Too late to stop me now: day one in the SHT

As the title suggests, the fallacy of sunken costs has worsened and a great injury would be needed to get me out of the path.

The first day was incredibly agitated. I already met other hikers, I soaked in the rain and I have seen a bear!

Also. Apparently, executing a caloric deficit makes me an idiot. I’m sorry if the quality of these publications falls sharply.

The plan

Here is the itinerary for any curious reader or rangers who try to find me the disappearance of publications. I will start my trip by driving my car to one of the least remote northern paths, park it there and then enter Grand Marais.

From there, I will take a bus to Duluth, where I will get on the road and start. Fortunately, the city walks section runs one block from the bus stop. He only adds about ten miles, which I thought was worth the cost of an uber.

I will be walking between 15 and 20 miles per day, depending on the weather and the conditions of the path. The opening path sections are flat, so I will try to deposit at a distance. It will only get to Hillier, which will make it much harder to maintain that rate of 15 per day.

I am planning to replenish three times: Silver Bay, Finland and Grand Marais. If I’m running out of supplies between Finland and GM, I could also get to Tofte. That will be a game time of play.

So yes. In general, I should take around 17 days. The stretch that worries me most is the opening, where I will walk almost 90 miles without a refueling. After that, the furthest is 60 years. That said, I have seen how covered sideways are the paths of the north side. Those could be difficult to insist. We’ll see.

First day

As I mentioned earlier, much happened on the first day. I got out of the bus in Duluth and found that the lake walked part of the SHT without problems. From there, they were quite easy for 3 miles to the park where the SHT becomes real paths.

I was wandering those paths where I had my first wildlife encounter on the trip.

The bear

This happened on the outskirts of Duluth, really. I kept seeing that the branches swing from one place to another in front of me while walking. I thought for myself «huh, I wonder what is causing that. It could be an animal.»

Less than three minutes later, I listen to the forest by my side. I look over and not even fifteen feet of the road is a black bear that draws berries out of a bush.

I freeze. The bear doesn’t seem to be paying attention. I make some noise not to surprise him. Unanswered. It seems to be doing his own, so I just passed.

It is crazy for me that I have already seen a bear. I have never seen animals on the way like that, and it was a dream to do it while I was on this walk. So yes. I guess I can go home now.

(Kidding.)

In addition, I was already too close to the bear when I saw him and was in a fight or in flight. I did not take any photo. You will have to take my word that I saw it.

The errors

So, do you remember how I said that mistakes would be horrible? Yes, they are horrible. I sprinkle my whole team with Permetrin (Shoutout Sawyer, as always) before leaving, and it seems that it is something assistant. Even so, there are enough mosquitoes to eat me. I have seen them fly towards me, bite myself and then convulse and die as permethrin comes into force.

It does not help the path so far has been dense. There have been some conventional paths, but much of that has been Snow Mobile Track, which is covered with vegetation and is not exactly the best walk. High shelter insects and slows me down. Quick hiking has been the most reliable method to keep swarm, so the thick foliage is a double blow.

However, the mistakes did not bothered me all day. Around 1:30, I hit myself with

The rain

He began to rain while he was walking through a clearing. I put on the rain jacket. Fist problem: While the jacket adjusts on my backpack, it does not fit my backpack while I have the sleeping pad. I had to tie my pad to sleep to the belt loop of my backpack. Annoying, but not the end of the world.

The second problem was quite bad, I will not lie. After about twenty seconds of soft rain, as was the storm In fact Starting to collect, I felt a drip of water on my back.

It turns out that my «rain jacket» is just a wind (or some other cursed garment designed to look like a rain jacket, but not stop the rain). I was standing in the middle of a field in a thunderstorm without anything waterproof.

He took less than five minutes to soak my underwear. There was no single inch of my dry skin. It was miserable.

Fortunately, it only rained for about half an hour, and the end of that was in the trees. Soaked, I stopped for dinner at a snow motorcycle shelter that I found along the way. Fortunately, my bag had not completely soaked, so most of my sleeping team was still dry. Then, I pushed another 8 miles when the sun stood to reach the solitary camp of the trees. I went to sleep in a slightly soaked tent. My total mileage on the day was 24.

I have already learned a lot. I should have tried 100% the resistance of the rain of my rain jacket. I should probably have brought a package lining to keep my things dry, even if my poncho jacket had worked. In addition, my mountain boots are waterproof have been a problem. Of course, they keep the water out, but once they soak (as in a storm) they do not dry. I will probably change to something lighter in the future

The three hikers

I have already met three other hikers!

The first was a woman named Joanne, who met Duluth on the bus. He had just finished his walk (north) and was back to his car. Like me, it was the first time he did any long walk.

We compared notes and overwhelmed it with questions. Apparently, section B of the path (the one I am) is mostly flat and swampy. Then go to the hills for C, D and E. according to her, C is especially difficult because the path «takes it to each surveillance point they could find.» Apparently I have a lot of climbing in my future.

The second woman I only met briefly, and never caught her name. Someone who was Sobo signed the registration book that I spent like oj, so maybe that was her? We met just before reaching the path in Duluth. He headed south and said he planned to finish today. I was surprised, the southern terminal was 40 miles away. She told me that she had been averaging from 30 to 40 per day, and that she had only been on the way for just over a week since she started at the north end. I was surprised, but I didn’t want to stop her too much. After talking about how much we hate walking on concrete, we separated.

The last woman appeared as «lakes», abbreviation of «Great Lakes*Trips*oh sh*t». Apparently he was a fairly competent hiker, after having made the path of the Apalaches and most of the Pacific crest. She asked me if I had a path of path, to which (sadly) I replied that no. We will see if I get one at the end of this.

Lakes told me that, in his opinion, section B stives. Much of what I already knew, which is covered and swampy. She said that once the path becomes more picturesque, you get more pedestrian pedestrian traffic and less growth on the road. That information only made me wait for the increases.

In general, my first day on the path has been everything but boring. I have had the whole range of experiences, from the incredible ones (meeting other hikers) to the terrible (soaked) to a combination of both at the same time (bear). I hope the rain stays in the morning, although I doubt it. It is forecast to continue all week (yes).

Anyway, I will keep everyone updated as best I can. The service is even more irregular than I expected. Happy walk!