Our Stories

Laurentian Lakes Chapter’s “Boundary Waters-esque” trail clearing trip in Itasca State Park, MN

Posted on July 23, 2010 by Kate Lemon

On July 2^nd, Ray Vlasak (Laurentian Lakes Ch. president) received a report from NCT hiker Gabe Tweten that there was a bunch of trees down in the vicinity of DeSoto Lake within Itasca State Park. Here is what Gabe had to say…

“I’m not sure if park staff or the trail association maintain the trail within the park, but west of Hernando DeSoto Lake a tornado must have went through a couple of weeks ago and there are hundreds of trees down across the trail. I also let park staff know.”

On July 15^th, Ray and Gary Narum made an inspection/maintenance trip and found that the report was accurate and cleared some of the trees in from the Gartner Farm trailhead. They realized the scope of the problem and soon after enlisted the assistance of the Park staff.

On July 21^st, a workday was scheduled and I joined four Laurentian Lakes chapter members (Chuck Church, Gary Narum, Ray Vlasak, and Arvan Matheny) and two State Park employees (LeRoy (Buddy) Merschman and Ross Thompson). Since this is the trail section that my wife and I have adopted, I felt compelled to assist the Chapter folks and decided it would be fun to chronicle the adventure too.

Map showing location of Itasca Park blowdowns

Ray’s plan was to park at the newly-installed parking area off of St. Hwy 113, load the chainsaws and gear into two canoes, portage them in ¼ mile into DeSoto Lake, paddle across the lake to the portage trail between DeSoto and Morrison Lake, and then work in both directions. This route is one that Ray and Gary had done many times on fishing trips to DeSoto and Morrison Lakes.

Gary and I made a quick sweep heading east from the portage trail to the junction of the NCT and the Nicollet Trail and we luckily didn’t find any trees down across the trail. The others headed west and quickly found some trees to work on.

Additionally, two Itasca Park maintenance staff people drove a Gator from the Gartner Farm trailhead into Morrison Lake and worked heading east clearing trees with the goal of meeting up with our crew (heading west) by 10am.

Arvan and Gary loading the two canoes onto Ray's portage cart

The mosquitoes, deer flies, and horse flies were definitely making their presence known on our walk from the trailhead to the Lake.

Chuck, Gary, and Arvan unload the canoes from the portage cart at the put-in.

You can see all the chainsaw gear (4 chainsaws, gas, bar oil, chaps, helmets, First Aid kit, day packs) in the canoe on the left. Yes, that is a fishing pole in the canoe on the right. Hey, this is northern Minnesota after all!

Gary and Ray launching their canoe into DeSoto Lake. The Park campsite is located on the high bank on the far shore of the lake on the far right.

Taking the canoes out at the far side of DeSoto Lake at the portage trail (which intersects the NCT about ¼ mile west of the Park campsite on DeSoto Lake). The canoes were left at the portage trail during the work.

One of the first blowdowns was a big white pine at the west end of a switchback relocation completed during the Trail School held as part of the 2007 NCTA Annual Conference in Bemidji, MN.

Another large white pine across the trail being worked on by Ray and Chuck. Do you notice they’re wearing all the required PPE?

After the removal of the white pine the trail is again open!

Working on this large red pine took a while…

...because there were so many branches to cut and swamp. We couldn’t help but think about how hardy the early loggers were who cut trees like these using axes and crosscut saws all day, all winter long

Fortunately, it wasn’t a complete blowdown and future hikers will be able to enjoy the old-growth pines along the NCT.

Thanks to the LLC volunteers and the State Park employees for helping to make the NCT passable again through fabulous Itasca State Park.