Weekly Blog #9 - Lessons of Superior Hiking Trail - Part 1
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posted: Saturday, June 27th, 2026
150 miles of the Superior Hiking Trail teaches lessons - a LOT of lessons!
Sponge is home after 15 days on the SHT – an eventful trip that rewarded him with amazing sights, but also challenged him with harrowing circumstances. And much like the Appalachian Trail, it taught him some tough lessons. So many, in fact, that he will share these in multiple parts.
So welcome to “Part 1: Lessons Learned from the Superior Hiking Trail”.
This first segment will begin just like the trail did – at the very beginning. It’s Jun. 5th, the eve of the big journey. Sponge is in his hotel room in Duluth, squaring away all his gear for tomorrow morning. He hit constant construction in Iowa, arriving around 11 pm. Not optimal, but he could still get a decent night’s rest and be good to go. He just had to square away his water bottles.
Luckily, he had found an Aldi along the way and picked up a gallon of spring water. He filled each bottle – leaving one empty to test his Sawyer Squeeze. It was then Lesson #1 rained down on him like a monsoon. Or rather a trickle. His Sawyer Squeeze was scarcely ‘squeezing’.
Lesson #1: FULLY test all your equipment before setting out.
Mild panic grows as Sponge tries repeated back-flushing, hot water and anything else to little result. The Squeeze is filtering, but at such a slow rate gravity filtering will be impractical and ‘squeeze’ filtering might break Sponge. He could take a chance that the filter will loosen up on the trail – but this IS his water supply we’re talking about. Lose your ability to drink water and the trail ends pretty quickly.
So, Sponge decides to buy a new Sawyer Squeeze the next day. This will delay his start, as a Bass Pro Shop 5 miles away won’t open until 9 am. It doesn’t matter Sponge tells himself, it will be worth it.
Fast forward 10 hours and Sponge is walking into Bass right as they open. A store employee walks him over to the water filtration section and there it is…an empty section where Sawyer Squeeze should be. There’s even the product tag and price above it.
“I haven’t seen that in a while,” the store associate remarks, as Sponge shows him a pic from his phone. “Let me check the back.”
He returns a few minutes later shaking his head. Sponge wanders over to the colossal freshwater fish tank and sits on a bench to figure out his next move. The closest REI is in Minneapolis, roughly 90 minutes away. He call’s Dick’s Sporting Goods and a somewhat confused associate does a brief, fruitless search. No big name outfitter will help him here.
If there’s a Sawyer Squeeze, it will need to be found at smaller outfitter. He consults his maps app and finds a few possibilities. The best one opens at 10 am – 5 miles back towards the hotel he just left. Sponge sighs. He could have slept in.
Luckily, that outfitter (shout out to Trailfitters) had the Sawyer Squeeze and Sponge was back in business. But it was a stressful lesson to learn – and also ensured he would start the trail hours after he planned. It may have been this frenzied mood that created the next mistake and lesson to learn.
Lesson #2: Make DANG sure you are going the right direction.
So Sponge drops off his car with a family friend in Duluth and takes an Uber to the Martin Road Trailhead. He takes the obligatory energetic, full-of-hope selfies and sets off on the trail. He walks with purpose, enjoying the gorgeous weather and scenery. The path is solid, beautiful…and going 100% the wrong way.
Yes, somehow Sponge started his SHT journey going south instead of north. Instead of checking his Avenza maps, which show his location on the map with a solid blue dot, he just set out, confident he was on the right path.
A mile or so later, he encountered a group of older hikers – folks taking part in the Superior Hiking Trail 40th anniversary, which challenged people to hike EVERY mile of the 300-mile trail that day – different groups tackling different sections to make it happen. They were polite and asked Sponge how it was going. He mentioned hiking to Grand Marais and got a puzzled look from the group leader.
“You sure you’re going the right way?”
Now the panic that invaded Sponge’s soul from the slow-dripping Squeeze returned. He pulled out his phone. Avenza check. Yup that blue dot is VERY south of Martin Road. Sponge reverses direction, passes the group and briefly wonders how far he would have ended up going had they not been there.
The lesson here is clear – spend a minute or two checking your dot if you are unsure about direction. It was an easy mistake to avoid. In this case, it cost Sponge energy and time. He arrived back at Marin Road around noon. It was now roughly 3-4 hours after Sponge had planned to start his hike.
Over the next 8 hours, Sponge would cover the 16.3 miles to camp. He didn’t realize this would end up being one of his biggest mileage days of the SHT, especially if you throw on the extra 2 miles from going the wrong direction.
His pack was at its heaviest. He took few breaks to make it to camp before daylight expired. And when he did arrive – thirsty and exhausted, he battled a swarm of mosquitos that seemed like content to put him out of his misery.
Hence, the final lesson of Day 1:
Lesson #3: Don’t skip a basic piece of equipment in favor of a fancy, unproven one
Sponge had hoped his new Thermacell Mosquito Repeller would give him a 15-foot halo and allow him enough space (and sanity) to pitch his tent, fetch his water and maybe cook a meal.
It was not an unreasonable idea. What WAS unreasonable was to skip bringing mosquito spray because he had such confidence in this product (and Permethrin-treated long sleeves/pants, and his head bug net).
He thought of the bottles of Sawyer lotion and spray sitting at home and could have cried. But that would be a waste of water. Instead, he fought the bugs, gathered water, hastily set up his tent and retreated into it, not bothering to eat dinner.
Days later, in the comfort of a hotel room with WiFi, he would count 23 mosquito bites on one arm alone, including 12 on just his right hand (that held his poles when not in use). He would also learn the Thermacell needs 10-15 minutes to “heat up” before it effectively repels mosquitos. Sponge would use it better the remainer of the trip – although Minnesota blood-suckers are a different breed and he’s pretty convinced they’d chase Satan through the Northern Woods if given the chance.
Yes, next time the bug spray – all 8 or so ounces of its weight, should go with him.