Minnesota Hiking Club #40 - Sakatah Lake State Park

 

Minnesota Hiking Club

#40 - Sakatah Lake State Park

Date Hiked: January 1st, 2025

Other Hikes That Day: Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park, Rice Lake State Park

Wanderloon Ranking System Score: 2.92

At least this time I knew what the creepy sound while I was alone in the woods was.

Now, anyone from Minnesota knows, first Wednesday means we're all cosplaying for a Pyramidhead showdown, but when it's the first of the month, a drinking holiday for most people, and you're alone in the woods in the middle of nowhere, it's got vibes, that's all I'm saying. 

This was my third hike of the day, month, and the year, because what is time if not weird and irrelevant, but I was starting off productively, rather than bemoaning my delayed trip out west. Given that I've already written on one and there's one to go, you can deduce which of my three was my favorite, but Sakatah Lake State Park's Hiking Club trail was pretty cool in its own right, even if it had me ready to fight the invasion, whether that be Silent Hill nightmare fuel or WCW 2001. Fortunately, January is too early for Unforgiven, because if I had to fight three-headed heel Stone Cold, I'd rather deal with Pyramidhead's giant but impractical death slicer, because it'd be over mercifully quicker. 

Like the previous two on this day, the Hiking Club trail was in the 2+ mile length and a relatively simple loop. There was more elevation gain than Rice Lake but less than Nerstrand. All three are remote, predominately-woodsy loops. The second two had a lake, as the name would imply, but with the Hiking Club trail being comprised of three other park trails, the view was limited at best. I'm sure the namesake lake is lovely, but frozen, brown, and only sorta near the northwest corner of the route didn't endear it much. But hey, no mosquitos either, so who won, really?

In retrospect, I think the only reason this one ranked ahead of the previous entry is that at no point did I expect to see livestock flying by, let alone twice. That's not to trash the ranking of this one, though I suppose I should also mention this was only the 7th one I did, so my energy was higher and I wasn't necessarily speedrunning the journey yet, despite this being the first trilogy day of hikes. I still had some of that longer distance endurance that the weather in Minnesota always tempers a bit, and the pictures will show that I wasn't dealing with snow and ice quite yet. 

That's once again not meant to belittle this trail. Obviously I liked it enough to put this high, but it also didn't traverse multiple landscapes or provide any especially spectacular views. That said, it's a nice, slightly hilly walk in the woods, and that has its own merit and enjoyment factor, especially when it's the third hike on a cold, lonely day on which I went hiking to distract myself primarily from wishing I was somewhere else. The map makes these three look closer though, as it's a 40 minutes drive from Rice Lake, so be aware.