Minnesota Hiking Club #36 - Savanna Portage State Park

 

Minnesota Hiking Club

#36 - Savanna Portage State Park

Date Hiked: March 11th, 2025

Other Hikes That Day: Father Hennepin State Park, Mille Lacs-Kathio State Park

Wanderloon Ranking System Score: 2.92

Talk about being out in the middle of the woods! 

Savanna Portage State Park gives that feeling in two different but sequential ways. Looking at it on the map, it seems like it'd be a relatively close hop over from Jay Cooke or Moose Lake. Hill Annex Mine might've been a better proximity comparison, but though still listed in the booklet, that park closed in 2024, along with Upper Sioux Agency. Talk about your interesting comparisons though... Upper Sioux Agency closed to give indigenous people their land back, and the other closed because it once again became an active mine. Minnesota, everybody! 

Oh, right, the differential sequence of the park, yes... Getting to Savanna Portage requires its own jaunt into the deep woods before one even gets to the park itself, but once the office is seen and the stamp is pressed into the Passport booklet, it becomes another mini-adventure of finding the Hiking Club trailhead. Granted, once again, the timing of such a hike may have impacted the difficulty of finding it, but I made at least two wrong turns while carefully navigating the extremely icy road. Deeper and deeper into the woods I went, accidentally circling through an empty campground before then taking the correct turn and parking on top of a patch of ice that somewhat resembled a space. It was all ice, so parking ice is in the eye of the beholder, but since I was the only person I saw that day anyway, it didn't matter all that much. 

It honestly felt like I wasn't supposed to be there, given said ice and solitude, but being this close to finishing my speedrun, I journeyed on since I hadn't met any tangible resistance in doing so. I don't exactly advise that course of action, but with the premise of my journey once again restated, I don't expect most people are trying to do this Hiking Club trail with ice spikes being a prerequisite. 

Savanna Portage's Hiking Club trail is among the longer routes of selection in the club catalogue. A solid five miles of a deep woods excursion, I imagine this trail is similar to George C. Manitou's in terms of rugged and steepness, though not as condensed as the aforementioned. I would dare say it's akin to Dr. Frank-n-Furter himself: a wild and untamed thing, and some bees with a deadly sting. Akin, but not exact, because nothing and nobody can be an equal to Tim Curry. 

Without ice, this is probably still a more difficult hike than most of the Hiking Club trails. With ice, even with spikes, it's advisable to be careful and take the slopes at a safe pace. The loop on the AllTrails map looks like a sassy wizard sticking out their tongue in defiance of precautions, but I'd take them nonetheless. Especially since a wizard won't part from their walking stick, but anyone hiking this terrain should have two. This is the kind of hike trekking poles were made for.