SHT: Day 17

Superior Hiking Trail: Day 17

9/1/2023

Dyer Creek Camp - Springdale Creek Camp

Miles hiked: 15.2 mi

No spur/bonus miles

Elevation gained: 1,804 ft

Animals seen: mosquitoes, labor dayers

Elevation chart created on AllTrails.com

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Our goal was to be up early and on trail by 7am so the alarm went off at 5am, but that was too hard. In our defense we were still up earlier than normal and were packing up at 6am. We rehung our neighbor’s bear bag on the rope near our tent pad and were hiking by 8am. 

Trail was mostly easy going, or maybe we were actually developing our trail legs and therefore it didn’t seem as hard. There were some rather punchy ups and downs to make sure we weren’t too comfortable. After an especially punchy up, we came across four backpackers snacking. They were Cueball, Sweetpea, Beardo, and JJ (trailnames from the AT) who were SOBO thru hiking. They had heard about a couple with a small dog from Scout. Small world, no? We chatted for a bit and snacked with them. They had spent the night in town (Tofte) with Scout who had to exit the trail early due to a foot injury. Both parties needed to get back to hiking so we waved goodbye to our new friends and continued on our meandering way north.

Tower Overlook

We were quickly approached the Cross River and passed the four campsites scattered along the river. The campsites looked picture perfect and the river created nice white noise. We only spent half a minute debating whether to quit early but we had already planned to meet Tim and Gabe further up trail so we continued on.

After crossing the Cross River, we had a slog of a climb over the next ridgeline to the Temperance River. My left ankle (the bad one) started to hurt. The closer we got to the Temperance River, the busier the trail got with Labor Day-ers. We followed the Temperance River east to the bridge. After crossing the bridge we trekked back west along the river until we could find a nice resting spot with access to the river so we could filter water. 

Tim and Gabe had wanted to join us to hike along Temperance River but they were caught in the weekend traffic and were still over an hour out so we decided to just meet them at the next trailhead instead. The trail turned away from the Temperance River and climbed up and up and up. It climbed almost to the summit of Carlton Peak. We logged ourselves in the trail register and started the descent.

My ankle which had calmed down over our lunch break started to rage again. Normally when my bad ankle acts up the lateral and medial aspects (sides of the ankle) are the source. This time it was the front and it was very sharp pain. I started to suspect a shin splint which I used to get when I did 5k’s years ago. I downed some nsaids and hoped I was wrong.

We made it to the trailhead and found Gabe’s car. On the descent from Carlton Peak Jake was able to call Tim and Gabe and told them to meet us at the campsite. They had kindly picked up our resupply from Tofte and left the box under the car for us to pick up. But Jake and I had a dilemma on our hands. We had picked up our pace since leaving Beaver Bay and were actually a day ahead of the projected schedule. While that is great news for us, we now had several extra days of food and a fresh resupply to boot. Yikes.

Do we pack all that food, knowing we could not possibly eat that much? Do we toss it or give away the extra? Could we store it somehow and pick it up later? 

After much discussing, we decided to pack only what we could eat for the next few days. The rest we would shove in our bear keg and stow near the parking lot and pick up when Tim and Gabe got dropped off at their car at the end of the long weekend. So we stuffed that bear keg to capacity and then some. We still had extra food and gifted some nut butter and trail mix to a family leaving the parking lot. 

With our bags freshly loaded down again we continued on trail. With a heavy pack and now confirmed raging shin splint I was making a horrendously slow pace. We made it to Springdale Creek Camp around 5:30pm and met Tim and Gabe. The campsite was very crowded and the guys wanted to push to the next campsite a few more miles further. With my ankle and the time, I didn’t see it being a reasonable possibility for me.

Jake and I found a reasonable tent pad and the four of us sat down to chat. A young kid came over who was clearly enamored with the dogs. Toby was a bit suspicious and not enjoying the attention. The poor kid was very sad and exclaimed, “Why don’t you like me, I love you!” I did my best to hide my laughter. His mom wandered over and we got to talking. Their family has been all over. They had hiked last summer in Europe on the Tour du Mont Blanc and just came from Isle Royale. They are SOBO thru’s.

Tree yelling at the trail blaze, hehehe

We made dinner as it got dark and settled in.

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