Superior National Forest: Bug Creek Trail

If I could give one piece of advice on hiking the Bug Creek Trail it would be: "don't bother". I know it sounds harsh, but there just wasn't much to like about this trail that appears to have not gotten any maintenance in some time. We had high hopes for the Bug Creek Trail. Literature that I read on the Superior National Forest website made the trail seem like a good place to hike with children, and a good place to look for birds.

We arrived to find an overgrown trailhead

and muddy parking area. I was hoping there would be a picnic table to eat lunch at, but no luck so we sat in the back of the car and ate.

After lunch we made our way over to the trailhead. While it was quite overgrown, at least there were some blooming wildflowers to admire.

We made our way down the first section of trail, hoping it might be less overgrown. Instead it was overgrown and muddy.

We were able to follow a short spur to an overlook of the wetland there.

Few birds were sighted though. We attempted to follow the longer spur of the trail, but it was muddy, overgrown, and with lots of blowdowns to climb over. We gave up where a small bridge had been washed away.

At least we got to admire some nice fall color at Elephant Lake!

We also made the drive into Orr to hike the short Bog Boardwalk and play at the playground overlooking Pelican Lake. It wasn't a complete failure.