Superior Hiking Trail #1-1 - Wild Valley Road to Southern Terminus

 

Superior Hiking Trail

Map 1 - Section 1

Wild Valley Road to Southern Terminus

Date Hiked: April 19th, 2025

Other Sections Hiked That Day: Map 1 - Section 2

I'm not a thru-hiker, not yet. 

Not because I can't do the hikes, but as I stated in the introduction, sleeping outside is not something I'm yet inclined to pursue. Don't get me wrong, I consider it a tremendous amount of progress, considering I wasn't raised in outdoor culture at all and picked everything up on my own. But, while I can be outside from the moment I'm awake, once it's time to get some sleep, the idea of hard ground and canvas surrounding me isn't exactly appealing for a multitude of reasons. Bears, bugs, and other wildlife are a consideration, but even higher on the list is, quite simply, I've been a professional athlete in two different contact sports since I was 20, so... X number of years of impact and recovery on these muscles and bones, well... Air mattresses and the forest floor don't sound conducive to waking up in any condition to continue hiking. Maybe I'll get there someday, but for now, section hiking is my next step up. If that doesn't make me a "real" hiker, so be it, I've never been much of a real anything in various subcultures anyway. 

I started out in Jay Cooke State Park, a familiar sight to my eyes and hiking boots, and I'll detail those six miles in the next post, but suffice it to summarize: it's a bit harder than the Jay Cooke State Park Hiking Club trail, even though the two share the same path heading southbound. While I know that most people hike the SHT northbound, the website said that the Wild Valley Road trailhead was closed, and the Minnesota Hiking Club taught me, if nothing else, trying to work around parking lot closures was a terrible idea, even without several feet of snow on the ground. 

Alas, as I approached the aforementioned trailhead, I saw plenty of cars parked outside the gate on the gravel road, and though AllTrails listed this section as an out-and-back, I wasn't yet sure if I'd be willing to repeat those eight miles on the SHT going the other way. For as difficult as the Prairie and Deer Valley Loop at Afton was, logging in over 16 miles on a trail listed as "hard," half the distance on the SHT was considerably more strenuous, thus the conundrum of the solo section hiker. 

Other than a passing train, I saw nary a presence on this section, which does require southbound traversing, even for Northbound thru-hikers, in order to access. Once I reached the southern terminus and state border, it took a few minutes to decide to continue on the North Country border trail and return to my car another way rather than doubling back. While this may have expanded my overall mile count to 18, traveling on the side of the road until I reached the Wrenshall biking trail, then cutting back in through the West Ridge in Jay Cooke was more appealing than trying to do those two sections again. 

Superior Hiking Trail - Introduction to the next Wanderloon Travel Series

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Due to logistics and other reasons, mainly fire-related, I was not able to complete the SHT this summer, so while I will be sharing the parts I did complete, this will not be a finished series this year.

Superior Hiking Trail

Introduction

Once I finished the Minnesota Hiking Club (and the Passport Club the next day), I spent a solid month just chasing those precious "Verified Complete" badges on my AllTrails account. For a while, it was nice to just pick a random place and go from there, and it was a relief to be able to focus on birding and Geocaching (or Adventure Labs... Mostly Adventure Labs). But, Autism Brain thrives much better with a focus, a goal, a map to highlight, and something active to pursue. 

Within weeks of the Hiking Club's conclusion, I was losing my grip a bit. I mostly stopped traveling, as the four thousand miles I'd driven in the final span of the speedrun wore me down for a while. Then, there was a planned long-distance hike with my friend K, and given that I did the entire Minnesota Hiking Club as a solo hiker (because who else was going out in the -17 weather with me?), I was thrilled to have a companion, and we were both equally joyous over hiking with someone who could keep up with each other for long distances. We did the Prairie and Deer Valley Loop, a 15.5 trek through Afton State Park. 

Now, I know you're asking, did I enjoy that one more than the ho-hum ice dance I did on their Hiking Club trail? The answer to that question is very well a definite... maybe. 

While waiting for those verified complete badges to come through, as well as through the many conversations I had with K, an old, familiar urge reignited my professional wandering spirit. An urge that involved long distances, blazes on trees, and an odd sense of home that I felt for a tiny section of a familiar trail far before I even knew what hiking was; the Appalachian Trail was calling to me. 

I'd talked myself out of that dream many times. Not that I didn't think I could do the hike or find a way to make it work with time and finance, that was never the issue. Sleeping outside and using the woods as a bathroom though? For all the skills and other outdoorsy characteristics I'd pursued and gained on my own, those had yet to envelop me. Growing up right next to the AT though, walking around on that small branch of it when kids were still allowed to leave the yard without parents being arrested for negligence, something about it just ached in my soul. 

That brought my thoughts back to a more local pursuit, one that I could reasonably challenge without the necessity of sleeping outside or taking months off work: the Superior Hiking Trail. The blue blazes not only greeted me warmly on the North Shore Hiking Club runs, but I'd tried small sections the previous summer without realizing how remote and rugged it was. 

