Ten years ago, Minnesota wasn’t on my bikepacking radar. Or any radar, really. But love has a way of changing things, introducing your horizons. When I fell for a woman who called the North Shore home, the state earned an unlikely corner in my adventure catalog. It’s a destination that draws me back with its crooked trails, endless forests, cold lakes, and long silences—the kind of place you go when you’re not looking for a vacation, but an escape.
And last summer, I desperately needed one.
Between calls, email, Slack, social media, news, and politics, my life felt like a web browser with too many tabs open and no way to find which one was playing music. For a change, I pointed the truck north and set out for a solo bikepacking trip on the North Shore. The plan: a loose itinerary for a 190-mile loop from Tofte through Superior National Forest, cutting east to Grand Marais, then tracing the Lake Superior coast back. I would be leaving the headphones and work behind. It was to be me and a DSLR camera, with a few days of moving slowly, sweating a lot, and maybe remembering how to breathe.
Rain and Resets
The forecast said “partly cloudy,” but in the “Land of 10,000 Lakes,” you can bet water is in those clouds more often than not.
I woke to rain drumming in the camper shell and wind shaking the trees like they owed it money. There was no turning back now. I cinched my rain gear, saddled the bike, and pedaled into the gray.
My casual 40-mile start to shake off the rust (it had been a while since my last big ride) felt twice that distance due to the headwind, while the rain, never content to stick to either a mist or downpour, kept inventing new ways to soak me. I stopped more than I should have—each coffee break an excuse to hide in the trees, fire up the stove, and feel something warm in my hands.
Halfway through the day, I rolled up to the Trestle Inn, a local watering hole I’d been dreaming about since before the ride began. Inside, the promise of hot food and a dry seat called to me. The sign indicated otherwise: closed (of course). With no other souls in sight, and a barking dog interrupting the quiet sting of disappointment, I didn’t wait around.
As I rounded a corner, a bridge came into view. The tires rolled onto the wooden beams with a rhythmic clunk until I grabbed the brakes, captivated by the scene below. A few fishermen were casting into a lazy stream while the forest exhaled around them. Almost instinctively, I turned to pedal away. Training distilled by our modern lives usually keeps us going, roaring in the background about the places we have to be. So it took a surprising amount of effort to unclip from my pedals and just sit. The silence was thick—almost noisy in contrast to the world I’d left behind. I closed my eyes and listened to the absence of volume I’d been craving—the kind of void that isn’t empty, but full and rich.
Eventually, I clipped in and traded the hushed babble of the creek for the crunch of gravel, but there had been a shift. The rest of the ride felt slower, more purposeful. Not like I was pedaling to reach the next stop, but to be right there in each moment.
I made camp early that night—bone-tired, drenched to the core, but present. Dinner was freeze-dried fajitas, Michelin-starred, in context. I crawled into my bag with fingers crossed for a drier tomorrow.
Mud, Detours, and Bears
The rain had downgraded from biblical proportions to a persistent drizzle. I brewed coffee by a glassy lake while loons called across the water, a refreshing change from the pings and buzzes of devices during my typical mornings. The trail ahead promised narrower, graded paths, with more old ATV trails and two tracks. I linked up with a route deep in the forest on the kind of trail where maps feel more like guidelines and the only things closing in faster than the brush are the mosquitoes. The recent storm had made a mess of things—swollen creeks, deep ruts, and enough muck to turn my tracks from a straight line to something that resembled twisting ladders of DNA. Then the creek crossings started.
First crossing: shoes soaked. Second: knees soaked. Third: I waded in, bike lifted as high as I could, but turned back when the water was waist-deep, and my shoes began leaving my feet in favor of the mud beneath. Defeated, I rerouted. It was the only trail connecting my loop, and without it, I’d lose both my planned resupply and my shot at a cold beer that night. Those dim prospects stung worse than the frigid water against my skin. I started slowly pedaling back through the brush, my mood admittedly soured by the turn of events.
