Day 7: Of Death and Living

Bill and Doug hike toward the river.

 

It had been a stone-cold night. The coldest yet. The winds off the lake had whipped through our campsite long past midnight, dragging with them morning temperatures near freezing.

We knew it would be cold this morning. Last night, Bill and Bruce did their usual hoisting of the bear bag but this time wrapped in tight coats with hoods over their heads.

I wore three coats when I fell into my tent. I pulled on two layers of long underwear before lights-out.

Now the day dawned frosty. We were up and going with surprisingly little complaint. Bill and Bruce heated water on each of their stoves. Coffee’s on!

Trail food takes on new meaning when it’s this cold. Oatmeal, Cream of Wheat and coffee are humdrum compared with, say, a Denny’s Grand Slam Breakfast.

But when served hot on the trail, the three are a blessing – a trinity of warmth and comfort.

Fingers up!

They must have really hit the spot this time, because our seven-finger selfie was a gem – the first one where all three of us wore enthusiastic smiles.

Sure, there were a few other reasons for our elation.

First, we were well past the halfway point in our journey.

Second, the landscape – at least based on our maps – seemed more level along the path ahead. Not that we feared hills. But we all shared the same aches and pains. We didn’t need more.

And third, we were eager to get this day behind us – a 14-miler – because we’d have an amazingly short 10-miler the next day. We could even sleep in a bit tomorrow.

But food was at the heart of our shared happiness, I think. What we also knew was that we’d packed dehydrated biscuits and gravy for tomorrow’s breakfast because of the more leisurely wake-up schedule,

So biscuits, gravy, and our usual menu – five items to look forward to.

Call it a quintity of warmth and comfort. Life rarely gets better.

Yeah … that’s why we were smiling.

***

Our destination today was the Reed and Green Bridge Campground. I was worried, because the campsite did not connect to the trail. It was a good quarter-mile south of it at the 14-mile mark. So we would need to find the correct turnoff.

The lake ... calm again. 

Would there be a trail to it? A sign? Who knew?

But we’d deal with it when we got there.

We headed out along the shoreline, eastward. Again, Lake Superior was showing signs of its schizophrenia … wild winds and raging waves one day, perfect calm the next. Despite last night’s cold ruckus, today was tranquil, the surf even more subdued than two days ago.

We marveled at the undergrowth, since thick trees were scarcer here. Occasional mushrooms had popped skyward with the recent rains, and their striking colors contrasted with the ferns, whose leaves were crisply brown on the edges because of autumn’s return.

Early on, we came upon a small plaque stuck in the ground beside the trail. “In Memory of Tom Sagan.” A fellow hiker? A swimmer? Maybe both. Did he die here? Or was this just his favorite spot?

We gave it little thought, really. Like highway drivers speeding past flower-bedecked, makeshift memorials along the road, you see them but trundle on. Not because sympathy is lacking, but because there’s little context of who, what or why.

I snapped a photo, though, thinking I’d research Tom’s fate.

As had been our luck, we moved quickly over easy terrain the first few miles of the trail. Most of the path was straight, close to shore.

I noticed on our map, ahead along our route, a small symbol of a hiker walking across a bridge. I took it to mean the trail went over a river.

We’d been hiking parallel to the Blind Sucker River, on our right, for about 5 miles and knew at some point it would need to spill out into the lake, under our feet. Now we knew where.

As we got closer, though, I checked the key to the map’s symbols to be sure I was right. It said instead, ominously, “No bridge; forge at your own risk.”

Uh oh.

Not that we had a choice here. We could walk back to the Blind Sucker’s headwaters and circle around to its south side, bushwhacking all the way. But that would be dumb and take hours. We’d need to cross it, no matter the depth.

The walk to the river was unlike any of our hiking to-date. We moved steadily along the soft beach, the waves just yards away, over damp sand and wave-polished rocks.

Rock hounds.

Soon on the horizon we could glimpse two, then four, then more people walking along the water’s edge. Hikers? They didn’t have backpacks.

