The Kekekabic

The Blissful Hiker learns that not knowing what comes next in our lives can be difficult to handle and nearly intolerable. The power is in choosing between accepting limited circumstances with grace.

In this episode: 

1. Blissful learns her arthritis has progressed the point where she'll need to have both hips replaced, but that doesn't stop her from hiking one more short thru-hike at peak autumn colors.
2. The Kekekabic is part of the North Country Trail and is the most remote and rugged trails in Minnesota running through boreal forest and the Boundary Waters. 
3. She takes two big falls, not hurting herself, but realizing her body is breaking down and gets "kekked" (lost) accidentally walking down two portages instead of on the main trail.  
4. Rain comes and goes the entire way, but crossing the incredible architecture of beaver dams, and witnessing a stunning moonrise make up for it.

MUSIC: Introduccion y allegro by Carlos Guastavino as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano
available on iTunes

Transcript

What strikes me at first – especially at this time of year in peak fall colors – is how quiet it is. Quiet except for the wind that sets the Aspen leaves quaking, a deep gold against the soft blue sky, gray clouds hanging near the summits, a mosaic of yellow and dark green. 

I work my way between a series of lakes – Miner, Bingshik, Honker, Glee, Fay, Warclub – and I momentarily get lost, shooting confidently right down a portage that ends at the water’s edge then having to shoot right back up. When I return to the intersection and see the blue ribbons pointing the way, I realize everything looks the same, making it near impossible to tell which way to go even when I’m pretty sure it’s right. Fortunately I thought to pack a compass and compasses don’t lie, assuring me I’m heading west again. 

Established in the 1930s as a route to a fire tower, the Kekekabic Trail – or the “Kek” – is a 41-mile portion of the North Country Trail and runs through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a unique environment of thousands upon thousands of glacier-created lakes deep in the boreal forest.

With the start and end on the Gunflint Trail near Grand Marais and off Fernberg Road, near Ely, I put off walking the Kek for years because it’s incredibly inconvenient to get to. Around five hours from my home in Saint Paul, then about a 4 ½ hours drive between trailheads. 

Because it’s part of the BW, you need a permit to hike in this wilderness of moose, wolf, bear and beaver habitat and it’s notoriously difficult to follow mostly because its remoteness makes it's difficult to maintain. After the Keks heyday in the ‘70s, the trail fell into disrepair until volunteers established a club twenty years later. But severe blowdowns as recent as 2016 with 100 mph straight-line winds took down millions of trees and left the trail a jumble of impassible limbs. Only last year was the trail cleared end to end and I feel pretty confident I can manage it – though I’ve got some other issues to manage that could make this short thru-hike a difficult one.

Richard and I drove up to Grand Marais on the North Shore of Lake Superior in bumper-to-bumper leaf peeping traffic only made more annoying by a heavy downpour. But this morning, it’s clear skies, the fall colors so intense, the air seems to glow. 

The western third of the Kek was burned to the ground by the Ham Lake Fire and opportunistic herbaceous plants regenerating the undulating landscape include Aspen, bright yellow now and a bit of Maple in such a deep red, it could almost be called purple. Richard walks me in a few miles before we kiss goodbye, turn around and walk in opposite directions. 

It’s always unsettling to turn my back and move away into the unknown. What awaits me ahead? Fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin writes “The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.” Of course, I have a rough idea of what I’ll encounter in these four days – and even have a rough plan of distances, best camp spots, the weather. 

What I don’t know is how I’ll manage. Earlier this week, I learned that my right hip joint is worn down to the nubs – and the left is not far behind. I got a cortisone shot but that’s only going to buy me time. I’m going to have to get them both replaced – soon.

I’m moving well even if my gait is wobbly and I rely on my sticks to stay upright as I negotiate rocky and uneven surface. Osteoarthritis runs in my genes and I knew this day would come, just not quite this soon. That’s the reason I requested a leave of absence from my job two years ago to walk my first long distance thru-hike, the Te Araroa in New Zealand. I count myself incredibly lucky that I managed not just one, but two thru-hikes pain free. 

