The Minnesota State Parks Hiking Club

A few weeks ago I learned about this hiking club that is organized by Minnesota State Parks. Basically, how it works is you get a little book that you take with you to the different state parks. Each state park has a specially designated Hiking Club trail. You hike the trail and at the mid-point of the hike is a sign with a special code word on it.
You then record the park, distance hiked, and the code word. After you've hiked 25 miles you take your book to the ranger and you can earn a 25 miles hiked patch. The same thing happens after you've hiked 50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 175, and all the Hiking Club trails.

When I heard about this, I thought it sounded perfect. It was a chance to hike and have a little bit of fun while doing it. A few days ago my Hiking Club packet arrived in the mail. Today I was determined to get started earning miles. I drove over to the closest state park, Jay Cooke, where I hiked the 3.5 mile Hiking Club trail. It was nice to hike with a little bit of snow on the ground. It didn't take too long to hike the short distance and so I decided to drive to the next closest state park, Moose Lake, which I had never been to before.


The hike at Moose Lake was a short 2 miles and not all that interesting. I did, however, check out the interesting geology museum there. They had a lot of really amazing Lake Superior agates on display. Why can't I ever find one like these?