A Two-Day Trip to Lake Superior

From the Cities to the North Shore

This past week, I was excited to finally show my fiancé my former home of Minnesota. During our five days together, we got to sneak in a two-day trip to Lake Superior’s North Shore in Minnesota.

I had made our camping reservation a month in advance. But, as our luck would have it, the day we were scheduled to drive up turned out to be an absolute deluge.

I don’t think I’ve experienced such a consistently hard rainfall in my life. The drive from St. Paul to Duluth was dicey, as it was raining so hard we couldn’t see. At one point a truck passed us in the left lane, sending a tidal wave over our car. I let out an involuntary scream. It felt like we were underwater!

We made it to Duluth, but as hard as we looked, we couldn’t find the world’s biggest lake.

Finally, as we inched northward, the flooding let up to a mere pour, and we could just make out my beloved lake through all the mist.

Camping on Lake Superior

When we pulled into our campground at Gooseberry Falls State Park, it was only sprinkling (praise God). Our campsite, which was the only one available at the time I made the reservation, was a bit subpar. Site 15 was basically a patch of grass on the side of the road.

However, the back of the site was thoroughly wooded. We found a tiny trail that led to a small clearing in the woods that was surprisingly private. And here we set up the tent. It turned out to be rather pleasant. The trees and bushes surrounded our tent on all sides, protecting our ears from those crack-of-dawn-bacon-frying noises that tend to rudely awaken me when camping.

Jeremy awkwardly held an umbrella while I fixed up some soggy lunch at the sodden picnic table. Several families pulling campers drove past, gazing at our soaked state and smiling with a combination of amusement and pity. Or perhaps, admiration at our ruggedness.

Gooseberry Falls, Minnesota

After lunch, we explored the waterfalls. Gooseberry Falls consists of five waterfalls – Upper Falls, Middle Falls, which branches into two Lower Falls, and “Fifth Falls,” which requires a bit of hike upstream.

Gooseberry Falls State Park also features a wonderfully rugged shoreline, with plenty of rocks to climb over and agates to find. (I’ve been looking for years, though, and still have never found one.)

After exploring the lake, the sun actually came out! We were able to get a fire going back at the campsite to cook our supper. A while later, after it had gotten dark, I had finally found my way back to the campsite after getting lost trying to find the bathroom. Jeremy was sitting by the fire. As I approached, he exclaimed, “I just saw four shooting stars! All at once!”

“Really?” I looked up, finding a cloud-covered sky. Jeremy then saw multiple more “shooting stars” coming through the trees and realized he was seeing fireflies.

You can read more about Gooseberry Falls State Park at the Minnesota DNR website.

Split Rock Lighthouse, Minnesota

The next morning, we packed up and headed to Split Rock Lighthouse State Park. You can take a tour of the lighthouse and grounds for $10, which we did. I had always wanted to see the lighthouse up close, since I painted the scene a few years ago.

If you don’t want to spend the money, you can still get a very good view of the lighthouse from the shoreline. Lake Superior was as still and as clear as glass, giving us such a profoundly beautiful view of the lighthouse it made me want to paint it again.

Tettegouche State Park, Minnesota

We then traveled further North to my favorite state park, Tettegouche. This park has it all – huge cliffs, waterfalls, rocky shoreline, inland lakes, and miles of hiking trails.

We first hiked to High Falls, the park’s centerpiece. It’s a 100-foot, high-volume waterfall. You get to walk over a suspension bridge right at the brink of the waterfall, and then descend lots and lots of stairs to get a good view of the falls from the bottom.

If you want to continue to Two-Step Falls, it’s not much further down the trail, but requires a huge number of stairs. Two-Step Falls is a smaller, but lovely two-tired waterfall.

The park also contains at least two other less-trafficked waterfalls, Illgen Falls, a graceful narrow waterfall, and Cascade Falls, a very powerful slide-type waterfall. Jeremy and I hiked to Cascade Falls, which again required many, many stairs. At first we didn’t know if we had already seen the waterfall and should turn around. We are so glad we didn’t, because you will definitely know the roaring waterfall when you see it!

We went down to the beach afterwards. Jeremy briefly waded at the point where the Baptism River meets Lake Superior. He promptly got out of the water once his toes touched the icy lake water.

We saw a loon right up close, which made me happy because I adore loons!

Tettegouche 8×10 Print

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Back to Duluth

After spending some time at the beach, with Jeremy patiently waiting while I carefully examined all the rocks, we decided it was high time for supper. We proceeded back to Duluth and accidentally stumbled in to a rather fancy restaurant. At that point, we were both too hungry and tired to awkwardly get up and leave to look for cheaper options. So, we dined on scallops and mussels, wearing our sweaty hiking attire and dirty boots. Of course, we were surrounded by classy boat people, sporting polos, khaki pants, and Dockers. But, the food was really quite good, and the view was better.

So, if you are planning a day-trip to Lake Superior’s North Shore in Minnesota, I highly recommend Gooseberry Falls, Split Rock, and Tettegouche State Parks. If you have more time, Cascade River and Temperance River State Parks are definitely worth a long visit too!