TOWER- No one would ever accuse Pam Wettering of shying away from an outdoor challenge. She kayaks and camps frequently. She winter-camps in remote places. She skis into remote lakes to fish through the ice. But hiking the full 310 miles of the rugged Superior Hiking Trail, while working a full-time job, was more than she could take on— at least all at once.
The 54-year-old Wettering, who lives on a small homestead in rural Tower, had done some backpacking over the years, including about 45 miles of the northernmost section of the Superior Hiking Trail back in 2013. But she never imagined finishing the entire trail.
That changed after joining up with an area group, known as the IRC Adventure Club, which organized regular group hikes around the Arrowhead. The hiking group would meet most often on late afternoons on Thursdays, usually at the Redhead mountain biking trails in Chisholm, a time that usually fit her work schedule as a laborer at Minntac.
“It was a fun way to meet people,” she said. One of the guys in the group, Zach Johns, was hiking the Superior Hiking Trail over time, biting off chunks of the trail over the course of a year and he was looking for help with the logistics and shuttling. Johns had hiked the trail straight-thru 25 years earlier but was doing it in segments this time around. Wettering decided to join him on some hikes last fall and got hooked on the possibility of taking on the entire trail. She soon started logging her own miles towards trail completion.
The logistics of section-hiking can be complicated. Hikers can choose to park their car and hike out-and-back, or if they can find a buddy, can park cars at the opposite ends of their planned section and not have to double back, completing day hikes or longer overnights. Some will complete the trail in three or four week-long sections, but others will break it up into even smaller parts, to fit in with work and life commitments.
Johns lent Wettering his Superior Hiking Trail Guidebook, and she was off and running, or perhaps we should say hiking. The book details the trail section by section, including parking areas, campgrounds, water sources, and all the rest of the information needed by a serious hiker.
“When I started last Labor Day weekend with Zach,” she said, “I hadn’t planned on hiking the whole trail.” But soon the idea was there, and while she wasn’t going to complete the trail in a single calendar year, she did decide to try to complete the entire trail in a 12-month period.
She started out mostly with day hikes last fall and winter, car camping at state parks, and hitting different sections of the trail that were nearby. She often hiked alone, but grew to appreciate hiking with a group, with three friends often joining her on the trail this summer, which made the time and miles go by much faster.
Wettering said her pace varied, depending on whether or not she was carrying a backpack versus a daypack.
“We hiked pretty fast with days packs,” she said, “averaging 2.9 to 3 miles an hour.”
But with a fully loaded backpack weighing 25-30 pounds, it was closer to 2.5 miles an hour. How many miles per day depended on the terrain and weather. Twelve miles with loaded backpacks meant a long day.
“I recently met a through hiker (someone doing the trail all at once) who was doing 20 miles a day,” she said, which she felt was beyond her ability. But most of the hikers she met were either out for a day or two, or doing sections, like she was. Overall, she found the trail mostly empty, and said she never had a problem finding an empty campsite.
She hiked her final section of trail on Aug. 4, a little over 11 months from her hike last Labor Day weekend. It took 45 individual hikes that she recorded on a map, coloring in each section once it was completed.
“It was a lot of driving,” she admitted, “and also a lot of logistics figuring out each section.” But while working full-time at Minntac, doing the trail all at once, or in larger sections, was not going to work.
The accomplishment is even more impressive because Wettering injured her knee a few years ago and was told she needed knee replacement surgery.
“My doctor told me I shouldn’t be backpacking,” she said. “But my knee didn’t slow me down.”
She did work to lighten her backpack as much as possible, investing in an ultralight tent and backpacking stove, using dehydrated food out on the trail, limiting the clothes she carried, and not bringing her big camera. Wettering’s other hobby is nature photography, and she has a professional camera setup, but on the trail, she relies on her iPhone for photos.
Hiking was often challenging, especially this summer when early rains turned large portions of the trail into deep mud.
“They want you to hike through the mud,” she said, “and not widen out the trail.” The mud was not kind to her hiking boots. By the end of her trek, they were mostly worn out. Her daughter Sierra, who met her on the trail as she finished the final section, gave Wettering a gift certificate good for a new pair. Then Pam, Sierra, and Sierra’s fiancé Brett went and celebrated with a meal out in Grand Marais.
