Day 34
Location: Drummond trialhead
Distance: 6 mi
Weather: 80s and sunny
Mood: grateful for a wonderful day!
Today we had a short day of hiking from the Rainbow Lake Wilderness to a trailhead just outside the town of Drummond, where we were picked up by some new friends, who Jen connected us to, and who so kindly invited us to stay with them in their home near Lake Superior. It was a great day not to be hiking much, because the temperature spiked up high. We're expecting some relief from these temperatures next week, but for now this unseasonable October weather has made for some really sweaty and difficult hiking days.
We watched the scenery roll by on the highway and saw a preview of some of the places we'll be headed next, like the low ridge of the Penokee Mountains. Once we were cleaned up, we went out to sit by the lake and have lunch, and chatted about the journey so far, and our hosts' recent trip to one of their favorite camping and canoeing spots in Northern Wisconsin. It was fun to see Lake Superior again after we swung south on the NCT. The lake apparently still has ways of checking up on our progress as she always did on the SHT!
We resupplied our next few days of food after lunch, and getting to a real grocery store solved the logistical problem of Drummond, which only has a small convenience store. Set for our next days of hiking into Mellen, we spent the afternoon poring over maps and discussing the trail ahead. Our hosts are great friends of the NCT, and very knowledgeable about the sections we'll be hiking next, so we got great details about the campsites and sections of the forest we'll be traversing. We had a delicious dinner of Lake Superior fish and real vegetables from their garden! We haven't had a home-cooked meal in more than a month, so it was really special to be sitting at a dinner table again with good food and good company! We stayed up late (i.e. later than 8pm) chatting about the trail and exchanging notes on other adventures, before heading to bed and the best sleep we've gotten in days!
There's a saying among thru hikers: "the trail provides", and hiking long distances at the mercy of wind and weather and, seemingly, the trail itself does tend to induce some feelings of mysticism about "trail magic" and the unlikely connections that happen out here. But hiding behind that sentiment is an army of people who devote their time and energy to cutting through downed trees, building boardwalks across drowned trail, and even giving tired, smelly hikers a warm meal and a comfy bed in the middle of a difficult week. At the end of the day, the trail is just a strip of dead earth. The magic is the people who love it and their selfless effort to build a community around it. So thank you to our trail angels! We are so grateful for your hospitality, and glad to have made new friends on our journey!