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The campground was full, but nothing stirred at 6:00 this morning. As the sun rose in the clear sky, I cooked myself a stellar breakfast of cheesy scrambled eggs and pancakes. Then I broke camp and headed for Douglas Lodge to do some exploring.The rollercoaster ride through the woods on the bike trail was quite thrilling. My legs felt well rested. At the lodge, I got right to hiking some of the trails that cut through the forest and around the small lakes that dot the southern part of the park. I hiked to the Allen Lake Fire Tower and climbed up it for the expansive view of gently-undulating forest. Then I looped back to the lodge on the North Country Trail, passing some backcountry campsites along the way. I did about 5 miles total.
I loved breathing in the aroma of the North Woods, being in the forest I had missed all summer. Unfortunately, though, I forgot my hat, and being as this is Northern Minnesota in midsummer, the mosquitos and biting flies were atrocious. I tried not to let them bother me, but I think mammals must be genetically programmed to find buzzing flies one of the world’s greatest annoyances. On the return portion of my loop, I did something I haven’t done once since starting my bike trip: I ran. I must have looked awfully silly running while beating at the swarms around my head with a paper map and pulling deer fly bodies out of my sopping hair.
I made it back to the lodge area around 10:15 with most of my blood supply intact. Hot and sweaty, I got a drink of Gatorade and poked around in the Forest Inn Gift Shop. at 10:45 it was time to hit the road.
Out on the highway, a pleasant westerly breeze helped me along at a good clip. It was a fantastic day weather-wise, sunny and dry. Without much of a break, I rode about 30 miles to the shore of Leech Lake. In LaPorte, I picked up the Paul Bunyan State Trail, a newly-paved segment of rail trail that parellels highway 200 to Walker but is back in the woods far enough to make it a very pretty ride.
On the shore of Leech Lake, I came upon a little resort with picnic tables and a deck overlooking the water, right next to the bike trail. It was 1:00 and I was hungry. Walker was still four miles distant, with no indication of any place else to stop before there. This looked like a good place to have lunch. Not many people were around, there were no “private property” or “no tresspassing” signs, and it just looked inviting to passing cyclists using the trail. I tend to think of resorts as semi-public places, and didn’t think anyone would mind my sitting down for a little lunch at one of the empty deck tables.
I was very wrong. After I had taken out all my stuff and commenced making a sandwich, the resort owner came by, looking like he was preparing for a boat trip out on the lake, and muttered something to me about this being private. He did not tell me to vacate the premises, only that I should have asked for permission. So I apologized and said I would finish soon and leave. Apparently I wasn’t quick enough though, because five minutes later he came back, red-faced, and picked up my bike (which is not light with the bags attached) and literally threw it on the ground near the trail, then started grabbing the stuff I had out on the table and throwing it all over the ground while yelling at me to get the hell off the property. When I tried gathering up the stuff he was making a mess of, he physically pushed me around, yelling at me the whole time to get out. I tried pointing out that it was kind of hard to leave while I was being assaulted, and finally got him to back off enough to let me throw my stuff together and haul it over to the bike trail.
I sat in the shade on the side of the trail to finish my lunch and try to calm my nerves. I find it ironic that of all the experiences I’ve had on this trip–passing close to grizzly bears and bull moose, dodging semis and hiding from wicked storms–the situation in which I felt the second-most threatened for my safety should come from a not-so-Minnesota-Nice resort owner. (I have to admit that the most dangerous incident was still my fording of the high creek in Glacier).
The incident tainted my mood a bit for the rest of the day. I made it to Walker fairly quickly after lunch, and made brief stops at the grocery store and the giant outfitters in downtown, Reed’s (I needed a new bear hang rope as I left my nice p-cord hanging as laundry line in Ada). I hardly got a mile out of town when my back tire deflated. There was nowhere to change the flat but along the sunny roadside, and it turned out to be one of those frustrating ones that you think you can patch but won’t work because the valve stem is busted. It took me half an hour to finally get my spare on and get back underway. Then I pedaled non-stop to the Mabel Lake national forest campground.
Once I got through Walker, I was back on familiar ground, having biked this stretch in the other direction two years ago on my way to the 10,000 Lakes Festival in Detroit Lakes. At Whipholt I passed Huddle’s, a nice resort whose owners were kind enough to let me camp on their lawn for free in 2009 (I did buy dinner there that evening). This time, I didn’t feel like I had time to stop there.
Mabel Lake Campground was deserted, probably due to a combination of the hoards of deer flies and it being the middle of the week. I chose a roomy site with its own private beach on the clear, sand-bottom lake. The first two feet of lake water was the temperature of a bathtub. The flies weren’t as bad on the beach as in the site, so after a swim I cooked dinner there while waiting for my tent parts to dry out. The downside of this was there was no shade, so I needed another swim after dinner to wash off the new persperation that formed just from sitting in the sun.
After dinner, I tried hanging a bear hang. I got my caribeaner over a high, sturdy birch limb, but couldn’t get the cheap nylon cord I had bought at Reed’s to slide enough to let the beaner down. On the next few tries, I managed to get the cord so tangled up in the leafy branches of a young maple that I ended up having to cut the cord and so lost my good caribeaner. Today’s luck has been mixed, that’s for sure.
Hopefully tomorrow will be luckier. I can’t think of a good place to camp at a reasonable distance between here and Duluth. I figure it’s about 105 miles to my old house, which I may be able to make with an early enough start if the wind and weather cooperate like they did today. If I have to deal with climatic or mechanical issues, I’ll probably have to find some place to park my tent between Floodwood and Saginaw, maybe in Brookston. But it sure would be nice to see home tomorrow night.