They walked in pairs. Getting closer, we could see they each carried a metal tool that looked like a golfer’s 9-iron or sand wedge.

They were rock hounds. A spoon-like cup was fixed to each shaft, allowing the hunter to scoop up a rock and examine it without bending over.

Bill knew what they were after – agates pushed ashore by last night’s waves.

Lake Superior agates are lead-stained stones with richly colored lines of reds and oranges. They’re considered gemstones, once they’re polished. Like so much along this shore, they are the product of the mammoth glaciers that grabbed layers of rough rock as they moved south, grinding and breaking the stone into smaller pieces, then carrying it all back in retreat.

Agates are so esteemed up this way that Minnesota proclaimed the Lake Superior agate its official state gemstone in 1969. That was a few years after it proclaimed the Walleye its official fish. The Land of 10,000 Lakes has its priorities.  

 

We asked some of these rock hunters how best to cross the river, hoping there was an improvised plank bridge, perhaps.

They all wore high-water boots, so the answer was obvious before they said it.

“You just walk across it.”

Okay, then.

Rivers that spill into Lake Superior typically are of two kinds: those that tumble in spectacular fashion from high cliffs, or those that arrive upon broad beaches and spread out, the water no longer restricted to narrow banks.

This river was the latter … very wide though not terribly deep or swift. We thought ourselves lucky, given the recent rains. So Bruce and I did what the rock hounds suggested, counting on our boots to keep us dry. We sloshed across, moving fast. My socks and lower pants got wet, but not overly so.

Bill barefoot.

Bill guaranteed that he’d stay dry. He removed his boots and socks, and rolled up his pants. He delicately walked across the river’s rocks in bare feet using his poles to balance, muttering all the way – like an irritated, stooped Flying Wallenda.

A few rock hunters watched us cross, unimpressed. Most kept their eyes glued to rocks below. Agate fever.

We found the trail again over a dune and followed it to Highway 407 along Muskallonge Lake and, eventually, the very small berg of Deer Park. We came upon a squat grocery called Northmere Store, and decided we could use some junk food.

The little A-frame building was dimly lit and had low shelves packed tight with foodstuffs – soups, stews, peanut butter, bread, beer, and the like. All of the things you’d find in a north-woods store catering to tourists and cottage owners. Its proprietor, Joe, was as squat as his store and today wore a black stocking cap to ward off the cold.

Time for junk food.

Joe said he and his wife had tended the store for decades. They’d be closing it soon for the season. He mentioned while I was checking out that he’d seen North Country Trail hikers of all stripes come through – big church groups, families, couples, Boy Scouts.

And single women, some quite young, traveling alone.

“They should know better, walking through these woods by themselves.”

“Where are their parents?!” he asked, clearly perturbed.

I asked him if he’d heard of the book “Wild.” He had not.

“Read it,” I said. “You’ll understand.”

Joe at the cash register.

We paid for drinks and chips – Bruce also got some M&Ms – and sat on the store’s front porch to rest. Joe came out to chat, hungry for conversation. Customers were rare this late into the fall.

Coincidentally, Joe had seen us from his passing car yesterday as we suffered along that last stretch of highway. He said he’d noticed that I was No. 3 in line, my arms, poles and legs flailing like a herniated steam engine.

He kind of chuckled about that.

I hate roads.

***

Potato chips and Diet Pepsi consumed, we bid Joe goodbye and hiked the road east, looking for the blue blaze that would guide us back on the wooded trail to the left.

The map promised an interesting mix of road and trail during our remaining miles this day. The byway was the old Coast Guard Road that stretched eastward from Deer Park to almost the Two-Hearted River Campground.

A sandy two-track, the road is there because no other access to the shoreline exists going east until Highway 423 more than 13 miles away.

We would need to zigzag from road to trail – from road, then north to shoreline, then back to road – three times before reaching our turnoff for Reed and Green Bridge Campground.

