Trip Report: Winter Camping at Tettegouche State Park
In March of 2021 as a family we went up to the North Shore Lake Superior here in Minnesota and did some winter camping at Tettegouche State Park at the Baptism River campground (the drive in campsites). At this point our kids were 3, 5, and 7 years old — we also brought our ~17yr old Blue Heeler “Hank”. At the time my only tent suited for winter camping was the Seek Outside 8P Tipi which is a nylon tipi style tent.
Saturday, March 27th 2021
We set out in the family minivan (a Honda Odyssey) and traveled up to the North Shore, we stopped off in Two Harbors at the Culvers (a mandatory stop when traveling with my kids).
We arrived at the campsite in the early afternoon and began setting up the tent. One of the challenges with a tipi style tent is that it depends on tension from the stakes and the center pole to hold up the tent. Driving in even the most robust stakes into frozen ground is tough, couple that with needing most if not all the stake-out points used to provide internal space and appropriate tension. While you can stake out with snow stakes and can bury the sod skirt in snow
This means that there is one single point of failure with the tipi style tent for collapsing (This happened to Bill Sherck of Minnesota Bound with a similar tent at the Winter Camping Symposium, admittedly after quite a bit of use and being in proximity to the stove pipe).
Arriving on Saturday, March 27th we setup the tent, we had reserved an electric site — for this trip we did not setup the woodstove as we had 4 military style cots and a dog kennel in the tent instead we brought a heating blanket and a electric space heater to keep the tent warm. The temperature during this trip bounced around between 28f and 40f, the space heater coupled with the single heating blanket (for Laura) and the cold weather military sleep systems kept all of us warm.
Once the tent was setup we also put down a heavy tarp and put down some yoga mats to insulate the floor.
For Dinner on Saturday night we had Mountain House freeze dried dinners and snacks.
Sunday, March 28th 2021
Sunday morning we woke up and the kid’s played around the campsite while I made the traditional dinner of hash browns, eggs, sausage, and cheese on the two burner Coleman stove at the picnic table (cooking in the tent wasn’t ideal with all of the stuff we had in there).
After breakfast we loaded up the car and hiked out to the Shovel Point at Tettegouche on the shore of Lake Superior. The hike was fairly easy (even with 3 young kids). We did leave our dog in the car while we hiked as the the car remained a comfortable temperature for our dog and it meant that he didn’t have to try to walk on the icy paths. I highly recommend doing this hike in the winter, and ideally on a clear day — the few times I have had the opportunity to do this hike in the winter it has always been nice, and for such a popular State Park it was pretty quiet in the morning under the clear blue sky.
We then hiked back up to our car and drove up to Grand Marais and had lunch at the Hungry Hippy Taco Restaurant. Grand Marias is about an hour up Highway61 from Tettegouche and the entire drive is scenic as it follows the shore of Lake Superior. After eating at Hungry Hippy we walked around on the shore of Lake Superior on the east side of town. The kids had fun looking at rocks along the shore and looking out at the lake.
I believe this was the trip where my youngest son Joshua chose a Grand Maraias patch with the harbor lighthouse on it and started calling that lighthosue “his lighthouse”.
We then visited some of the shops in Grand Marias and the Bally Blacksmith Shop’s yard (they have an old rusted out truck outside of the building). The kids chose a few fabric patches at one of the stores in town and then headed back toward Tettegouche. On the way back to Tettegouche we visited the Father Baraga’s Cross Historical Marker.
For dinner we reheated some of our taco leftovers and had some campfire treats (s’mores, pudgie pies, …).
Monday, March 29th 2021
For breakfast we had PopTarts and the kids played in the snow around the camp site with their miniature construction vehicles.
We then headed to the Cascade State Park, this state park is interesting as the action of the flowing water with more dense rocks have drilled circles into the bedrock that the river flows over. This hike is relatively easy for adults, with children in snow pants and jackets in the winter, it can be a bit more difficult. The very first part of this short hike is up some stairs carved out of rock, these were super icy in the shade and required climbing on hands and knees to get up. We walked along the Cascade River’s edge and took some photos and pointed out the interesting geology of this State Park.
After Cascade we went to Split Rock Lighthouse, after attending a homeschool co-op called “Lighthouse Educational Ministries” as a teenager which was littered with lighthouse pictures and memorabilia, I was not totally stoked on lighthouses as a teenager and young adult. The visit was really good though, we toured the museum (which has a LEGO model of the Lighthouse), watched the short video presentation on how\why Split Rock Lighthouse was established, and then walked up to and around the Lighthouse and the foghorn building. Split Rock had plenty of things for my kids to do and we probably spent about 3hours between the museum, the movie, the lighthouse, foghorn building, and the gift shop.
We then visited Gooseberry Falls which is on the way toward Two Harbors and hiked around the river there. Gooseberry Falls frozen up is an beautiful and all of the interesting trees holding onto the rocks. The kids really enjoyed this place also. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic the small interpretative center was not open, though the park was very busy between folks looking at the falls and folks skiing the cross country trails.
We returned to Tettegouche and had a campfire, dinner, and some treats.
Tuesday, March 30th 2021
We packed up Tuesday morning and headed toward Duluth. Every time my wife Laura passes through Duluth she wants to stop at the Fitger’s Brewhouse — they have great cheese curds, and some great choices for beer made onsite at their brewery.
