Superior Hiking Trail- Day 4- Tuesday July 13

Day 4 started out as good as it ended. I was up and out by 8 am. and had an additional 2 miles to reach Gooseberry State Park

Another nice bridge takes you over the Gooseberry River

Someone is serious about keeping everything out of their property

If Day 3 was the joy of the trip ( if you want to hike the SHT and only have a short time, do the Split Rock to Gooseberry section). Today Day 4 is the worst. This section started out great until leaving Goosberry State Park. As soon as you leave the main river section the trail in this section completely dissapears

The trail was so overgrown that I actually had to "hack" my way through the trail. Any section that was clear was a swamp you had to navigate around. This has to be a very popular section and I couldn't imagine why this section did not have better mantainence

There area actually 4 campsites along this section, it is obviously popular. It is also level and easy to walk, but I can't imagine why anyone would want to walk this section in its present condition

This is actually the trail ( below)

I managed to get out to the Gooseberry river for a rest and some more water

There were still some pretty flowers when you weren't trying to find the trail

 

Crow Creek Campsite was the stop for today. I arrived at 1:20 pm. This had to be my stop for today as there is no more campsites until my car. This is the last night in the woods and agian I have the whole woods to myself

I am here early enough to get my feet dry make a nice camp and get a fire going to try and dry my socks and shoes for the last hike out tomorrow.

I did manage to make a good fire and keep it going from 3:30 to about 7 pm.

The smoke made pretty swirls between the trees in the late afternoon

I used wood for cooking as well tonight. My stove can use both alchohol or wood ( using the wood saves on having to carry the weight of the alchohol) and is of course more romantic for camping

It was a long and tiring day through the weeds and my feet are in bad shape ( see epilougue) but only 7.5 miles to go tomorrow to the car and out. I can't belive it is almost over.

Summary:

11 miles in 5 hrs 20 minutes