Nothing but the Rushing Creek
Don Krumpos · Memoir · Nature · Travel
We drove up Friday morning, stopped for groceries and coffee at The Wedge, then picked up Kari in Duluth and kept going north. Temperance River State Park. We set up the tent and hiked along the north side of the river before dark. The season had been so wet that every river on the shore was running hard — rapids everywhere, white water cutting through basalt gorges. We turned around when the light started to go.
For supper we made hobo dinners — red potatoes, green beans, onions, chorizo sausage, butter, all wrapped in aluminum foil and set on the coals. An old standby from camping as a kid. Some things you carry forward not because they’re the best way to cook, but because the taste is inseparable from who you were when you learned it. We sat by the fire and agreed we were enjoying ourselves very much, which is the kind of thing you say out loud when you mean it.
Saturday we broke camp and hiked up to Carlton Peak. The overlook at the top gives you the whole Sawtooth range — ridgeline after ridgeline, dark spruce and birch, Lake Superior somewhere behind you bigger than the sky. It rained on the way down and soaked our shoes, so we drove to Cascade River State Park, set up camp, and built a fire just to dry them out.
After lunch we hiked the south side of the Cascade. The gorge was full — water rushing through kettles and over ledges, spray hanging in the air. We climbed to Lookout Mountain for another view, then came back down on a trail that ran close to the river. Rooty, muddy, beautiful. We decided to take that route again the next day, so we turned around about a mile in and went back to camp for another round of the same hobo dinner. If it works, it works.
Sunday was the longest hike — a seven-mile loop on the north side of the Cascade. The trail climbed high above the gorge, dropped close to the water, climbed again. We stopped for lunch on a rock jutting out into the rapids, our feet dangling above the current, eating sandwiches and not talking much. On the return we took the south-side trail and found Chad Falls — hidden back in a side gorge, easy to miss if you’re not looking. The kind of place that rewards wandering off the plan.
After the hike we drove up to Grand Marais for groceries, then to the Kadunce River. We hiked about a mile inland from Lake Superior to a backcountry campsite, and that was the best part of the trip. Secluded. No one around. We bathed in the river and built a large fire and cooked lentils and beans over it. That night the only sound was the rushing creek — no road noise, no neighbors, no generators. Just the water and the fire and the dark.
Monday we broke camp, hiked back to the car, and drove to Judge C.R. Magney State Park. We hiked up the Brule River to the Devil’s Kettle — that strange gorge where half the river disappears into a pothole and nobody knows where it goes. We kept hiking another couple miles, rested by the river, then turned back and drove home.
The whole drive south I had this feeling I couldn’t shake — nostalgia, but not for a specific memory. More like the shape of childhood summers. The long days outside, the sense that time was wide and you could fill it with whatever you wanted. I hadn’t felt that in years. We made plans to come back in the fall. I’m grateful that I can say I actually had a summer this year.