Now, with those six sections of map just begging to be highlighted, I had my new active focus. 

Superior Hiking Trail: You're next! 

Minnesota State Parks Revisited - Afton State Park

 

Afton State Park

Date Hiked: April 12th, 2025

Trail Hiked: Prairie and Deer Valley Loop

Distance Hiked: 16.7 miles

Elevation Gain: 1801 feet

Duration: 5h 49m

This is one of the few hikes for which I can say someone joined me.

My friend, I'll call them K, had followed me on AllTrails for quite a while, and we'd exchanged comments and stories, yet never quite seemed to run into each other at the same time. Finally, we planned a hike in advance, as they were heading to Colorado soon and needed a training hike for the elevation gain. They were hoping someone could keep up with them for an intense, long hike, specifically choosing the Prairie and Deer Valley Loop trail at Afton State Park, which is rated as one of the best and most difficult single day hikes in Minnesota. This would be my first trail labeled as Hard on the difficulty settings, and I was more than delighted to have a companion.

We met early in the morning on April 12th, which was going to be an unseasonably warm day on a weekend, and I'd warned K that the parking lot would fill up fast and we'd need to get started before the trails were flooded with tourists and casuals. K and I had never met before, yet we were instantly friends within minutes of setting out. Most of the time on hikes I don't speak a word. On this hike, I don't think either of us stopped speaking the entire time, and K was delightful company. I'm so grateful they invited me on this journey. We're both used to the phrase "I can't keep up with you," and we know how to meet people where they are. But, being that we're also both avid, frequent hikers, this was one where we were able to say "hardest trail, long distance, let's fucking go." And we did.

The trail starts off at the same place the Hiking Club one does, but instead of turning onto the prairie walk, it disappears way out in the woods. While driving into Afton gives you an idea of the scale of this park, nothing truly captures its massive size than the trail that seems to reach every corner of its boundaries. Shaped like Marge Simpson midway through bowling the 7th frame, making the right turns in several places would be difficult on its own, but K and I were so caught up in our conversation that we wandered off course more than once. Given that I spoke fewer words than parks I hiked for the Hiking Club journey, this was a delightful surprise for which I was not registering a complaint. I don't have many people that can keep up with my hiking speed and distance, and there aren't many people with whom I can carry an hours-long conversation either. This was pleasant serendipity in more ways than one. Sometimes you just know your people when you meet them. 

The Hiking Club trail at Afton is an appetizer for the many this one intersects. The 2 miles can't compare to the 16.7 mile sojourn, but it enticed me! 

Minnesota Hiking Club #37 - Afton State Park

 

Minnesota Hiking Club

#37 - Afton State Park

Date Hiked: February 27th, 2025

Other Hikes That Day: None

Wanderloon Ranking System Score: 2.92

The W-code restriction was lifted! 

Those 19 parks, for which I respected the rules, kept me from finishing this even faster than I intended. By the time I hiked Afton here after work in late February, there were only 4 non-W parks left, so the timing of that false hope of early nice weather in Minnesota allowed me some flexibility. 

I'd heard a lot about Afton State Park, even before I started exploring the parks themselves. I suppose its proximity to the Twin Cities doesn't hurt. Despite that being the major population center of the state, there aren't many state parks within what most would consider a reasonable distance, and I say most because traveling ridiculous distances stopped bothering me a long time ago. I drive 16 hours back home without much of a struggle and in one shot. Point being, Afton is comparatively close than most of the state parks on the map, and because most people don't view five hour drives as short Sunday excursions, it gets a lot of attention.

The ski culture is readily apparent when approaching through the winding road. Even on the day where I was setting out because the snow on the trail was gone, the snow hills were alive and well. I say "hills" affectionately, because to those from this area, they might be mountains the same way the Appalachians were mountains to me growing up. Once I visited Utah, California, and Washington though, they became rolling green hills.

The hill on the Afton Hiking Club trail didn't seem so small when I was trying to determine what was ice and what was slush though.

For a park that's well known for its hikes, I have to admit I expected a little more from Afton. Something more like William O'Brien State Park's Hiking Club trail, for instance, though I didn't yet have that basis of comparison. As one of the descending St. Croix parks, it has a lot to live up to. It's shorter, like Interstate State Park (still awkward phrasing even when writing it), but whereas theirs is a down-and-back along a cliffside with tons of rocks, Afton is... Well, it's not really a loop, it's two loops. There's a small prairie loop along the interpretive trail, and then there's the bigger one that starts along the river, descends into the woods, and then makes one gain most of the elevation right before the end. I suppose if you did it the other way, that would also be true, but I digress.

I imagine I'll be visiting Afton in warmer and less slushy, muddy times, as by the time this has posted, I'll have hiked with another AllTrails user for the first time since I started on the app in April of 2024. In a state that has the mother of all lakes, that's tough competition for epic views and challenging trails. Afton is a good hike, though the best St. Croix adventures are yet to come on this ranked list.