Minnesota Hiking Club #27 - Kilen Woods State Park

 

Minnesota Hiking Club

#27 - Kilen Woods State Park

Date Hiked: February 14th, 2025

Other Hikes That Day: Kilen Woods (but again, in reverse) State Park

Wanderloon Ranking System Score: 3.33

I don't even celebrate holidays, but this trek through the snow was enough to make me feel lonely and isolated regardless. 

A few days earlier when I'd intended to hit Split Rock Creek and Blue Mound before swinging back to this one on the way home, the flat tire left me with no possible way to mark this one off that day. Freshly re-tired and restless, I headed back to the southwest specifically for this park, which was less than three hours away, but after driving home several hundred miles on a spare on the aforementioned expedition, that was more welcome than usual. 

Admittedly, on this day I was in a pit of sadness, for reasons that aren't appropriate to this series. Escaping to the woods in solitude has been a coping mechanism of mine for a long time, but I needed more of a reprieve than usual due to the circumstances. Even in the passport journal, I described myself as a disaster, but I had a virtual date night to look forward to on a different day than usual. 

Kilen Woods State Park felt incredibly remote, or at least did until I made the drives to Savanna Portage or Lake Bronson respectively. This was good though, I wanted to feel invisible, like a spectre wandering in the snow drifts away from everything. I was also beginning to feel a bit restricted to the lengths of the Hiking Club trails. The multiple hike schedule to which I was keeping had 1-4 hikes no longer than 7 miles, whereas my style before the Hiking Club was a single hike but farther. My AllTrails totals weren't accumulating like they had, and while that matters to nobody but me, autism brain sees the comparison as a sign of failure. Never mind the fact that it's winter in Minnesota and 10-plus mile hikes are a lot less practical, clearly I should be out there as much as I was when there was no snow, ice, or cold to deal with. Thanks brain, I appreciate your negativity at a time where I already felt like a mess anyway. 

It started to snow, and there were no other parks within a reasonable distance, so when I finished the two miles, I turned around and hiked it in reverse. 

Kilen Woods State Park's Hiking Club trail isn't as long as some of the other woodsy and remote selections, but it does give more of a vibe of an actual hike than many in the catalogue. Through the dense woods, there are elevation changes, multiple landscapes, an overlook, seeing Iowa but being glad to not be there... The things one usually appreciates on a Minnesota hike. But, it is a park in Minnesota, so you know what that means...

Glaciers! 

Although I confess, when I read the name "Des Moines Lobe," the vision in my head was someone getting their first ear piercing at a Claire's in 1996, but my first guess should've been glaciers. It's always glaciers.