Tettegouche State Park

Tettegouche State Park

(formerly Baptism River State Park)

—Silver Bay, MN—

Since this ranger brought us to the back of the park, we did not
get a picture of the sign at the main park entrance.

Tettegouche State Park is a park that we are extremely family with.  This state park sits right on Highway 61 less than one hour north of Duluth, and it is has some of the prettiest views anywhere in the state.  Despite our familiarity with the park, the park ranger threw us for a loop, and instead of starting near the entrance on Highway 61, the coordinates brought us to the top of park 6 miles due west of the main road.  This is a part of the park that we had never been to before, coming in on the back side of the park, but our experience was awesome.  (We appreciate this crafty park ranger for sending us this way.)

The park was originally Baptism River State Park.  A local association of businessmen called the "Tettogouche Club" had preserved this area, which eventually was added to Baptism River State Park to make, what is now, Tettogouche State Park.

The Minnesota DNR describes Tettegouche like this: "Come to Tettegouche for a great sense of the North Shore: the spectacular overlooks at Shovel Point; rocky, steep cliffs and inland bluffs; the cascading 60 ft. High Falls of the Baptism River; and the historic Tettegouche Camp where visitors can stay the night. This is a hiker's paradise with miles of trails that overlook the Sawtooth Mountains and wind down to inland lakes accessible only by foot.  The Palisade Valley Unit features broad scenic vistas coupled with an expanse of multi-use, four-season trails. Two more trout lakes complement the fishing opportunities within the rest of the park."

The DNR is not kidding when they call Tettegouche a paradise, and it is a place that we have never been disappointed by before.  Just a quick note on the Palisade Valley – this brings you to a cliff called the Palisade Head that gives, in my opinion, the best view of Lake Superior you can find as well as being the tallest cliff in Minnesota.  (It is also one of the places we hiked to on our honeymoon.)

By the time we made it to Tettegouche is was late—after 8 PM—and we really wanted to knock one more out.  I had read logs that said that this was one of the most difficult hikes people had for the entire Avian Adventure geocaching series but, also, that the view was amazing.  Marcus was still sleeping, so we decided that Luke would go – he was faster, and we really wanted to get this one done.

:

Luke left on the hike at 8:08 pm – not a lot of time to make it to the top before sunset, which was at 7:48 pm, so we were still in civil twilight when Luke set out from the car.

We had followed a small road down the back of the park and came to a parking lot just 20 feet from the trail/hike to our first location – right here there was a kiosk with the next set of coordinates.  Luke also took a picture of the state park hiking map since we did not have a chance to grab one at the ranger station (we never actually had to go to the ranger station at this state park since we came in the back).

This is part way up the trail to the top of the 300-foot hill.
The smaller rusty nail hole spot on the left part of the map
is where you are on this metallic map.

A look back at the car as Luke strikes out on the 300-foot-elevation trail... and the fun begins...

Gearing up at the car prior to departure.  That's Luke there.
Tumultuous clouds in the background as daylight wanes.

Luke got ready to leave on the adventure – we entered the coordinates, and it was pretty clear that he would be following the service road up to Camp Tettegouche, which is where the workers for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) set up the first camp and stayed to build all of the projects around this state park.

The sign by the path warns about the level of difficulty with a 300-foot increase on the hike to the old camp at the top of the hill.

I really like the profile of the hill climb to the Tettegouche Camp.

Lots of incline the whole way.  Believe what Luke says: you get a workout right away!  (He jogged up most of it to beat the sunset.)

Luke left on the hike, leaving me in the car to worry about the time, the oncoming dusk, and him falling off a cliff... so maybe I am exaggerating a bit there.  I didn't go on the hike, so I don't have a ton to add.

It had been raining here.  This is a look at the trail.  The steepness of the incline does not, nor ever does, come through well in the photos.  It was less about the shear steepness than the relentless uphill grade, however.

A fairly nice evening: not too hot, hot too cool.  The sky is pretty faded and everything looks lighter in this photo since the white balance was pegging out on the camera due to dusk coming on.  Just to give you an idea see the photo above for what it really looked like.

Getting pretty dark out near the top (the camera's white balance skewing the brightness of the scene).
This is the second bench the put for people to rest at.  Luke had to search around very quickly to locate this one.
At first it seemed it was at the intersection of the trails in the shadows, but it turned out
to be the bench.  This gave the next set of coordinates that led to the overlook.

At the top of the hill.

Old sign on the way to the lookout.  The footpath to the overlook breaks off to the right.  Also the way to the final geocache location.

A very suspect-looking path breaking off to the right.  Hmmm.... Also, one of the greatest things about
the North Shore state parks was there was very little poison ivy in general.  And, as we've learned, August is far worse than June or July for the stuff (we're talking enormous bushes/vines of it in some parks!).

The ammo box was spraypainted blaze orange, which was helpful.

He found the final geocache ammo box, and in a first, it was painted blaze orange.  It did make it a bit easier to find.

Stuff inside of the ammo box.

A ranger at another state park said they wished this was the bird that was chosen for their state park since the black-throated blue warbler is so neat.

An old pine on top of the hill.  In New England they call these kind of hills "mountains," I believe.  Along the North Shore they call the hills the "Sawtooth Mountains."  I'm not convinced.  They are still pretty great, though!

Blurry photo of the trail at the top.  Luke was probably walking while taking the picture since time was shot.

Looking down from the clifftop over the forest below.

Lots of solitude up here.  Nary another person to be found.

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View of the lake off to the left (the Lake Superior direction).

Sunlight fading fast.  Fantastic skies.  Endless hills going off to the horizon...

All rocks, trees, and sky up here.

The sunset off to the right.

Watch out... kind of steep here!

Nightfall was amazing from up here.

Heading on down.

After leaving it was quite dark out on the way
down to Silver Bay, MN.  (A long downhill drive.)

The trail again.  No one else was on the trails on this geocache.

The DNR website calls this state park a "hiker's paradise."  It is indeed!

Although we did not go to the main entrance of the park and see the rest of it (we have been here many times in the past), here are some pictures of the rest of the park.

A photo of the Baptism River waterfall as it exits into Lake Superior.  This picture was taken by someone else and posted on Wikipedia.  This is the highest waterfall in Minnesota that lies entirely within the state's borders.  The Pigeon River waterfalls (see our earlier post at Grand Portage State Park) is higher but crosses the U.S.–Canada border.

A view of the Palisade Head cliff with Shovel Point in the background (this is another Wikipedia photograph).  We had been here before in the autumn, and, believe us, it offers one of the most spectacular views in the entire State of Minnesota.  From the top of the wall you can actually see Wisconsin across Lake Superior.

The high falls of the Baptism River again (another picture taken from Wikipedia).  We didn't have the opportunity to go here on this day, but we'll be back with Marcus in the future!

Also, on the way to Tettogouche we went through the very cool town of Finland, MN, which is a little ways upstream from Lake Superior on the Baptism River.