Superior Hiking Trail: Martin Road to Lismore Road

This morning I awoke early, packed my camping gear into the car, and made the drive down into Duluth. After making my way through part of town, I headed out to Martin Road and one of the trailheads for the Superior Hiking Trail in the section between Duluth and Two Harbors. I had attempted to hike this section of trail before, only to arrive at the trailhead after a major storm with many trees down all over town. I figured I would have had to climb over and under fallen trees and so I opted to save the hike for a different day. That day turned out to be today.  

I arrived at a full parking area (most of it seems to be closed) and parked along the side of the road near some lupine for my hike.

The start of the hike followed snowmobile trails.

They were grassy and often quite wet.

There were lots of wildflowers in bloom,

including marsh marigold in the frequent wet sections.

I passed some property belonging to the University of Minnesota Duluth

and eventually made my way onto a section of singletrack trail off the snowmobile trail.

I endured one short rain shower,

but mostly the rain held off while I hiked the trail.

There were a few beaver ponds here and there.

The trail traversed some sections of woods that had been logged,

included one section that had been logged very recently. The trail through the logged sections was marked with posts.

Interestingly, I didn't find many ticks. Just two over the course of the entire hike!

Shortly after a break at the White Pine campsite,

the trail made its way to a road, Lismore Road. The trail closely paralleled the road here. At Lismore Roads intersection with Jean Duluth Road I made a right for the long road walk back to the trailhead. Of course it started raining as I walked the road. The rain was quite hard at times. While you often hear Minnesotans brag about "Minnesota Nice", nobody stopped to offer me a ride. I was soaked and cold by the time I arrived back at my car for the drive to my campsite at Jay Cooke State Park.