Minnesota State Parks Revisited: Glacial Lakes State Park

Glacial Lakes State Park

Date Hiked: February 3rd, 2026

Trail Hiked: Kettle Lakes Loop

Distance Hiked: 8.2 miles

Elevation Gain: 673 ft.

Duration: 3h 5m

The last time I visited Glacial Lakes State Park was revelatory, and not just because I got an excuse to drop a Kara Thrace reference. In those four seasons during one hike, I experienced a beacon of sunshine from within, where the true self for which I’d been searching finally started breaking through the stratus clouds of the soul. I heard the perfect song, “Fall in Love” by Lazer Club, and I danced along the ancient hills, ripping my shirt off and screaming to the vast horizon that I was finally there.

One year later, I yearned for a similar experience. 

It was only 16 degrees, and yet I didn’t need a coat. The trail was covered by snow and yet I didn’t need my spikes. The park was empty and yet I didn’t feel alone. Having wonderful new friends and a true sense of community despite living history in my city for the second time in six years, the disasters of 2025 were present but not overwhelming me with their aftershocks. It was time to put a capstone on my relationship with this park, as it knew what I needed once. Perhaps the muse lightning in its blissful, non-actual-electricness would strike a second, merciful time. 

Where the Hiking Club trail featured multiple types of terrain, the Kettle Lakes Loop traversed the vastness of the surrounding landscape. Rolling hills despite being in the prairie, ascents and descents with surprising intensity, it felt like the perfection of frozen solitude, the time loop allowing an encore to the prior hike but with a year’s worth of heartbreak and growth alike to fill the in-between. The spaces where routine and response once enlivened predictable yet anticipated mutuality, I now pushed along the vague sense of a trail underneath the drifts purely for my own fulfillment. Sometimes it’s okay to do what you need for no one’s benefit but your own, and I in no way whatsoever claim otherwise for this adventure. This was for me, and I needed something, but I wouldn’t know what until it happened. 

Then, it did.

I let the sax and sky drums of Lazer Club transmit the posthumous beams of a shattered past, with several names now etched into the tombstone of what once was. Then, it was up to the algorithm from the root of that song to find me in this peace. 

Never could I have predicted Bodine Monet’s voice to pierce my snow cocoon of solitude, and yet as I pushed up the steepest hill of the sojourn, there she was.

I wanna drive the highway through the night, I wanna take you somewhere no one finds, I wanna make mistakes that won’t feel right, I wanna chase the hate I’d give my life, for all the love you’d give me, I’m taking it far like a reckless car.

 

Glacial Lakes State Park, once again, was exactly where I needed to be, and that voice scored the soundtrack of my infinity. Thank you, Bodine Monet.