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Still Learning …and Hiking

I’m still on trail. Or, more accurately, I’m back on North Country Trail for the third time this year. Apparently no amount of misery will keep me off of it.

This summer I’ve hiked about 1000 miles, finishing the 300 mile Superior Hiking Trail in northern Minnesota – a part of North Country Trail – a couple weeks ago. It’s become very clear that the time of year and weather matter a lot when you’re hiking, especially if you’re backpacking and cannot escape the elements.

When we came back from mountain climbing to hike central Minnesota, we found a beautiful well-maintained trail through the woods. Unfortunately, it was mosquito and deer fly season. It was also hot and very humid. We were the only ones on the trail except a man from Fish and Wildlife Department who was mowing the trailhead parking area.

He looked at us, shook his head and said “You don’t have to hike this trail in order, right?” We nodded. He said “You should skip on up north and get out of these bugs. Nobody hikes central Minnesota in July.” We were miserable and not at all looking forward to camping in heat and humidity with relentless biting bug swarms. That evening we drove up north, skipping over 300 miles of trail, and set our sights on hiking the Border Route section of this trail.

The bugs were far fewer, although it was still tough wilderness area hiking with very challenging terrain. The paths are difficult to navigate and this year all trail maintenance was canceled because of Covid. I am glad to say we finished it without injury. The campsites are beautiful and we often camped by a lake and had great views of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness at times. Plus, I felt like the challenge brought my experience level up a notch. I am glad we hiked it, …and even happier it’s behind me.

Next we started the Superior Hiking Trail, hoping to regain our love of hiking. It was a wet and somewhat buggy start and my hiking partner stopped hiking after the first full day. He decided there was more joy in fly fishing, but stayed nearby to shuttle me between trailheads. That way I could hike with a day pack instead of my full 29 pound backpack.



I hiked on my own a few days and then one of our trail angels from North Dakota, Rachel, joined me for a week. We had very good weather with some beautiful river and waterfalls along the way, plus good views of Lake Superior. It all went so well in fact that she is the reason I’m back up in northern Minnesota again.



A friend of hers planned a hike through another remote section of this trail, the Kekekabic Trail (Kek), with a permit to start next week. They invited me to join them and I took them up on it, as I’m probably not ready for solo hiking that type of wilderness area just yet. It’s a 22 hour drive up here, so I brought my bicycle and car to shuttle myself along the hike. I want to complete as many of the miles we skipped earlier as I can before we start the Kek next week.

The plan is to park at a trail head, then ride my bicycle as far as I want to hike, lock up the bike and hike back to the car. Then I can go pick up the bicycle and do it all over again the next day.



I did my first self-shuttled hike late yesterday after I arrived. It was only 3 miles but gave me a chance to try it out. I’m on a section of the trail that follows a bicycle trail called the Mesabi Trail for over 130 miles. I figure a shared bike/hike trail will be the easiest way to test this strategy.

I’m grateful to have the chance to hike the North Country Trail this year, even though it has been challenging in many ways that I never expected. I’ve learned a lot this year about hiking, reevaluating dreams, and about how stubbornness can both help you reach your goal and prevent you from reaching it at the same time. I hope to sift through these lessons and insight to be able to write about them someday.

In the meantime I’m going to keep hiking and searching for ways to make the reward worth the work.

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The Journey

I’m exhausted. Fourteen miles into town on gravel roads, then asphalt roads with traffic from Highway 210 rerouted onto the same road I hiked …this isn’t what exhausted me.

The fours days prior with temps in the mid 90’s while winds howled 30 mph as they pushed me sideways along the dusty roads, causing a man we met to remark that we needed to shorten a pole on the wind side because we were leaning so hard against the wind …that isn’t what exhausted me.

The nearly 500 miles we’ve come in the first thirty-two days while sleeping on the ground most nights as ticks kept us trapped in our zipped up tents aren’t what exhausted me either.https://fromdreamtolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/img_7826.mov

We’ve actually slept well, and the previous few nights were helped along by people who either offered us a place to camp sheltered from the wind, or gave us cold beverages and snacks, invited us inside out of the wind for an hour or two, or even took us inside their homes for the night, cooking dinner and breakfast for us before we hiked away the next day. These people added energy back into our days.

In fact, I’ve come to believe it’s the people along the way who have kept us on trail. Sometimes I feel like each day a stranger picks up where another stranger left off, gently easing our path and giving us encouragement, as though they’ve formed an unspoken agreement to ensure we continued along our journey.

No, lack of a good nights rest isn’t why I sit silently in my hotel room. I’m thinking nothing and doing nothing. I have no will to take off my hiking shoes. I don’t make a move to take a shower, normally the first thing I prioritize when reaching a town. I’m thoroughly and completely exhausted.

It’s the thought of hiking more of the same which exhausts my entire being. I sit on the hotel bed minutes after checking in, eating chips and staring blankly at the wall. Wingman seems to be doing the same thing from the couch in our little suite. After a while I say, “I was serious,” and then look over at Wingman. “I will be happy to take a few days off to climb a couple mountains and then come back to the trail.”

“Me too,” he answered, “My sister can bring my truck – I’ve already asked her.”

