Minnesota State Parks Revisited: Mille Lacs-Kathio

 

Mille Lacs-Kathio State Park

Date Hiked: June 1st, 2025

Trail Hiked: The Hiking Club Trail

Distance Hiked: 3.4 miles

Elevation Gain: 154 feet

Duration: 1h 5m

 

With this being one of the parks toward the end of my speedrun to which I barely paid any attention, I felt like I owed it another chance, perhaps even without an addition trek through deep and drifting snow. Some will be surprised by this, but there wasn't any snow on this June day in Minnesota, though I wouldn't rule out the possibility of its occurrence. Anywhere near the Great Lakes region knows of at least one story with a massive surprise well out of season. 

 

Though I had enough bug spray to take down an entire horror movie-level swarm of mosquitos like the time I explored the ghost town of Taconite Harbor, there was another menace that put me in sensory hell that bug spray couldn't help against: the seemingly millions of spiderweb-like strands of silk hanging off the trees. The first time around, I was mindlessly trekking through heavy melting snow, but this time I was swiping my arms nearly the entire time. You know that feeling when there's a hair on your shirt and it's tickling your arm but you can't find it? Imagine that but magnified exponentially. At least with mosquitos, occasionally there's the satisfaction of a neutralizing swat that'll take care of at least one potential itchy situation. Not so when you're a few spinny spins away from doing a glowy Frodo impression from Shelob's Lair. 

 

The history of this park cannot be glossed over, and as I stated in many travelogues, I never intend to dissuade anyone from attending any parks in the diverse and plentiful Minnesota State Park system, nor does anything I say about the hiking trails specifically apply to the park itself. But if this hike were a person in high school, it'd be the one in the group project that talked a big game and came from a locally-famous family that owned a couple car dealerships, but once it was time to produce a piece of multimedia that their second uncle twice-removed was able to do for free to help the project, they shrugged like they'd never suggested it, then skip the rest of class to go repeatedly hang out in the boys' room. 

 

With my experiences being "there's snow in my allegedly waterproof boots" and "maybe if I had a paper-thin machete-like instrument, I could at least cut a swath through this silky, sticky situation," I understand that my judgment is coming from an experiential point of view that may not apply to most of the population. However, the lack of Mille Lacs lake views is also rather surprising, given its proximity and, oh I don't know, the name itself? I'm well aware that it's eponymous of the indigenous people and not of the lake necessarily, but what can I say, I'm biased in favor of grand views of massive lakes when I go hiking. 

 

It is not a bad park, but outside of a second speedrun to beat my first for some reason, I don't anticipate a return.  

Superior Hiking Trail #1-10 - Skyline Parkway to Haines Road

Superior Hiking Trail

Map 1 - Section 10

Skyline Parkway to Haines Road

Date Hiked: May 3rd, 2025

Other Sections Hiked That Day: Map 1 - Section 8, Map 1 - Section 9, Map 1 - Section 11

 

This was one of those hikes where I wished I'd chosen to stop one section before I did, and the empty clanging of my water bottle only further emphasized that lack of better judgment. 

 

With this early May jaunt providing tremendous views of Canal Park and the big ol' eponymous gnarly bitch of a lake, it was also accompanied with a surprising level of heat to which I had not yet adjusted. After all, mere weeks earlier I was pushing myself through temperatures with a minus in front of them and questioning my life choices for pressing on through thigh deep snow in a town where they'd have to figure out where it was before even attempting to find my Shining-esque, hilariously frozen hiker face amongst the rest of the Nothing. 

 

Reflecting on these hikes now, given how long it's been since my entire summer of displacement, disappointment, heartbreak, and dearth of terrible decisions, it's hard to remember when completing this trail was the foremost goal in my mind. As of this writing, recent attempts to pick up where I left off in section 3 have led me to pick the wrong place for an entrance, be warded off by the dangerous levels of smoke being about, and also opting for paved, photogenic lakeside paths when I've been up in the arrowhead. Perhaps I'll continue finding sections to highlight on my massive poster when spring comes back around, but it feels like a different lifetime when I was pursuing this milestone, so the distinction between sections is a bit harder to recall than it was months ago when I was penning these entries as they were fresh in my mind. Life comes at you fast, and if you don't flip Ferris Bueller the bird and empathize with poor Jennifer Gray's character, you could miss it.  

 

The Brewer Park loop section is among the more difficult in Section 1, including for making Enger Tower appear much closer than it actually is, at least by hiking standards. It reminds me a lot of the bluff trails in the Hiking Club reviews, with the trails along the edges of massive hills and rocks. They make one grateful for the scenery and relative lack of leaves that haven't obstructed the views quite yet, but also for trekking poles, as one slip on the steep elevation gains and declines could make for a less than pleasant afternoon from headbanging with a rock the size of a bulldozer.  

 

While the views of the urban landscape, particularly of the gorgeous architecture that is Duluth, the scenes in distant, diorama spectacle aren't quite equal to crossing roads and dodging drivers uploading their panoramic shots with thumbs visible in the corner while driving up the hills. It may be part of the territory for section 1 before it becomes dystopian levels of rural, but it's still not what I prefer in the general context of hiking. Though by the time the trail reached lakeside, it was paltry by comparison.

Superior Hiking Trail #1-9 - Waseca Street to Skyline Parkway

 

Superior Hiking Trail

Map 1 - Section 9

Waseca Street to Skyline Parkway

Date Hiked: May 3rd, 2025

Other Sections Hiked That Day: Map 1 - Section 8, Map 1 - Section 10, Map 1 - Section 11

I had to keep reminding myself that this was the urban section of the trail. Duluth is magical that way, in the sense that you can be near a dense section of the city, but within a few steps, you're transported to something that feels like it should be 100 miles north. The noise doesn't always reflect that illusion, but Duluth does an amazing job of providing that separate immersion without the necessity of pushing onward beyond cell phone signal or bathrooms that would make characters in a Laura Ingalls Wilder setting feel a bit apprehensive. I'm sure there are people more rugged than me that laugh at such an idea, but they're also the ones who can sleep outside and not be constantly worried that there's a bug crawling on their skin, so I take any mocking condescension with a "you were raised in this shit and are used to it" grain of salt. With how I grew up, my family's idea of camping was sleeping on Grandma's couch instead of one of the guest rooms because more than my parents and sister were visiting at one time. Don't laugh, that couch had abrasive ridges that would leave imprints on my face, and my skin is so sensitive to texture that it takes over my entire internal monologue. 

Hey, it's almost like that's why I'm pushing through as much of this trail as I can before the mosquitos invade or something! Even if they aren't biting me, the feel of anything buzzing or crawling near my skin (these wounds they will not heal), fear is how I fall into a constant state of swatting around my head and getting the sensation of prickly little pointy bastards on my arms whether they're there or not, thus confusing what is real. 

Might be a stretch, but there is a Lincoln Park in Duluth and I can't not hear that shit in my head every time it's even mentioned. Say you were a teenager in the late 90s without saying you were a late teenager in the late 90s, check. 

I probably could've paid more attention to where the sections were splitting between each other, but that would involve looking at street signs and such, and my mind was indeed elsewhere along this hike. Like other sections, every mile was at least twice earned. 6 miles of flat hiking was not 6 miles of Superior Hiking, and the ascents and descents were quick to remind me of that whether I asked for confirmation or not. 

I could see Enger Tower in the distance, though the distance could've been deceptive, given how easy it is for a massive structure on top of a giant hill to stand out. It was still a good motivating waypoint, though the amount of sweat I was producing led me to once again question my life decisions and my compulsive, obsessive need to push past ridiculous and arbitrary goals no one else but me had forced onto myself.