Superior Hiking Trail

Last week, I went to the North Shore on a "last hurrah before school starts" 3-day hiking trip with friends. We had an awesome time in the beautiful northwoods, even though we got rained out from hiking the 2nd day. We just built a fire in the fireplace and relaxed all day (and then went shopping in Grand Marais). We also learned a really important lesson the first day - always read the signs at the trail head before starting out. We had our first day's hike carefully planned: we left a car at the end of our planned hike, piled into our 2nd car to follow back roads to the beginning of our adventure, got all our gear ready, and took off into the woods, totally ignoring the huge sign at the beginning of the trail. However, we headed east instead of south and didn't realize it until we came to a sign showing all the "wrong" places up ahead. We got out our maps and figured out what we had done, so we re-traced our steps (almost 3 miles worth), and modified our plan for the rest of the day. Oh well.......never too old to learn!

Here's the whole crew right before we set off on our "mis-adventure."

We rented a beautiful 4-bedroom house right on Lake Superior just south of Lutsen. The 4th bedroom is this gazebo built right on the rocks over the lake, accessible by a long flight of steps from the main house. Not too handy to the bathroom, however! It was very windy the first two nights, so the waves were really crashing all night long. What a sound to go to sleep by!

I was lucky enough to get to sleep here two of the three nights - it was awesome!

This is the early morning view along the shore from the gazebo.

On the 3rd day, we took the gondola to the top of Moose Mountain at Lutsen Ski Area. We then took a big circle hike along the back of Moose Mountain, through the valley to Mystery Mountain, along the Poplar River and finally back to the main parking lot. It was a gorgeous, rugged hike with lots of ups and downs. It's definitely a lot quicker getting down on skiis!
This is the lookout deck by the chalet at the top of the mountain. It was very foggy over the lake, but sunny and warm here. What a great way to end the summer!