Banning State Park
Date Hiked: October 6th, 2025
Trail Hiked: Quarry, Hell's Gate, Wolf Creek, Cartway, Cut Off, Skunk Cabbage
Distance Hiked: 8.2 miles
Elevation Gain: 420 ft.
Duration: 2:49:00
Banning State Park is pretty cool, but much like Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park, the best the park has to offer is pretty much contained in the Hiking Club trail.
That's not to say it's necessarily a bad thing. I ranked Banning pretty high up on the list of Hiking Club trails, but exploring the longest trail in this park was mostly a retread of what I'd already seen in much colder context. The above waterfalls were the only noteworthy exception to this rule, and that was merely going down farther than the Hiking Club trail looped back. Very beautiful secluded falls, don't get me wrong, but not really high on the list of reasons to make visits somewhat regular. Granted, Banning State Park has proximity to the 35, which is a major convenience for such things, especially if my fellow completionists can appreciate the Hell that is getting to Lake Bronson State Park from the Twin Cities, but alas. When one can spend a little more time to get to Jay Cooke State Park and everything along the shore, this is a great pick for "I only feel like driving 90 minutes today."
This opinion may also have something to do with the latter half of the hike.
Again, much like Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park, what could basically be considered the perimeter route wanders off into the woods on a trail that's far less maintained and not exactly what one might call scenic. Not that it has to be, and at least I didn't run into Joshua the "Holy shit that's a giant" Bear, but I'm also not a fan of dodging thorny vines smacking me in the face like I owed them money, At least it was October so the bugs weren't as awful? Gotta appreciate the small mercies.
October wasn't exactly late August in terms of how much my 2025 could repeatedly and exponentially go fuck itself, but I wasn't having a great time either. In fact, I was a short time away from someone pulling the greatest reverse disappearance accusation I've ever seen, but fortunately getting my shit together and doing stuff like this has steadied my mental health more than I ever thought was possible. I'm not gonna pretend that as of this writing, my life is in the best place it's ever been, but it's definitely the steadiest.
I can now hike for hours without feeling an internal spiral that caused ridiculous and impulsive decisions. I can now hike for hours without having a compulsion to torment myself. I can now hike for hours without feeling a growing void within my stomach causing me to fear the inevitable. For the most part, I just am, I just exist. I just go cool places and see cool shit. This place has some of that, even if I've seen most of it before. Not a bad way to spend a day.
Banning is worth the visit, but I don't feel I saw anything new on this hike.
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