Then the bear showed up. It burst from the bushes without warning, a shockingly fast blur of fur and surprise. In shock, I yelled, and to my good fortune, it bolted. I laughed like an idiot, heart hammering, my frustration with the water having completely evaporated, leaving me exhilarated and grateful to be on this ridiculous escapade. With wet socks, muddy shorts, and shaky hands, I rerouted via a patchwork of ATV tracks and backroads. Forget tonight’s camp, I wanted a beer.
I filtered lake water in the wind, rationed snacks, and pushed on, riding many more miles than planned. Finally, gravel turned to pavement, and I rolled into Grand Marais, certainly looking and smelling more like the bear I’d met in the swamp than the tourists I passed in town.
Voyageur Brewing welcomed me without flinching, though. I inhaled barbeque sliders, a brownie, and two pints of local beer like I hadn’t eaten in days. Warmth returned—both physical and emotional. For the first time on the trip, I felt dry, and my spirits were high.
Donuts and Clarity
The next day brought honest-to-god sunshine, and the world was suddenly golden, the trip finally smiling back at me. I celebrated with carbs—Grand Marais is home to World’s Best Donuts, a name that might sound like a bold claim, but it delivers. I sat on a bench overlooking Lake Superior, coffee in one hand, still-warm donut in the other, and enjoyed the tranquil setting. There was no rush, no notifications—just gulls, waves, and sugar.
The ride south followed the Gitchi-Gami State Trail, with loosely connected sections of perfect pavement twisting through forest and cliffsides, the lake glittering to my left, reminding me of why I fell in love with bike riding in the first place. But not all of it was trail. One stretch dumped me onto Highway 61—busy, loud, and fast. I kept my head down, pedals turning.
That’s when I met the second bear. This time, I’m not sure who was more surprised, the bear or me. I had factored in the possibility of seeing one in the woods, but here? Not 10 feet from the shoulder of a main highway, the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. Whether it was my commanding presence or the 1980s Winnebago hurdling past on a cloud of questionable fumes, the animal decided the woods were indeed the place to be and retreated. I, on the other hand, stuck to the road, though just barely, as the parade of dreary-eyed drivers continued their Sunday circuit back toward the Twin Cities.
The bike trail picked back up, and peace returned. I stopped in Lutsen at Fika Coffee, a cozy haven named after the Swedish word for a deliberate pause and social coffee break, typically involving a sweet. I took the fika concept to heart. Then I did so again at Coho Café in Tofte for chowder and a cookie, fulfilling on the “treat” aspect (minus the coffee).
The final miles rolled easily by, and as my truck came into view, I felt the weight of the trip—not only in my legs, but in my mind. It was a good kind of tired, resembling clarity. Three days of swapping music, messages, and headlines for trees, rain, gravel, and the slow return of perspective set in.
Soon, I’d be back to my normal life, and a nagging feeling tugged on me, whispering that nothing had really changed. The digital tide kept rolling. The world hadn’t waited. But then, I had a thought. We talk a lot about productivity: chasing it, hacking it, measuring it. We buy apps to optimize our hours and devices to make every second count. But maybe the real problem isn’t how productive we are. Maybe it’s how obsessed we’ve become with being productive in the first place.
Out there—alone, wet, occasionally lost—I wasn’t getting things done. I was focusing on doing one thing at a time: pedaling, filtering water, listening to loons, watching rain dance across the handlebars. And it felt, strangely, like more than enough.
This ride didn’t delete my inbox or cancel my meetings. But it did remind me that there’s a whole world out there, steadily turning outside the buzz of our schedules. Lakes still ripple. Rivers run. Loons call at dusk. And none of it cares whether we’ve hit “inbox zero.” It’s a lesson I hope to remember for some time. But lest I begin to forget, I’ll be sure to point my wheels north towards soggy ol’ Minnesota once more.