Well, I guess I’ll be known as the blissful bionic hiker and I pop in a few more ibuprofen before I waddle along, flushing two ruffed grouse, who flap their wings in a spastic panic that lifts their bodies just enough to clear one side of the trail to the other.

I pass open mine pits from the nineteenth century, fences in place to keep people from slipping in. At aptly named Mine Lake, trail crews cut a steep detour straight up, then straight down to avoid a notoriously wet section. A yellow bellied flycatcher comes closer when I call, “psh-psh-psh-psh,” but he makes no sound back to me as the wind shakes the limb he perches on, leaves falling like gilt snow.  

I soon enter the Boundary Waters Wilderness, stopping for a drink at the stunning campsite on Bingshik Lake with views on three sides. 

Seven hikers come my way, with big smiles and even bigger pruning loppers. It’s the trail crew! I gush with gratitude for the work they do as I coax them into a photo looking fierce with their tools. “I didn’t realize we were celebrities!” one comments. Indeed you are. 

I come to a section of moss-covered rocks in sun dappled light, massive erratics isolated right where they were dropped by ice sheets thousands of years ago. Views lead to waves of golden aspen surrounding chains of azure lakes and a banditry of black-capped chickadees, whirring as they flit from tree to tree.

I’m on a ridge, but out of views for a moment and I suddenly have a hankering for a handful of mango I dehydrated before leaving. Just like on all my hikes, I keep walking as I shove my sticks under my left armpit and reach into my right pocket, when my foot grabs a stump hidden beneath the grass. 

It’s true that accidents often seem to go in slow motion. I try valiantly to right myself but instead I flail about landing with a thud on my shoulder followed by a kind of afterthought of a face-plant.

That was not pretty, and I do find it humorous that my first instinct is to look behind me to see if I had an audience. Brushing off bits of dried grass stuck to my blouse I realize I am not the same person I was on the Te Araroa or PCT. I’m not hurt, this time. 

A squall fogs my view as I gingerly cross a beaver dam of stacked logs, their teeth sharpened points cemented together with mud. Then I work my way to Agamok Bridge spanning a cataract cut through ancient magma. The campsite here has two verandas on opposite lakes and it’s deserted.  

The air is chilly as a gibbous moon peeks out from behind a cloud. As if it wasn’t enough to give this thru-hike a try on worn out hips, I experiment with cold-soak meals, dispensing entirely with my stove. Talk about not knowing precisely what comes next, I take my first bite of a noodle recipe rom a company I’m reviewing. 

And friends, nothing ever tasted so good. 

Rain, rain, rain, All night long. The trail leaves the lakes behind and heads directly into forest, dark, wet and slippery, the rocky path hard to negotiate. But now my sticks are firmly in hand and stab bright red maple leaves, stacking them like an old- fashioned receipt spindle.

The brush acts as a carwash and I sweat under my jacket, out of breath on a steep undulating track. I’m supposed to come to a view, but every time I ascend to what looks like a clearing, I go right back down again. The trail is obvious, but it’s hard walking and starting to look, as my friend Neil in Christchurch would say, “samey.” 

I unwisely put my foot directly on a root and wipe out fast like I’m wearing roller skates, my face up close and personal with a moist slab of leaves. It’s undignified but I kind of love the pungent spiciness mixed with a thick but fleeting balsam that seems to portend life rather than decay.

Ahead is a pond with a giant beaver house, so old, half of it is sporting grass and I cross his dam as it begins to rain. I’m warm heading up steeply now though it’s hard to know how far I go before I need to turn southwest. Judging from my map, it’s up, down then up again. But the trail is not as clean as topographical lines and after an hour – even on this ankle twisting, Blissful tripping terrain – I’m fairly certain I’ve walked the two miles to the junction. 

But I never see it and begin heading steeply down. A bit of view to a massive lake opens to my left, and then to an even bigger lake to my right. Wait a minute, this trail is heading down to that lake – and the two lakes are actually one and the same. 

A flurry of F-bombs fly from my mouth as I head back up, but even crippled, I’m naturally gifted at up. You wipe out less often. 

I come upon a few blue ribbons I hadn’t noticed before, so I guess I’m back on trail. But why am I not seeing a junction? This is a job for the compass to sort out. In the gloom everything is samey – I could be walking right back where I started, like a scene from Groundhog Day.

