By Angie Peterson
Frozen cheese. Blaze orange. The smell of melting rubber. 190 frozen toes. Put all those things together, and it can only be one thing. The annual Grantsburg Hike. A two day, 18 mile hike along the St. Croix River with our fearless leaders Randy and Doug.
Way before the crack of dawn on the Monday before Thanksgiving, 13 sleepy Mini-Schoolers, alumni Josh Stinson (Stimpy ‘94) with his girlfriend Sarah, and their dog Seven met at the high school. Doug and Randy were patiently waiting for us. Two people were missing so we continued to wait but not so patiently anymore. Finally, Mike McGinn and Casey Bakken arrived fashionably late. The punishment for holding up a trip is dish duty. Needless to say, Mike and Casey were not “happy campers” that evening. I won’t bore with the next 6 hours but to sum it up, we drove, divided food and gear, packed, dressed ourselves in lovely blaze orange sweatshirts and hats. (Thank you Burger Brothers!!) and hiked a few miles.
Lunch on the trail is a messy event. We usually consume a fair amount of dirt with our bagels and pb and j that gets all over our faces and gloves. Trying to cut frozen cheese for 19 people with a pocket knife when you can’t feel your fingers is no easy task but this year we had the modern convenience of pre-sliced cheese. It made things a lot easier. At every meal Eric Thomas would say “Hey Randy! Can I get math credit for dividing up the chocolate?” Seven took care of everyone’s leftovers and became known as the garbage disposal.
After we ate we packed up and started hiking again. The early November ice storm made the hiking very slippery. There was a layer of ice covering the ground with about two inches of snow on top of that. The steep hills are always horrible to climb. The hike down in to the valley usually easier but most of us spent half the time sliding down on our butts. I was told that our “wonderful Navigator,” Mike Ennis took a bad fall down a hill, he grabbed Mike McGinn’s leg and pulled him down face first in the snow. The only good thing about everything being frozen is we all stayed warm and dry.
As we hike, the group spreads out with Doug leading about two miles ahead of everyone else and Randy bringing up the rear. Usually the trail is clear and we stragglers can find our way, but again, the snow complicated our hike. Everyone knows that Mike Ennis has almost no real sense of direction, but somehow he was leading our small group trying to follow the footprints.
As you can probably guess, our “wonderful navigator” got us lost. He was following what must have been a hunter’s footprints that went way right of the trail. Randy did his best to lead us back in the right direction but it was almost impossible to find our way through the trees and snow. We were starting to worry about daylight running out. Then we heard Doug yelling from the top of the hill and he helped direct us to a good spot to climb up. Ennis was lucky the campsite was at the top. We would have had to torture him if we had any further to go.
It was only about 3:30 but it was already getting dark. Half the group gathered firewood while the rest of us set up the tents and helped get dinner started. We had a really good group, everyone did their share of work without much whining and got everything done. We all helped each other and made sure that everyone was taken care of. I was amazed at how well the group worked together and I think Doug and Randy were too
We sat by the fire waiting for the water on the little stove to boil. I can’t even count how many times Doug said “Watch out for the stove! Don’t knock the water!” Just as the water was about 1 minute from boiling, Doug stood up and “somehow” the stove just lost it and fell over. He says Seven did it. So we started over with the pot over the fire this time. Doug sang “there’s no tortilla” for us while he cooked, and then we finally ate our Mac ‘n Cheese, Tortilla’s and Snickers. It was delicious.
After everything was cleaned up, we stayed warm by the fire and most people melted their boots. Ennis tried to dry his socks and burned one so bad he only had half of it left, and I managed to singe everything I was wearing. We roasted marshmallows and talked for a while but by 8:00 most of us were ready for bed.
It was a very cold night and most of us woke up with frozen feet. We thawed out, had a few cups of coffee, and ate as much oatmeal as we could handle. Pete Riedel woke up late and missed the hot water so he ate his dry. Then we packed everything up and were on our way.
The second day of hiking seemed to be a lot harder. Almost everyone’s canteen was frozen by lunchtime so we were all dehydrated and eating snow by the end of the day. There were two large frozen ponds we had to slide across, hoping we wouldn’t fall though. The waist band on Eric’s pack was broken and once again our “wonderful navigator” got us lost. At lunch Seven caught a mouse but Bill saved it and kept it in his mug.
All of us were very sore, tired, dirty, hungry, thirsty, and happy when we finally made it to the end. We were so ready to go home. This was the first trip we didn’t have Doug’s cabin to go to so we went to Pizza Hut instead. It was fun but the best part of the Grantsburg Hike is having French toast for breakfast in the cabin. But it was really nice to go home and sleep in a warm bed.
On the way home, Bill entertained us with stories about aliens and the end of the world. We stopped in Forest Lake to call home, and before we knew it we were at Perkins in Minnetonka.
Trip Participants:
Carl Anderson
Casey Bakken
Geoff Boller
Josh Chowen
Kim Colway
Mike Ennis
Mike McGinn
Angie Peterson
Pete Riedel
Chris Robertson
Eric Thomas
Chris Wegler
Bill Zastera
Ann Kohman
Marcelle Dorenkamp
Doug Berg
Randy Nelson
Josh Stinson (Stimpy)
Sarah (Girlfriend of Stimpy)
Seven (Dog of Sarah and Stimpy)