Minnesota State Parks Revisited: Sakatah Lake State Park

 

Sakatah Lake State Park

Date Hiked: December 20th, 2025, December 23rd, 2025

Trail Hiked: Sakatah Singing Hills State Trail - SLSP to Morristown, SLSP to Halfway to Elysian Lake

Distance Hiked: 9.0 miles, 8.8 miles

Elevation Gain: 269 ft., 289 ft.

Duration: 3:21:28, 3:11:40

Funny enough, it was also winter when I revisited Sakatah Lake State Park. This time around though, it was covered with ice, snow, and cold, as opposed to the initial Hiking Club trek, which was only visited by the air raid siren in the fog. 

Does this really count as the longest trail in Sakatah Lake State Park? Technically I suppose, it does go through it, but with the Singing Hills Trail also being a Geocaching Power Trail, it became an adventure that also led to my first Hundred Percenting of a moderate distance trail (25 miles or more), with several others in the process as I hike and double back its segments. 

The fourth and fifth of ten installments of Hundred Percenting (technically twice, given the double back each time) led me to begin at Sakatah Hills State Park, and while it didn't fulfill the idea of seeing how different the park was during a season other than winter, it's my damn travelogue and I'll do what I want with it. 

The trees were great protection from the icy Arctic winds, but those quickly gave way to the prairie chill that anyone from the Upper Midwest knows quite well this time of year. During this entire ten-part series, I only encountered other hikers at each end. By the time I was finishing up, I saw more snowmobilers than walkers, which probably says more about me than it should. Any other time of year, I'd likely have cyclists blowing by me, so it worked out nicely to revisit this park during the winter. 

If one is looking for scenery, elevation gain, or epic views, this is not the first or hundredth trail I'd recommend. While with a ride and decent weather I could finish this trail in two days, the winter and ice added a level to it much like doing the Hiking Club in the cold months, plus the added solitude and lack of interruptions as I kept creeping into the trees to look for Geocaches. Those things can be tough to open in such temperatures, and the ones that aren't in a tree might as well not even be bothered with the snow going up to my thigh at points. But, I still hiked from Faribault to Mankato, and nobody can say I didn't. 

Sakatah Lake State Park is perfectly fine for what it is. Sitting in dense forest, near a lake, relatively close to the Twin Cities, and near several small towns that create a bit of infrastructure which even the SHT could learn from. It doesn't have the excitement of any of the crescent trails in the state, but it's a hike through several towns I'd likely never have heard of otherwise, a state park in the middle, and hundreds of potential Geocaching finds, even if a significant amount of them are too wet to sign. 

My perspective on this state park hasn't changed, which isn't even necessarily a bad thing. It is what it is. 

Sakatah Singing Hills State Trail - 100 Percent Completed

Hike 1

Date Hiked: November 24th, 2025

Distance Hiked: 5.5 miles

Trailhead to Wells Lake

Hike 2

Date Hiked: November 27th, 2025

Distance Hiked: 10.5 miles

Wells Lake to Warsaw

Hike 3

Date Hiked: December 17th, 2025

Distance Hiked: 6.1 miles

Warsaw to Morristown

Hike 4

See Above

Hike 5

See Above

Hike 6

Date Hiked: December 24th, 2025

Distance Hiked: 9.4 miles

Elysian Lake to Halfway Pt.

Hike 7

Date Hiked: December 26th, 2025

Distance Hiked: 7.9 miles

Elysian Lake to Halfway to Madison Lake

Hike 8

Date Hiked: January 2nd, 2026

Distance Hiked: 5.4 miles

Madison Lake to Halfway Pt.

Hike 9

Date Hiked: January 3rd, 2026

Distance Hiked: 9.6 miles

Eagle Lake to Madison Lake

Hike 10

Date Hiked: January 4th, 2026

Distance Hiked: 9.9 miles

Mankato to Eagle Lake

Minnesota Hiking Club #40 - Sakatah Lake State Park

 

Minnesota Hiking Club

#40 - Sakatah Lake State Park

Date Hiked: January 1st, 2025

Other Hikes That Day: Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park, Rice Lake State Park

Wanderloon Ranking System Score: 2.92

At least this time I knew what the creepy sound while I was alone in the woods was.

Now, anyone from Minnesota knows, first Wednesday means we're all cosplaying for a Pyramidhead showdown, but when it's the first of the month, a drinking holiday for most people, and you're alone in the woods in the middle of nowhere, it's got vibes, that's all I'm saying. 

This was my third hike of the day, month, and the year, because what is time if not weird and irrelevant, but I was starting off productively, rather than bemoaning my delayed trip out west. Given that I've already written on one and there's one to go, you can deduce which of my three was my favorite, but Sakatah Lake State Park's Hiking Club trail was pretty cool in its own right, even if it had me ready to fight the invasion, whether that be Silent Hill nightmare fuel or WCW 2001. Fortunately, January is too early for Unforgiven, because if I had to fight three-headed heel Stone Cold, I'd rather deal with Pyramidhead's giant but impractical death slicer, because it'd be over mercifully quicker. 

Like the previous two on this day, the Hiking Club trail was in the 2+ mile length and a relatively simple loop. There was more elevation gain than Rice Lake but less than Nerstrand. All three are remote, predominately-woodsy loops. The second two had a lake, as the name would imply, but with the Hiking Club trail being comprised of three other park trails, the view was limited at best. I'm sure the namesake lake is lovely, but frozen, brown, and only sorta near the northwest corner of the route didn't endear it much. But hey, no mosquitos either, so who won, really?

In retrospect, I think the only reason this one ranked ahead of the previous entry is that at no point did I expect to see livestock flying by, let alone twice. That's not to trash the ranking of this one, though I suppose I should also mention this was only the 7th one I did, so my energy was higher and I wasn't necessarily speedrunning the journey yet, despite this being the first trilogy day of hikes. I still had some of that longer distance endurance that the weather in Minnesota always tempers a bit, and the pictures will show that I wasn't dealing with snow and ice quite yet. 

That's once again not meant to belittle this trail. Obviously I liked it enough to put this high, but it also didn't traverse multiple landscapes or provide any especially spectacular views. That said, it's a nice, slightly hilly walk in the woods, and that has its own merit and enjoyment factor, especially when it's the third hike on a cold, lonely day on which I went hiking to distract myself primarily from wishing I was somewhere else. The map makes these three look closer though, as it's a 40 minutes drive from Rice Lake, so be aware.