Eagle Mountain: Minnesota's Highpoint

Parker seemed quite surprised to hear loons in the middle of last night. Noelle and I were delighted. It was chilly when we woke up this morning and the inside of the tent was wet with condensation. We decided to leave the tent set up and pack up everything else in the hopes that while we hiked the tent would dry out.

We hit the road to the Eagle Mountain trailhead at 7:15. About a half an hour later we were on the trail. The hiking started out relatively flat with a few sections that passed over swampy areas on boardwalks. Soon we entered the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The trail began to get a bit rocky and rugged but there were no real climbs until we reached Whale Lake.


At Whale Lake there is a nice view of the false summit of Eagle Mountain. The trail climbed pretty steadily up to some nice views of the wilderness area. There were no roads or buildings to be seen anywhere, just trees and scattered lakes reflecting the morning's blue sky. A short time later we reached the summit, marked with a historical marker.
We spent some time resting there before heading back down to the car. Parker did great, the 7 miles round trip was his longest hike to date.

Once we got back to the car, we returned to the campground where we packed up our dry tent. We then headed into Grand Marais for gas and pizza at Sven and Ole's. The drive back to Duluth was anticlimactic. We stopped at Tettegouche for a short hike to Illgen Falls before resuming our trip back home.