Lutsen 2011

Living Social, Groupon and Crowd Cut are a wonderful things. I got a deal from Crowd Cut for two days at The Mountain Inn at Lutsen. It was a great deal, $125 for two nights with breakfast at Lutsen Lodge. We booked September 16 and 17^th. Too early for peak foliage color but early enough that we won’t freeze when hiking.

We weren’t sure where we were going to eat so I tried the Trip Advisor app on my iPhone. The number one restaurant for Duluth according to Trip Advisor is Scenic View Restaurant. It’s just north of Duluth on hwy 61.

There were very few open tables when we arrived late on a Friday afternoon which is usually a good sign. Karen had a pulled pork sandwich and I had a cheeseburger. I have to be honest, I don’t know why the restaurant is in the number one spot on Trip Advisor for Duluth. There wasn’t anything wrong with my cheeseburger but the best thing I can say about it is it was just ok.The cheeseburges I had at the Money Bar in Cozumel was much better. Karen’s pulled pork was incredibly bland. It should be a little spicy or at least taste like pork but it had almost no taste at all. To top it off the service was really slow. I am not sure if we ordered the wrong meals and got the wrong waitress but I doubt that we will be going there again. We got to the hotel about 3:30pm.

I was a little disappointed with the hotel. It looks like it could have been a Super 8. The rooms were nothing fancy. Our room had two queen beds, small refrigerator and a flat screen TV. It didn’t have a closet but there was a small shelf with hangers next to one of the beds.

Once we unpacked we went for a short hike on the Cascade river trail, then came back to the hotel to shower and get ready for dinner.

We saw a flier for a music festival in Grand Marais so we drove in for Dinner. We saw a tent setup when we got into town but we were hungry so we drove to the downtown area to find a restaurant. We walked past the Crooked Spoon so we decided to eat there. The food was great, we both liked our meals. On the drive back to the hotel after dinner I noticed a moose crossing sign and was relieved that we didn’t see a large shaggy beasts standing in the middle of the road.

We got up the following day and drove to Lutsen Lodge for breakfast. The Lodge is at the bottom of the hill from Lutsen Mountain Inn directly on Lake Superior. Both Karen and I had been to Lutsen Lodgebefore but it had been many years and we both remembered it as being larger, kind of like going back to your grade school. Breakfast was good, it was a buffet with all of the usual options; several types of eggs, bacon, sausage, fruit, cereal etc…

We drove north to Cascade River State Park again. It was a little early for peak colors but some trees had just started to turn. The forecast was for highs in the mid to low sixties and sunny. It was cool at the base of the trail near Lake Superior. Once we started our climb away from Lake Superior we started to warm up. By the time we had been hiking for half an hour I began to wish that I had worn shorts.

The trail followed alongside the river and eventually crossed over. The scenery was beautiful, this is why we came here to hike. The river has gouged a path through solid rock as it twisted and turned it way to Lake Superior. It also created multiple waterfalls, none of them large but still picturesque.

We took a trail to Lookout Mountain for a spectacular view of the area, nothing but trees as far as the eye could see. While we were there another couple came up the trail and stood for five minutes gazing out at the beauty. They did not say one work while they were there, it seemed to be almost a religious experience for them. I on the other hand took out my IPhone and checked for a signal.

After hiking the morning we drove to the Coho Cafe in Tofte for lunch. The food was good. I had a personal sized pizza. It was a little small and the prices were more in line with downtown Minneapolis rather than the north shore.

We continued south after lunch and drove to the Temperance River. The river emptied into a small bay. We followed the trail alongside the river as it wound up the hill away from the lake. There were several overlooks perched on sheer cliffs. We did see several backpackers with tents and sleeping bags on their back coming down the trail. I assumed that they had been camping at one of the sites further up the river.

One of my favorite areas along the river is the site of a large prehistoric waterfall. You can see from the way the rocks are worn where the waterfalls use to be and where the base of the waterfalls was. As we hiked back we noticed the cloud cover was moving in, not a good sign for hiking on Sunday.

We decided to take the twenty mile drive into Grand Marais for dinner. We had discovered that the music festival was not free and it was sold out so that wasn’t an option. The Gun Flint Tavern was busy and had a band starting later that night so we ate there. The food wasn’t nearly as good as the Crooked Spoon and the band was from Minneapolis, we had never heard of them. There was a reason for that, they did not look old enough to be in a bar, they seriously looked like they were eighteen, maybe nineteen at the most. They played a mixture of reggae and ska. Their equipment was beat up but they were not bad. We again managed the trip back to Lutsen in the dark without hitting a moose but I did see two deer standing on the edge of the road.

We awoke to rain on Sunday so we packed up and drove to Lutsen Lodge for our breakfast and then back home. On the drive back we noticed bike trails that followed highway 61 for long stretches. This made us think we might be able to come up earlier in the summer next year and do some biking and maybe even some kayaking.