During a 50-Mile hike this summer, I carried everything needed to camp including water
filters and all my food for the 5 day trek. Everything I needed for survival away from civilization was in my pack, including flint and steel, a compass, clothes, toiletries and a tent. The pack weighed over 60 pounds at the start.

“Did they give us too much food?” Mr. O asked. We were all surprised at the amount of food that we had to pack for the hike. From end to end, the table was covered with little blue bags containing everything from dehydrated ice cream to beef stroganoff to fire-roasted veggies. It was a huge amount of food and that was without the protein bars. Technically “Mega Meal Bars”, they were roughly 8 inches long, thick as my wrist, contained 28g of protein and did NOT leave peacefully. Chewing them was like sticking a brick in your mouth. The 5 hour drive to Grand Marais was a peaceful beginning to a long journey We began the trip with 10 sane human beings. Myself, my dad, Jakob and his dad, Carter and his dad, Austin and His dad, Mitchell and Brian. Brian has mild autism and packed for himself which was great up until the point that we discovered he had packed empty med bottles. This was right when he decided to show us how much he loved James Bond. We were subjected to questions such as: “Do you guys know that there have been 13 actors?” “Did you know that James Bond was originally a TV series?” “Did you know that this will be Daniel Craig’s 5th movie?” as well as an inexplicably looping version of the James Bond theme song. All I could think was “How many times has he seen the James Bond movies?” (There are 23 so far, which I learned during that trip). By the end of the first day we had hiked about eight miles to the dunes from Grand Marais. We pitched tents at the bottom of the dunes in the woods.

“Where’s the water?” Jakob asked.

“I think there’s water on the other side of the dunes,” Mr. Klokeid said. “But we’d have to hike at least a mile there and back to get it, and the way back would be carrying all the water.”

“I’ll do it,” I said. “I want to go down to the water anyways and get some pictures.”

I started packing up.

“I’ll go with you” Jake said, you’ll need someone to help carry all the water when we’re done. So we hiked up the side of the dune, one step counting for a half step, the dunes clutching at our bare feet with gritty hands. The funny thing about dunes and lakes, they look a lot closer than they appear. We hiked about a mile and a half until we finally reached the edge, a 200 foot drop to the water, a sheer 50 degrees.

“Yeah… I don’t think we’ll be able to get water tonight.” Jake said. Nevertheless, we hiked the edge for another hour looking for a path, some switchbacks or something so we didn’t go thirsty tonight.Disappointingly,  we had to return to camp defeated.

At the beginning of the trip we planned to hike 50 miles down the coast of Lake Superior however, we ended up hiking about 60 miles and getting sidetracked (lost) while looking for running water.

“So can anyone remind me why we hiked around two small lakes again?” Jake asked. Mitch responded;
“Well, your dad decided it was a great idea to go searching for toilet paper and the only bathroom in thirty miles, so that was part of it.” Near the start there were lots of small conversations like this one but by the third day, exhaustion caused us to talk less and less. The most arduous part was the beach. Some parts were covered in good size stones that made it easy to sprain an ankle while the others were just dunes of sand that were a nightmare to climb and a danger to descend while we were so top heavy. Although the trip was tough (the food even tougher, thank you, beef jerky) the trip was bearable because of the people I went with including my dad and two of my best friends, Jakob and Mitchell. By the end of it as I sat by the van that would take me home, I realized that even though the food was freeze dried and the weather was terrible, happiness doesn’t come from an activity or vacation, but from the people I chose to spend my time with. From that point on, I’ve surrounded myself with people I relate to or that I enjoy being with whenever possible. I’ve become more outgoing and friendly; this trip changed my life by showing me that without the people you love, life isn’t worth living.