Wild River State Park (Minnesota) 09-Jun-2022

We returned from our Utah rafting trip in the early hours of Sunday morning to Sofie (our cat) and a mountain of unpacked moving boxes. Chin scratches and food mollified Sofie (momentarily) but those boxes were much more demanding. So we spent several days unpacking, building shelves, replacing light bulbs, cleaning, etc., etc. We soon longed for those days of yore when all we owned fit into a Volkswagen Bug and a Honda Civic. Sigh. 🙄

Finally, while searching for Sofie in a pile of packing peanuts (the compostable kind), it dawned on us that we needed a restorative (or at least a dodging the issue) hike. So we rekindled our state park quest and headed for Wild River State Park, which features in the 60 Hikes guide as Hike #58. It’s the last of the state parks within an easy one hour drive of Minneapolis, so further park questing will require greater logistics. Unless, of course, gas prices head way north of $5/gallon (🥺), in which case questing might be limited to our front porch.

The Hiking Club Trail at Wild River only goes for 3.3 miles (5.3 km) – and some of that is paved. So we extended our hiking time by adding the Old Military Road / Deer Creek Loop. It was a sunny day 😎 with moderate temperatures, a light breeze, and not much humidity.

This loop was mostly – there were views of the river – through the dense greenery of a fully leafed-out Eastern deciduous forest. Which was great since we love trees.💚 Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) thru hikers sometimes complain that long stands of towering green pines, firs, and other trees form a boring “green tunnel” in Oregon. This isn’t entirely true, as there are plenty of views to be had along that stretch of the PCT. And, sadly, with the increase in huge wildfires in the West, this sentiment may not even be close to true in the future. So it seems (to us at least) misguided to complain about trees – green tunnel or not – given how important trees are to our lives and life on this planet.

After completing our Old Military Road – Deer Creek loop, we transitioned over to the Walter F. Mondale River Trail (part of the Hiking Club Trail) which took us along the Saint Croix River to the old Nevers Dam site.

There’s a viewing platform at the north end of the Mondale River Trail that looks out over the former site of the Nevers Dam. Extensive logging occurred in the Saint Croix watershed between 1839 and 1914. Old, large pines were felled in winter and the logs sent downriver during Spring melt high water. Massive log jams would form, disrupting the supply of logs to the downstream lumber mills. This dam, built in 1889 (and “…reported to be the largest wood pile driven structure in the world…“), regulated the river’s flow to prevent such jams. Damaged by floods in 1954, it was removed in 1955.

Doing the Hiking Club loop, plus our additional loop to the south, brought our total hike to 7.3 miles (11.7 km) with about 200 feet (60 m) of elevation gain. Mosquitos 🦟 🦟🦟 were out in force {probably ticks too but we didn’t find any}. But with a dab of DEET, a steady pace, and sometimes a good breeze, we managed to stay ahead of them. But if we stopped for a photo, they were on us like jackals on a fresh carcass. Ah, Nature… But, bloodsuckers included, it was delightful to be outside rather than inside wrestling with moving boxes. 😁

BACK TO BLOG POSTS