 

Even having to watch my steps so closely, even worrying about the kids, even with my feet sloshing in my boots… It was beautiful. I wish I’d had a raincoat for my camera, instead of having it carefully wrapped in my pack. Or even just had a chance to look around more, or worry less about my kiddo cracking her head. This was one of those things that’s none to pleasant at the time, but after you’ve dried off and had a shower, you’re sitting around, telling the tale, thinking, “Yeah, that was awesome.”

photo courtesy Gwyn Krause

Part 1: The Beginning: Heading Out

Part 2: In Camp: Flood