Minnesota Hiking Club
#14 - Tettegouche State Park
Date Hiked: January 4th, 2025
Other Hikes That Day: Temperance River State Park, Cascade River State Park
Wanderloon Ranking System Score: 4.08
It's finally here: The oft-aforementioned, life-changing, epiphanic trilogy of January 4th hikes that I haven't stopped yammering about since commencing this ranked list of the Minnesota Hiking Club's trails, and the "lowest" one is ranked 14/67. Buckle up, bitches! We're in for a wild ride on these three!
This is the day that the Hiking Club went from an excuse to get outside and do a thing to a moment in which I had the choice of folding up, letting my demons and trauma get the better of me, and fading into the mist like a fog on the big lake upon the morning sun... or... to quote Baker Mayfield, "I woke up feeling dangerous."
Dangerous this was, make no mistake about that whatsoever. I was not in my right mind. The New Year's Day trilogy of hikes detailed this, but January 4th is where it went from a distraction to a mission, and I cannot reiterate enough that I'm not saying this was entirely a good thing, nor would I say I recommend it, at least in this fashion.
To further elaborate, it wasn't just cold, it was cold for Northern Minnesota. It was -17 without the wind chill, and that was just at the start. This was the first hike of the three that day, and it was partially because by the time I'd gotten up there, if I tried to go the whole way to Grand Portage, I may not have had the time to do anything else. I was hurting, my brain was making the worst of everything, my separation anxiety was at its height, and instead of spiraling into a dangerous puddle of instability, I ventured out into dangerous levels of cold, ice thick enough to do damage to any creature, and the joys/dangers of solitude in a place that is normally overrun with people when frostbite isn't a major concern.
Tettegouche State Park's Hiking Club trail is comparable to Gooseberry Falls State Park's, and not just because of its free parking and rest stop nature. It's on dangerous, jagged cliffs, and the short distance is deceiving, even if you're not treading over thick layers of ice on volcanic rock on steep elevation gains in temperatures that would make someone from the dark side of Saturn ask what the hell you were doing there.
I did this trail without my ice spikes. When the trail started off being paved, I didn't think it'd be necessary. Within the short distance of this trek to Shovel Point, you go up, down, back up, back down, along the side, step on up, head back again, "oh shit, if I slip on that ice I'm unintentionally shipwreck diving on the coldest day of the year," I can't feel my face, "I've gotta climb all those stairs," holy shit, "what decisions in my life brought me to this point in time?" and then you have to go back.
I made a bad decision, and it changed my life.
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