“The absurdity of a life that may well end before one understands it does not relieve one of the duty (to that self which is inseparable from others) to live it through as bravely and as generously as possible.”

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard

The last time I backpacked the Superior Hiking Trail, I found myself rather done with it. I’d reached the point where I’d knocked out the entire trail between Gooseberry Falls and Judge Magney State Parks, save for a nondescript inland portion north and west of Grand Marais. Every campsite featured a crowd of tents, solitude elusive and prospective companions a complete roll of the dice. (The current leaders in the clubhouse are the crew of twelve on the Beaver River who brought their volleyball along.) I will always have a soft spot for the SHT and will revisit many of its high points again and again, but there are many trails to hike, and I have gotten most of what I needed out of the SHT, excepting perhaps a through-hike that will likely have to wait for retirement.

Retirement, you say? Along comes my dad, happily sailing forth in that era of life, and he has indeed set out to hike the norther half of the SHT this fall. I am pressed into shuttle duty, and on a weekend in late September help maneuver the logistics of a several-week expedition. We head for the far northern end off the Arrowhead Trail and stroll the short distance to the trail’s terminus at 270 Degree Overlook above the Pigeon River and the Canadian border. We have nailed peak fall colors here in the far northeast corner of Minnesota, and the weather this weekend, though grey and at times ominous, never unleashes the sort of rainfall that would bog down a hiker. The bugs are few and far between, though of course the lone mosquito at our site on the second night finds its way into my tent.

I am here as support. We perform a series of maneuvers, with me backtracking and moving my car to allow my dad to proceed with a lightened load through certain stretches on his steady march south. We plow through the forest between trail’s end and Andy Lake Road, its renaissance under way after logging some fifteen years ago. We push up Rosebush Ridge, host to the highest point on the entire SHT; the view is nondescript, but the maple forest in peak fall form is its own front-line attraction. Further south, the Hellacious Overlook, though much further inland than most SHT vistas, gazes down upon across beaver ponds and golden fall trees toward Lake Superior, and we squint at the lumpy blobs on the horizon, unsure if one of those clouds is Isle Royale. Even inland from its usual lake-lining ridges, the trail offers up its customary beauty.

These less traveled portions of the trail still feature a steady stream of people, and sometimes that companionship leaves something to be desired, as in the case of the young man who occupies the Hellacious Overlook to fly his drone, the name of these aerial intrusions never feeling more apt than it does when it intrudes on the final push up this mount. But for the most part, fellow SHT venturers are good company. Further along the dome at Hellacious we meet two Asian-Americans from the Twin Cities, out on their first hiking venture and gushing at the opportunity this new experience creates. At Andy Creek we share a campsite with Andy, a cousin of my seventh-grade science teacher; his frenetic pace up and down the trail matches his scattershot conversation and bear vault packing efforts. After a week on the trail said vault somehow still overflows with every backpacking food imaginable. At Caribou Pond we meet Ben and Hadey, a couple around my age on their first backcountry venture together, though both know a thing or two about the outdoors. They come to the rescue when my bourbon flask suffers an unfortunate incident and adds distinct new flavors to the contents of my bear vault.

Still, the SHT is wilder here than at points further south. In places the brush grows thick along the trail and the infrastructure could use some Biden bucks, with a profusion of tippy bridges and misaligned boardwalks. Less use means this stretch is spared the man-eating mud patches encountered at points further south, in spite of recent rains; aside from the obvious overlooks, my favorite stretch is a boardwalk-covered cedar swamp where I spend a good 20 minutes in contemplative silence as I await my dad’s arrival from the opposite direction. I realize how little time I’ve taken to do this lately.

The deep breaths beneath the cedars are a valuable reminder to maintain my pace on my own terms. This fall and winter will be a pause between an adventure-filled summer and a spring of 2024 that may put all previous travel to shame. I am that eager adventurer, yes, but I am also someone with defined Duluth winter cycles, a steady rhythm that can be my self-assured answer when life is more than a rattled-off list of the places I’ve been. Over these past few years I’ve achieved a new speed more in line with my ambitions, and yet I value this time to modulate, reined in and able to sit and read and write and think, and set a pace that matches the moment.

At Cariou Pond after the second night on the trail, I turn my dad loose. He heads south while I pick my way back across a beaver dam, back past a cloud-shrouded Hellacious Overlook to my car on Jackson Lake Road. The ride south on 61 is a slog through increasing traffic and fog, but any delay is inconsequential. This is what an autumn should look like: brilliant and yet portentous, darkness coming early but moderated by stark moonlight, a few final warm nights before the heavier sleeping bags come out.

Unlike me, my dad does not hike with pen and paper (or their digital analogues) with which to make sense of everything he sees; he simply brings a copy of The Snow Leopard, his guide on this and many other journeys. I have, through him, come to adore this little book as well. I could here unspool my thoughts on that bench in the cedar swamp into some greater personal meditation, but that might, I think, miss the lesson of the book. In the story of this weekend I am the supporting cast, grand plans on hold as a man sets off purposefully down a trail to the next phase of life. It is a role I am happy to play, and one all of us should from time to time, our authorship intact but bounded by our reality as social beings. My own next surge awaits. For now, my dad walks south, and I simply admire his freedom.