I set the dial to north, then spin the baseplate so my direction of travel is heading southwest and hold it up to the map. Yup, this is the right way. But I ask again speaking to absolutely no one in this thick boreal forest, how in God’s green earth did I miss the intersection, not just coming, but going?!

The answer to that question is never forthcoming, and maybe it doesn’t matter. I pass a tree completely overtaken by white fungus. There’s no way I would have passed this without stopping for a picture. In a few more minutes and I come to a blue triangle nailed to a tree reading, “Kek” with arrows pointing east and west. Nice, guys, but I really could have used that sign back a few yards, 

My path is overtaken with massive ferns, dried tan and crumbling.  A few white pines survived the Cavity Lake fire, which must have burned hot, leaving several towering sentinels, blackened and solitary. But the fire opened the view of sprawling blue lakes below cliffs of gold, Aspen in showy yellow flutter like thousands of jazz hands. A woodpecker pounds into one of the towering trunks. 

It rains all night at Strup Lake petering out to a drizzle the following day on a long, mostly flat trail through woods. My hip protests less and I move along smoothly on a wet carpet of yellow, orange and red. I pass a beaver pond misty in the drizzle, black stumps reaching into the gloom. 

I cross a spectacular beaver dam of mud and humpy grass. I am exactly at the level of the water with a healthy drop to my right. I can’t see a house but I hear a huge warning splash. A vole peaks out of the sticks as I pass.

The trail heads on through alder turning yellowish-green and spruce in perfect Christmas-tree shapes. A man comes towards me. “James!” I yell. “Bliss!” It’s the young trail worker from two days ago now starting his journey.

He tells me about campsites ahead on a spur trail, ones not listed on canoeists’ maps. The sun comes out just as I reach the cutoff marked by a pink ribbon and I find an ideal spot with a rock veranda on Benezie Lake, mirroring puffy white clouds in its tranquil surface.

A few rain droplets fall disturbing the water in silent rings. I stay for the show until they pelt down harder in a ricochet of ‘plinks’ and ‘plunks’ causing me to dive into the alicoop. 

But it doesn’t last long and I return to Maxfield Parrish colors, the clouds seemingly lit from inside. To the south, an enormous thunderhead in the shape of a wise woman in a billowing blouse glows orangey-pink, jagged zigzags of lightning are followed by menacing thunder. 

I spy the first twinkle star of the night, though I’m pretty sure it’s orange brightness means it’s Mars. And just then, as if to cap off all I’ve seen, a gold orb sneaks out of hiding and I realize I’m facing east and don’t even need to turn my head to see the full moon rise.

The rain returns, so I crawl in for my final night on the Kek, knowing that even if I can’t see the moon just now, she’s always there. As is the sun which I wake up to, not exactly brilliant but keeping the rain at bay for now. It’s a short walk to the road over a beaver dam and steeply up to viewpoints of Snowbank Lake amidst a carpet of gold. 

About a mile or so from the end, I come around a bend and there’s Richard, followed by two of my best friends. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be met on the other side by such happy faces ready to let me tell them every last detail as we move quickly back to our cars, making it just in time before it begins raining again. 

Spiritual leader Marianne Williamson urges us that, “The key to abundance is meeting limited circumstances with unlimited thoughts.”

When I told my big brother Eric that I had to have two hip surgeries and was feeling pretty depressed about the whole thing, he promptly messaged back, “DON’T BE DEPRESSED!” in all caps. “Life is a stokeathon. It’s a bag of blessings.” I guess I should point here that out Eric is a surfer living in Southern California. 

Eric’s right. Not knowing what comes next can often feel intolerable and it’s hard to bring unlimited thoughts to limited circumstances. 

Hiking in rain, falling down (twice!) and getting kekked (also twice!) all while father time is knocking urgently at the door of my life, I possess power to choose whether I accept with grace what I encounter or kick and scream in protest. The challenge is to keep saying yes to whatever I can wring out of life in spite of its hardships and uncertainty. 

And now, off trail and full of good food and good conversation, the stokeathon bag of blessings enters my life as I take my sore body into the sauna.