By the end of the evening we went from thinking it over to a new plan. We will road walk the next forty-five miles of the North Country Trail over the next three days, then his Mom and sister will bring his truck to us in Frazee, MN.

We cannot wait. I’m a USA Highpointer, which means I climb, drive or walk to the highest points of every state. I’ve completed thirty-four and next weekend we will be climbing King’s Peak in Utah, followed by Borah Peak in Idaho a few days later. My ice axe is being shipped from California, where I had it held in anticipation of hiking the Sierra Mountains, to Wyoming – ready for me to pick up along the way.

We hope a few good things are different when we return. First, we already know the miles ahead change from nearly all road walking to mostly trail. Only about one-third of the trail over the next two hundred miles is on a road and further north it’s all trail. Trail is why we hike after all. Short roads connecting long trails are not bad. The reverse is just trudging across America.

Second, more trail maintenance will be finished. Some trail ahead is still thigh-high with brush and grass. The ticks are very heavy and include deer ticks which carry Lyme disease. I am now used to pulling several ticks – if not dozens – off my shoes, ankles and legs every day. Deer ticks are harder to see than wood ticks though, as deer ticks are no bigger than a dot. We soaked our shoes and socks in Permethrin for the upcoming miles, but if more trail has been cleared by the time we come back, trail life will be much better and ticks will be fewer.

We expect Minnesota will open more in a couple weeks. Right now, some showers and restrooms ahead may still be closed. Breakfast isn’t served in the hotels – just sugary prepackaged treats – and most restaurants are still take-out only. Even remote areas like those we hike need a little more time to reopen in Minnesota.

Finally, we expect to be rejuvenated mentally. I’m pretty stubborn, which helps me reach my goals. What I need right now is to enjoy the challenge of pursuing this goal more than I have this first month. Since we don’t plan to finish all 4,735 miles in one season, it really doesn’t matter how far along we make it before snow flies – my cue to go home.

If we come back to trail and find it isn’t the journey we want to spend our days navigating, we can take the truck straight to the Boundary Trail and Lake Superior Trail sections of this hike. There are a lot of good hiking days ahead. We just need a strategy for creating them.

Two days later, I’m resupplied and nearly ready for the seventeen mile road walk ahead today. We casually walked nine miles of trail in a big “U” through town yesterday, so we even hiked some miles on our day off. It was a really pretty walk with groomed trails on half of it and downtown on the other half. I only found two ticks, and the rain which soaked us mostly dried by the time we found a partially open restaurant downtown.

I’ve been told repeatedly Maplewood State Park is beautiful. It’s our destination today. Once we finish today’s road walk, we will be in the woods on a trail camping on the last available site. It looks like a pretty sunny low temp day. I think it will be a good start to our new plan.

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In Between Goals

It’s pretty plain I like goals. I have lots of them: regular goals, big goals and even those I call a BAG (big audacious goal). I like helping people reach their goals too, whatever the size and challenge. This year I’ve discovered a new class of goal, the in-between goal. I really like them, because they are a good way to keep me grounded and present while waiting for my next adventure.

That’s why I call them an in-between goal. They are in-between now and a bigger, more important goal. They keep me excited and focused on something positive.

Some of my bigger goals are very challenging to reach, like my plan to earn a living through motivational speaking. As others have said, “Becoming a professional speaker is easy. Earning a living at it is hard.”

Other goals are seasonally related, like hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, which doesn’t start until next spring. So, the in-between goals focus my energy and help keep me from feeling I’m wasting my time when other goals are elusive or far away. Often my in-between goals are a physical activity that keeps me strong and fit, too. Added bonus!

My current in-between goal is to run five miles without collapsing. Specifically, it’s to finish the Kraut Run 8K (5 miles) in under fifty-five minutes. Kraut Run is on October 5th, so I have eleven days left. Today was the first day I came near my goal. I finished at 55:16. That’s really close. I feel good, in fact I’m pretty excited because this goal has been harder than I expected. The last time I actively worked on running was years ago and I was a stronger, faster runner. Then, I ran faster minutes per mile and nearly three times as far. Now my goal is for a slower pace and shorter race. That doesn’t mean it’s coming easily.

My best time in the last three months was 57:29, and for two weeks in September, I didn’t run a full five miles during any training run. I consoled myself knowing I was still out there trying, running in very hot weather and sticking with it even though it seemed to be going poorly. I remembered my lesson from hiking the Appalachian Trail: It doesn’t matter what you expect. It only matters you deal with what is.

Today, when my work out app announced mile three had taken me significantly longer than the first two miles, I reminded myself to just keep pushing my pace. I really didn’t think I would improve, but I wanted to keep from slowing down any further. Then, when mile four came in at a faster time, I realized I had a chance to finish close to my goal of fifty-five minutes. It was very hard to run the fifth mile as strongly as the fourth, but I kept saying to myself, “You got this” or “You can do it” and “You’re almost finished“. One time I even said it out loud and was thankful no one was nearby.

I have twelve more days to trim those last few seconds from my time. My goal isn’t to run as fast or as far as I once did, but my effort and hope are the same as always. I’m working diligently to reach this in-between goal and I sure hope I make it by Oct. 5th.

It’s worth striving for; it’s kept me running through the entire summer and put me in much better shape for my next in-between goal: backpacking eighteen miles days to prepare for the PCT!