Superior Hiking Trail End of Section One

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Mix of roads, dirt roads, sidewalks, parks, urban and nature. 

Section as it appears SHT 

It was only 35 degrees Fahrenheit, so we kept this hike short. It felt good to finally finish Section 1. Not that long ago, we would not have even been on the Superior Hiking Trail yet, it was just another short section of trail somewhere in the Duluth area. Now, some of these hikes between here and the beginning of the trail are my favorites. 

We used Uber this time. Parking our car at the Hartley Nature Center and using it to get to the Martin Road Trailhead. This did not work out ideally. Google maps takes you to the wrong side of Woodland Ave. and Uber drivers use Google maps. We wandered around this busy road for a few minutes. After checking two trail apps and finally the SHT trail sections website, we figured out we needed

to be east of Woodland, not west. If I had used the Duluth trails map I would have figured this out immediately. That map has been great, but we've reached it's eastern edge with this hike. 

From Martin Road, the sign for the parking lot for the trailhead read “C.J. Ramstad North Shore Trail”. This is also used by snowmobilers but luckily it was a little too early for that. It splits after a few hundred feet and the snowmobilers go one way foot travel the other. The scenery improves too. You follow Amity Creek, a steep gorge and after a mile and half you come to a dirt road at Downer Park. It’s road hiking from there on out, but the park provides nice scenery. Then you go through Forest Hills Cemetery, which is also somewhat scenic.

Navigation is easy on roads with no houses and no turns. In residential areas we saw blue markers on telephone polls. When you get to the residential areas, homes are wooded lots so it's an enjoyable walk.  Near the end of this stretch, you will come back to Woodland Ave, and which is a wide multilane road. Plenty of sidewalk though, so no problem. It’s a short hike up to Hartley Nature Center. 

Sometimes nature isn't so pretty. We came around a bend and apparently we interrupted an owl in the middle of mealtime.