Biking Near the Gunflint Lodge

I just spent 4 days (3 nights) at the Gunflint Lodge and we brought our Pugsley bikes.  Good fun all around!  Fun things, like the car the passed us on I35, then slowed way down, and passed again looking at us with big smiles (they must of done a double-take on the bikes)



We stopped at the Sheridan in Duluth on the way up, brought the bikes in the room for the night.  You get some good looks rolling these beasts around in a hotel.  Sunday morning I decided to take a short ride up Lake Ave - 1/2 mile that climbs 358 feet, average grade is 13% with sections near 20%  ...  all this on a fatbike!  Bonus, the doorman met me on the way back in to open the door.

Sunday night we got to the Gunflint Lodge and got on the water right away.  Here's a shot of the High Cliffs from the lake:


We did a lot of on-water fun, but I'll focus on the biking fun.  We did some biking, but never got too far from the Gunflint Lodge.  I did two rides with Lisa and two rides solo for a total of 14 miles - there are a lot more trails to ride and explore if I had more time up there.

If you are interested in riding up here, this is all fatbike trail conditions.  For biking, we rode mostly the cross-country ski trails, some gravel roads, and a little bit of snowmobile trail. The lodge has a winter trail map with the ski trail names.  They warned me that the brush would be tall, they will brush cut the ski trails in the fall, but this time of year it is really tall/thick.

Monday morning, we road out to the county road to the snowmobile trail (BAD trail for biking).  After walking up a step, rough snowmobile trail, we took some easy trails back to the lodge.  Including Big Pine, this is a good bike trail, well maintained, but it's the horse trail for the on-site trail rides (4x daily).  We wanted to avoid the horse trail to avoid spooking the horses.

After lunch, I went alone to recon a trail (Amperage).  It was good for about a mile, but got really wet and thick with brush, this is where I turned back:



Tuesday morning, we rode out to Rabbit Run trail on the other side of the Gunflint Trail, this was mostly good trails, one step climb to the Gunflint Trail - Here's Lisa at the Gunflint Trail sign:



 and more deep brush on the Rabbit Run trail:



Tuesday afternoon, I wanted to get to High Cliffs. That was a challenging ride, including walking a bog sections and some climbs over rough terrain at better than 25% grade. Here's a picture of the Pugsley at the High Cliffs over Gunflint Lake.



I will definitely bring the fatbikes up to Gunflint again!