View of downtown Duluth and Lake Superior's waters from bluff top north of Kingsbury Creek.
Today’s itinerary called for hiking from Kingsbury Creek to Hartley Nature Center. And, yessss! The sun finally came out on Day 3 of this adventure. Not only did we have sun, but the temps were perfect – low 70s F. (21 C.) for the high – and there was a breeze. The breeze cooled us off, plus plugged away at drying all of the mud.

The Superior Hiking Trail boasts a gazillion waterfalls, and we saw so many today. I have to research more about where all of this water is coming from, but one sign said this particular creek was part of the Lake Superior watershed. All I know is we crossed loads of creeks, and many were flowing fiercely and there were lots of waterfalls.

Heading Out of Kingsbury Creek

Early in the day we climbed up high above the city and stayed up there for the most part, enjoying glorious views of Duluth, Three people holding ice cream cones with Lake Superior in the background.Lake Superior and its tributaries. In the afternoon we descended into Duluth and had a lovely walk past its famous aerial lift bridge and along a boardwalk rimming the lake.

Around 5 p.m., Brian, the Strib photographer, and Ed and I enjoyed an ice cream cone lakeside. There’s nothing like ice cream after a long day’s hike! But we weren’t finished.

We had another 5 miles (8 km) or so until the end. It was a lovely hike through various parks and around the University of Minnesota-Duluth, but it was a long day. And these last 5 miles (8 km) featured a TON of uphill.


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Oh, one fun thing. When we were dropping one car this morning at the Hartley Nature Center, our end point for the day, we saw a deer nibbling on the vegetation as we drove in. It didn’t seem shy at all about being so close to people or cars. At the end of the day, as we hiked into Hartley, the deer was still there, only greeting us on the back end. 🙂

There aren’t many places to camp around the trail here, so we’re once again staying at the Best Western Plus Spirit Mountain. It’s a great choice: clean, friendly employees and close to the trail.

Snowshoe

MN NCT miles today: 18.9 (30.4 km)
MN NCT miles to date: 51.6 (83 km)
SHT miles to date: 51.6 (83 km)
Total NCT miles to date: 338.2 (544.3 km)
Total NCT miles to go: 4,261.8 (6,858.7 km)

Use this link to book a night at the Best Western Plus Spirit Mountain!

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