Tettegouche State Park

About a year ago, my husband and I reserved a cart in campsite at Tettegouche State Park.  I had never been cart in camping, but my husband highly recommended it and everyone I had talked to told me cart in camping in Tettegouche is the way to go.  My husband picked what he remembered was a site with a private beach, and we had been giddy about going for the last year.

We arrived late on Friday- traffic out of the city is terrible this time of year – but we had enough sunlight left to cart in to our site, which was the very last one on the path.  When we arrived, we were a little disappointed.  It was a nice site, but it wasn’t very private- there was a site right next door.  I was tired, hangry, and frustrated.  We had come all this way, waited a year, and if we had neighbors, it was going to not be the private weekend we had dreamed of.  Well, luckily the people that reserved site N never showed, and we did have a great weekend with a very private campsite.  Despite our camp site not being what we expected- first world problems and high expectations, lesson learned – we had an amazing time exploring this park, and it so lived up to all the hype.

Since Friday we arrived while the sun was setting, we saved our first hike until Saturday morning.   The morning started chilly and rainy.  We bundled up, I’m so glad I brought my long underwear, started a fire and drank more coffee than we wanted just because it was hot.  We checked the radar and at first it said severe storms were headed our way, so we thought of leaving the park and heading to Grand Marais, but the forecast changed within an hour to just be rain for half the day and we decided to hike.

Our first trail took us all the way down the lake shore, stopping at rocky beaches and climbing up to the high cliffs for beautiful look outs.  It was magical, despite the rain and wetness.  We headed back to our site after the 2.5 hour hike and warmed up with some lunch.  The rain had fallen off the radar and it looked like we would get some sun.  Once refueled, we headed out to do the big loop to high falls.

This was by far the most rigorous hike I have ever done in my life.  Up and down stairs, climbing rocks, we even went down to the river on a non trail and got lost for a bit.  The view of the High falls was worth every drop of sweat.  We took another trail back on the road, it had been three hours and our legs hurt more than we imaged.  The sun beamed down on us until we arrived back at our campsite where we made the call to set up the hammock, crack open some wine and stay there for the rest of the night.

Sunday morning packed up our site and did one last hike in Tettegouche to Cascade Falls, which was stunning.  We sat and watched the water rush down the rocks for a while before heading on the same trail back.  On our way out of the park, we stopped at Palisade Head.  It was sunny and beautiful, the perfect North Shore weather, and we soaked up as much of the sun was we could until heading back toward the cities.

I live for camping, I live for resetting in nature, it’s truly the best.  We have one last weekend open to camp this summer and we are thinking of hitting up somewhere in Southern Minnesota.  Do you have any reccomendations?  Favorite places to camp?  I would love to hear from you.