June 13, 2025

Minnesota Hiking Club #23 - Wild River State Park

 

Minnesota Hiking Club
#23 - Wild River State Park
Date Hiked: March 14th, 2025
Other Hikes That Day: William O'Brien State Park
Wanderloon Ranking System Score: 3.42

The final day, the penultimate stamp, concluding a series of winter hikes on a day that was over 70 degrees, but would drop to 45 by the next day because Minnesota, my speedrunning the Minnesota Hiking Club journey was near its end. 

My gratitude to myself was infinite for saving two of the closest parks for last, rather than trying to trek all over the northwest corner or several hours on the North Shore, because driving barely over an hour to Wild River seemed to take as long as some of those all-day commutes. Only Wild River and William O'Brien remained, and the latter looked closer but longer, so I decided to hit that on the way back after Wild River. 

No coat, scarf, hat, or gloves were necessary on this day, which made me feel underprepared and silly. Yes, hiking in short sleeves after a reasonable commute is when I felt silly, rather than trudging through three feet of snow to get 1.3 miles of credit by hiking 4+ miles to keep my heart from exploding. It made sense at the time. 

Wild River State Park is one of the W-coded St. Croix line, starting with Afton, moving up to William O'Brien, Wild River, and then St. Croix. All were off limits until the snow and ice turned to mud more slippery than ice, but more on that in the William O'Brien edition, because Wild River wasn't too bad. That and half of it was paved, thus making the muddification significantly more difficult on the part of the terrain. Among the most simple shapes of the loop trails, dare I say it makes nearly a perfect rectangle: two horizontal lines with the entirety of the elevation gain on the short vertical ends. I must've done the descent to riverside where most are finishing off the trail because I found the password almost immediately. 

There were people there; a sight even more unusual than my lack of layers or my cheeks being red in the shape of Eric Draven's makeup. I overheard one person ask another how bad the mud was, and as I'd just reached the end, I heard the other say it wasn't bad. I silently agreed. She didn't ask me, but I nodded to myself the same way I usually do when I know the answer to a question I overhear. I don't get it, I just no longer question these things. This is just what E.A. Moon does. 

After I'd found the correct parking lot, which followed two wrong turns and more potholes than Flint in 2017, I wrapped up the 3+ miles of the Wild River State Park's Hiking Club trail feeling good. Half hike by the river, half paved former mining trail, I only had William O'Brien to go, and how hard could that possibly be? Never mind that this was the 15th Hiking Club trail I'd done in a week, what could go wrong? It's not like heat could affect me...

1 comment:

  1. I remember heart-almost-exploded day, too. Am so glad you kept yourself safe instead of being found like Phil McCormick

    ReplyDelete

Minnesota Hiking Club #12 - Sibley State Park

  Minnesota Hiking Club #12 - Sibley State Park Date Hiked: January 12th, 2025 Other Hikes That Day:  Monson Lake State Park Wanderloon Rank...