So I live with five girls, right? And were BIG on traditions. One of my favorites is heading to the North Shore every fall for a day or a weekend.
“North Shore” (noun). The shores of Lake Superior, running from Duluth, MN to Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Eventually, I’ll put together a little guide of our absolute favorite spots along the North Shore, but for today, here are the antics that we experienced with this year’s trip.
Our Itinerary:
Mount Sophie; Grand Portage, MN (1.75 Miles)
Eagle Mountain; Lutsen, MN (3.5 Miles)
Temperance River; Tofte, MN (.5 Miles)
Palisade Head; Beaver Bay, MN
Bean and Bear Lake; Silver Bay, MN (6.5 Miles)
We woke up at the butt crack of dawn (4:30 am) to make the drive allllll the way up to Grand Portage. A 4:30 wake up call is a call for coffee if I’ve ever heard one. And the outdoors are one of the few things I’ll voluntarily get up at 4:30 am for.
We stopped at one of the coolest coffee shops north of the cities (the Twin Cities): Duluth Coffee. We chatted with the owner (who is awesome), grabbed our coffee and continued our trek.
Finnnaalllyyyyy we made our way to Grand Portage, but here is the situation: we were almost out of gas and we didn’t have service. We were so close to Canada that we started getting international phone plan messages. We’re talking like walking distance.
So what did we do? We wandered. We drove through the prettiest trails (for cars of course) and were about as lost (and out of gas) as you could get.
At one point we got out and tried to figure out exactly where we were, but it didn’t exactly help.
RIGHT, when we were heading back, heads hung in defeat, we ran into 10 cars and about 40 people. Keep in mind, we hadn’t seen a SINGLE person in over 2 hours.
Turns out, we were exactly where we were trying to get to. Those people? A group of Canadian hikers who invited us to join them. Of course, we did.
The final destination? Mount Sophie Fire Tower in Grand Portage.
It was not a strenuous hike by any means, you just needed to know how to get there. Which, clearly we didn’t, even with our SUPERB map reading skills.
Although, you may need to practice your track skills to get past some of the puddles…
We got there and climbed the 100 feet to the top. Don’t be fooled however, it was not for the faint of heart. BUT if you could do it, the view was worth it.
THIS view is exactly why I love Minnesota. Where else can you get leaves that look like this in the fall AND the lakes?
We packed lunches and ate those en route to our next place: Eagle Mountain. But here’s the deal. Turns out this whole being lost thing took longer than we expected, so we were a little behind our ideal schedule. But you always adapt right?
I’ve hiked Eagle Mountain before, so this time, we opted just for the alpine slide. GUYS, if you haven’t done one of these, you absolutely have to. I don’t know if I told you, but when we were in China, that’s how we got off of the Great Wall of China. If you’re curious, read that HERE.
Anywho, from there we headed to Temperance River. This place genuienly mimics the ocean, but its Lake Superior. It’s one of the gems of the North Shore.
You’ve got to throw a few skipping stones in while you’re there. I SWEAR the best ones come from Lake Superior. P.S. Its still a bucket list thing to find a sick agate on one of these beaches (I was a major rock collector as a kid).
Evveeennttualllyy we started to make our way towards Bean and Bear Lake. However, long story short, we made a pit stop at Palisade Head so that Madison could experience it.
Palisade Head is INCREDIBLE and I can almost guarantee you’ve seen pictures. BUT for anyone from Minnesota, you’ve probably been enough times that it’s not necessary every single trip up north. Nonetheless, I’m always glad we stop.
Nearby, we stopped at Bean and Bear Lake hiking trail. Our plan was to hike that then head to Duluth for dinner. Buuutttt as we got into the hike, it was getting too dark for what we were facing. The loop was about 6 miles, and even at our impressive pace, we decided it wasn’t our best option to keep going.
Somehow, Chipotle (of all places) was the top contender for dinner, before our trek home. But at that point, we had hiked 7 hours of the day, walked 20,000+ steps, and had been up for a LONG time.
Once we got home, I showered and pretty much passed out immediately. If you ask me, it was a successful North Shore Annual trip.
Want more? Don’t you worry, I’ve all my favorite places coming your way real soon.
Til then,
Katelyn
An outstanding share! I’ve just forwarded this onto a colleague who had been doing a little research on this. And he in fact ordered me breakfast simply because I found it for him… lol. So let me reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!! But yeah, thanx for spending some time to discuss this matter here on your site.