North Country Trail in Wisconsin: Returning to the Border

During a group hike in spring 2024, I covered a new section of the North Country Trail in Wrenshall. At the time I didn’t think much about how my essay series is about the trail “in Wisconsin,” yet almost all of that hike was in Minnesota.

A few years ago, the Wisconsin section of the North Country Trail was all in Wisconsin, because it hadn’t been built yet near the Minnesota state line. The Minnesota side of the trail ended in the woods at the border, and the only way to start the trail at the Wisconsin side was to hike various highways to get to the parts of the trail that had been built.

Now that an official border route through the woods exists, however, the trail enters Wisconsin and runs for about a mile, slants over into Minnesota for about two miles, then swings back into Wisconsin.

There was a small part of that new section in Wrenshall I didn’t see on that group hike, because there was snow on the ground, groups move slower than individuals, and the rest of the group didn’t share my quest to cover every single bit of the trail. So I went back in the fall.

Hiking the half-mile gap I hadn’t covered required repeating the two-mile section from the spring. That was fine, of course, because hiking is fun and it also allowed me to see the trail in fall, without snowcover.

So my hike began at the Stateline Trailhead on County Road 4 in Minnesota, the stretch that offers the last miles of Gopher State wilderness for eastbound hikers.

The Clear Creek Campsite is the spot on the trail that signals to hikers they are now in Wisconsin for real.

Keep hiking east and the next state is Michigan; no more Minnesota. My quest that day, however, was just to get to the railroad tracks, which mark the end of the new trail and divide it from parts I’ve already hiked.

When I got there I opted to follow the tracks to East County Road C and turn my hike into a loop instead of turning around and backtracking to the parking lot. What I didn’t know is that there was road construction to contend with.

At first it didn’t look like I’d have any issues walking through the construction area, but of course the farther I went the more obstacles I encountered.

All of it was passable, really, except for a giant drainage pipe I found myself standing on top of with no safe way to descend.

So I had to cut through the woods back over to the tracks, just in time for a noisy train to roll though.

Eventually I made it back to County Road 4, where I noticed a sign for the new border route.

The border route, it turns out, wasn’t that “new.” As near as I can tell it was built in 2019 and I didn’t find out until 2024. Which meant I had even more backtracking to do. I was seven years into my quest to hike the North Country Trail in Wisconsin, and I needed to go back to mile one.

So three weeks later I found myself again at County Road 4 in Wrenshall, hiking into Wisconsin in the other direction.

Plaques on the bridges of this section of trail indeed give the year 2019 for the “Wisconsin Roving Trail Crew Project.”

It’s a mere one mile to the border, but the two miles there-and-back can be extended by continuing the hike into Minnesota as far as desired.

Ultimately, on three hikes bouncing back and forth across the border in 2024, I put a little more than 10 miles on my boots, covering about three-and-a-half miles of new trail, but technically adding zero miles to my quest to hike through Wisconsin, since I had already covered the area by highway in 2019.

And there will be more backtracking for me in the future. A large parcel of land along the Black River near Pattison State Park was recently acquired by the National Park Service and opens up the area for more North Country Trail connections in places that have road walks now.

At my current pace it might take 23 years to hike across Wisconsin. As the slowest endurance-sport athlete in the world, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 
North Country Trail in Wisconsin Index
Part 1: Wood Tick Flats
Part 2: Nemadji River Valley
Part 3: Crossing the Border
Part 4: Town of Summit
Part 5: Green Undies in Gordon
Part 6: Backtracking
Part 7: Returning to the Border