Monday, August 14, 2023 Zippel Bay State Park: Misty Waters and Snake Tails

Continuing stories of our hiking trip in June.

As I said before, we had to pack up our stuff in the rain when we left Hayes Lake State Park. Those of you who have done this know what I’m talking about. It’s not the ideal way to break down camp, but needs must. (That’s the way they used to say things in the 1800’s – quaint, isn’t it?). With our soggy belongings tucked into the car and the car-top carrier, we drove up to Warroad to wait out the rain, not wanting to do the next hike at Zippel Bay State Park until it stopped raining. The weather app kept promising times when the rain system would be past us FOR SURE, but the weather system itself proved that things aren’t always that predictable. After some hot drinks and some reading downtime, we decided to go to ZBSP and take our chances.

Zippel Bay State Park is way, way, up north in Minnesota, hugging part of the shore of Lake of the Woods, which comprises part of the boundary between the U.S. and Canada. When we got to the park, it was still raining, but by the time we got to the place where the trail started, it had stopped. Thank you, Lord!

The first part of the 1.5 mile trail was literally just walking along the beach, a first for us. The lake had a misty look about it, so the atmosphere was quite enchanting.

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I picked up a stone that I thought looked like an arrowhead. I’ve always wanted to find an arrowhead and this might the closest I get to it.

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We had decided to wear our full rain gear just in case it started raining again, and it’s a good thing we did. Once we came off the beach to walk on the inland portion of the trail, the mosquitos scented us out like insect bloodhounds and were hot on our trail the whole time after that. Our rain coats are made from strong stuff – no mosquito can pierce it. Of course, they figured out fairly quickly that our faces and hands were still fair game. Captain Picaridin helped, but didn’t eliminate the threat completely.

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We sped things up a bit to keep ahead of our pursuers, so once again, we didn’t really stop much to identify flowers and plants. This was one of those “out and back again” trails where you just retrace your steps once you get to the end.

We tried to avoid the inland portion of the trail on the way back but discovered that you couldn’t actually do the whole trail on the beach. Oh well. I saw a little snake on our way back and whipped out my phone to get a photo, but the snake was on to me and all I got was the tail end.

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When we finished, Kris wanted our selfie to include the lake, and even the ship that was way out on the water and looked tiny from where we stood. Fortunately, we just couldn’t get that ship in the frame with us. And why is that fortunate, you ask? Kris posited that if it was a drug running ship, they’d have been watching us through telescopes and if we’d caught their illegal activity accidentally with our camera, they’d have had to set their dogs after us and silence us. What a fate we barely missed! (I’m not the only one in the family with an active imagination, you see.)

Five hikes done out of the seven planned for this week. Yay! Next stop: Big Bog State Recreation Area, where we’ll be camping for the night and doing the hike in the morning.

Knee Score: 2 out of 10. Short, mostly level hike, but sand is tricky to walk on. Plus we went off script and had to do a little scrambling around on large rocks.

I’ll probably delete this with my raincoat on in the morning.

Next hike: Big Bog SRA