It seemed unnecessary that the trail had to shift this way, because it forced us to walk north and south a good quarter-mile each way, three times, with no distance gained to the east. Why not just keep to the shoreline?

We suspected some landowners didn’t want the trail going through their land, while the trail planners felt compelled to keep the trail as close to the lake as possible.

The walks north, south and along the road were all pretty easy. But once again, walking east along the low shoreline bluffs was exasperating as we encountered more downed trees across the path and we lost blue blazes.

It was after an especially challenging stretch that we came upon a second trail memorial. And this one kept our attention. There were actually two, both mounted to trees, facing Lake Superior. One for a William Stringer, and a second, featuring a cross, for a David Stringer.

David’s included baby photos sealed in plastic. So David was a child? Was William his father?

It became easy to imagine a scenario. I noticed a well-used path through the beach grass, from the woods to the shoreline. This was a popular summertime beach spot for the locals, I surmised.

So … high winds, high waves, a warm day, the family swimming? A rip tide sweeping father and son to their doom?

But that was just speculation. The two small shines, like most gravestones, gave no hint as to how death arrived. (Once home, after the hike, I found no trace on-line of their passing, and I felt it intrusive to start making phone calls. So, for us, it remains a mystery.)

We chose this spot to rest because of its broad view of the lake and its quiet. I sat against a tree just next to the memorials and thought of many things: The sadness and love that surely was – is – felt by those who posted these remembrances; the contrasting joy of being here, now, to take in these views; the realization that the lake’s beauty beckons so many … for good or, sometimes, for ill.

Bruce rests at the memorial site.

Like the broader world, this lake is host to the living and the dead. And like Bruce, I gave thanks that I could make this trip. Right now, I was extraordinarily alive.

We collected our gear and walked east to our next “zag.” But the work of walking was so frustrating by the third zigzag that we chose to skip it and stick to the Coast Guard Road, thinking we’d pick up the trail when it reconnected with the road farther east.

But the blue blazes remained elusive. Also, my fear of finding no clear pathway to our campsite came true. We were briefly lost again. Using the map and GPS, though, we finally found the two-track to the campground.

It was smaller than the prior camps, built atop a small bluff overlooking the Two-Hearted River. It featured a half-dozen campsites, fresh water and a single outhouse in the middle.

A couple of the sites were taken, but we found one on the north side and quickly settled in. Across the way, a mid-20s man – ex-Marine, judging from the decals on his truck – was busy packing up. He’d been here two weeks, he said. “The fishing’s been good.” This was now Saturday, so he needed to get home to his wife.

He kindly offered us leftovers from his cooler: some hotdogs, eggs, an open can of baked beans, slices of roast beef, mushrooms and a couple of peppers and red onions.

Beans and weanies.

The roast beef looked pale, the mushrooms dark gray. But the rest looked pretty good. So we built a fire and heated the beans. We skinned some thin branches to spear the hot dogs, peppers and onions, and enjoyed them with our planned dehydrated sweet and sour pork. We set aside the eggs for the morning.

The beans proved spicy enough to strip paint, so we each took a bite, recoiled, and jointly agreed to avoid the rest. With beans, it’s best if the group is either all in or all out, given the after effects.

The weather was turning again, sharply. This time, though, the winds were moving strongly from the southwest. It would be warmer tomorrow.

Our campsite was canopied by trees, and the gale roared through the branches above our heads. Bruce and Bill found a good limb for the bear bag. It would swing like a pendulum all night.

Just before climbing into my tent, I checked the branches above with a flashlight – always a good idea in case there are some dead ones up there. Should have done it sooner, I thought.

I found none. But I also thought how ludicrous that would be … to be done in by a fat limb with just three days remaining on the trail.

Worse, I’d miss the biscuits and gravy.

###

 Sweet P's Log - Day 7

 

Next: Day 8 - North Man. That post will appear on Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016, because of the Christmas break. Happy Holidays!
 

To view photos of Day 7,click here.