With a memory of the view from the top of Enger Tower, I set out from the Spirit Mountain parking lot with the intention of reaching that park, despite both the heat and how crowded it might be on a gorgeous Saturday in the north. The first spur led me to see the ski lifts from the other side, so I knew the visibility was going to be outstanding. With no familiarity of these sections, I couldn't predict how difficult it would be to reach Enger Park and meet my ride, but missing someone who stood in the top of the tower with me that day, the next best thing I could do was pursue a scene from a memory.
Normally a trail getting this close to a major interstate would be a turn-off, but it was the magic section of the 35, the one for which I'm always building up for someone taking the trip to Duluth and the North Shore for the first time. After two hours of mostly uninteresting highway driving, crossing over the hill and the following descent into Duluth is one of my favorite sights, and this day's hike would give me the chance to admire it as long as I wanted to from a place where I didn't have to worry about driving while sneaking glances at both the view and the first-timer's face when it unveils itself.
Along the ridges, mud was still a factor, but not as much as it had been with a few of the previous hikes. The urban sections were naturally going to have more than just remote nature, which had both advantages and disadvantages. There was more likely to be infrastructure like bathrooms or places to fill up on water, but it also meant concrete, sidewalks, crossing roads of varying traffic flow, thus increasing the noise level from which a sensory sensitive autistic person like me is constantly trying to flee.
Going under the 35, briefly reacquainting with the DWP trail, and heading back into the woods, my confidence was high that I could reach my goal. The heat was becoming a factor though, as I was more sensitive to it than ever before. It took so much conditioning and adjustment to complete the winter speedrun of the Minnesota Hiking Club that conversely, the heat felt more overwhelming to me than it likely would've at any other point in time. I wrote about this in my William O'Brien log for the Minnesota Hiking Club series, where 70 degrees seemed like 120 because I'd only recently been used to numbers with negative signs next to them . Year-round hiking is a series of adjustments in all capacities, but temperature tolerance is one that's constantly in flux. It's either tempering the cold and finding ways to minimize the impact it has on your motivation, or it's wondering why you're suddenly going through so much water and your chest seems heavy even though you haven't put in the miles you're used to.
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