The mosquitos and flies this summer were also unpleasant. Wettering invested in a bug shirt with mosquito netting in the body and hood, which worked just fine but was hot to hike in and sometimes hard to see through.
One particularly hot day in late June left Wettering with heat exhaustion while alone on the trail.
“I kind of lost it,” she said. “I was hiking alone and started getting light-headed and was feeling disoriented.” She had hiked 38 miles the three days previous with friends, so was tired to start with. Though she was hiking alone, she was sharing her location with one of her hiking friends, who noticed her lack of progress and called to check on her. Wettering had stopped to rest on the trail, and her friend urged her to rest, drink, and eat, and she was able to complete the rest of the day’s hike since she was only a mile from her car.
Some days, she opted to start hiking very early, even before the sun was up, to beat the heat.
The trail itself is very well maintained, Wettering said, and it was never hard to stay on track. The trail is marked with blue blazes on trees, and wooden informational signs at spots with the trail intersects with roads or state park trails and paired with the detailed trail information in the guidebook, meant she never felt lost.
Her favorite sections were the ones with waterfalls. Wettering has traveled widely to photograph waterfalls, and loved stopping on the trail to take time to get good shots, often to the dismay of hiking partners who wanted to keep moving. Her least favorite part of the trail was a section that goes right along the shore of Lake Superior, which was rough and rocky to hike across. And while she enjoyed the southern parts of the trail’s scenery, the overlooks in the north, such as on Oberg Mountain (a very popular fall day hike) were spectacular.
Cell service is available on most trail sections, but not others, so Wettering used a Garmin device that let her send texts, as well as let others track her location. She purchased the Garmin a few years ago, after a huge storm blew through while she was on a solo backpacking trip on the Kekakabic Trail in the Boundary Waters, where there is no cell service. She finished the hike, safe and sound, but found dozens of messages from her daughter who had been quite worried. The Garmin solved that problem.
Other than that, she has no issues with hiking and backpacking on her own, though she admits sometimes it can get boring.
“I’ve never run into anyone scary,” she said, and the scariest wildlife encounters have also been pretty tame. She always hoped to see a moose, but never has. She hasn’t had any issues with bears while camping, either. This summer, while hiking with some other members of of the hiking club, they came across a young hawk that appeared to be injured.
“We picked it up and then put it back down, but it just flopped around,” she said. They waited for a while, but didn’t see any adult hawk in the area, and the hawk still wasn’t moving around. They put a call into the Minnesota Raptor Center and sent them a video of the hawk. They took turns carrying the hawk for 10 miles, meeting up with a volunteer who drove the hawk to the center. It turned out the bird was healthy, and shortly afterwards it was returned to the wild. In hindsight, she said, they should have left the hawk alone.
As for future hiking plans, she is planning some backpacking time on the Powwow Trail in the Boundary Waters this fall. She hopes to do the Border Route Trail next year, as well as the Angleworm Trail, which she has done previously, but some of her hiking friends have not. And further down the road, she has her sights on the Buffalo River Trail in northern Arkansas, which has plenty of waterfalls to photograph.
Learn more
The Superior Hiking Trail Association sells guidebooks, maps, and other items. Their website also keeps up-to-date information on trail conditions, closures, and other information for hikers such as shuttle services.
The Superior Hiking Trail Association publishes the official trail guidebook, databook, and trail maps. These critical trip planning tools are available for purchase on the association’s website or at the group’s trail information center in Two Harbors, and at selected retail locations, including outdoor gear shops and state park gift shops.
The association recently released the Trail Atlas of the Superior Hiking Trail, which is also available in a digital format on the Avenza Maps mobile app.
Trail stats
The Superior Hiking Trail is a 310-mile long hiking trail in northeastern Minnesota that follows the rocky ridges overlooking Lake Superior for most of its length. The trail travels through forests of birch, aspen, pine, fir, and cedar. The elevation gain is where the challenge lies: the trail fluctuates between 602 and 1,829 feet and climbs a total of 37,821 feet over the course of the 269-mile section. Downhills are just as frequent, so the net gain is actually only 449 feet. 
Thru-hikers: Most hikers take 2-4 weeks to complete the entire trail in one trip, although most hikers break it up into sections.