Minnesota Hiking Club #41 - Myre-Big Island State Park

 

Minnesota Hiking Club

#41 - Myre-Big Island State Park

Date Hiked: January 28th, 2025

Other Hikes That Day: None

Wanderloon Ranking System Score: 2.83

I had no intention of doing any other hikes on this day, and not just because I had nothing within a reasonable distance left around it. 

Myre-Big Island State Park's Hiking Club trail is one of, if not, the longest of the entire selection. It's hard to say because the longest they list any in the brochure is 6.2, but actually walking them turns out longer sometimes. The distance isn't a problem by itself, and while there is some elevation gain, it's nothing that should be inhibitive. 

And yes, it was cold. January in Minnesota, who knew, right? None of those things on their own kept me to just one, even without convenient proximity. But the wind...

Several different wooded areas intersecting multiple routes make up the Hiking Club trail, but one part involves walking on a causeway from Big Island to the rest of the hike. The wind was so fierce, cold, and intense that I took video of myself just taking in the sound and watching my hair nearly fly off my head. 

Cold I can deal with. Wind strong enough that Gordon Lightfoot would sing about, that's much closer to intolerable. And that's a shame because even in January, this is an absolutely beautiful hike. 

Most people know Albert Lea, Minnesota simply because it's where the 35 meets the 90. If you know to look there, you can also find a theatre named after the incomparable Marion Ross, who is from there. This state park is huge, and the Hiking Club trail does a tremendous job taking us through all the state park itself has to offer. Rolling prairies, woods, lakeshore, an island, this is the kind of trail I expected to be more prevalent when undertaking a Hiking Club. 

Part of it was closed off. Also, apparently some people think that if it's cold, you don't have to clean up after your dog, so dodging scatological landmines was also a factor that inhibited my enjoyment. That's not the park's fault. Just one of those small things that when enough people do them, it reminds me why I spend a great deal of time avoiding contact with the majority of the human population (not anyone reading this, y'all cool.) 

This is a very good trail, though the route can be confusing to follow at times, especially if part of it is closed and a detour isn't denoted. I'll get to another example of that happening to a greater degree later in this list, but I suppose if there's trail maintenance to do, January is preferable to the time when most people with some semblance of reason are traversing this trail. The fact that it's this soon in the series is not a negative reflection on the park itself, but rather an indicator of just how many good-to-great experiences there are in the Minnesota Hiking Club. If something like this ranks as my number 41, I can imagine it's even better when not being blown to Oz.