Oaken Gearbox

I recently spent a night at Wild River State park with my brother and my two year old son. I found it to be an enjoyable park to visit, although I still prefer Afton for a quick get-away close to the Twin Cities. Check out my Flickr page for a few photos of the campsites and trails. We opted to staying the backpacking sites, rather than the car camping park, so I'll speak only to those. Although they call them backpacking sites, they are treated more as car camping park; you pay and select your site at the office and they give you a tag to hang at a post in front of your site. That being said its only a couple mile walk, so changing sites would be a simple matter. The actual trails are cross country ski trails--mowed in the summer--that pass through new growth forest as well as prairie. Although winter camping is permitted, no hiking or snow shoing is allowed on the groomed trails, so you would have to ski in with your gear. The trails were full of short steep hills. I've be...

Day 0: The drive to Sawbill The trip up I-35 was largely uneventful, the highlight being a stop for lunch at Culver's. We arrived at Sawbill Lake in the late afternoon and set up at Site 18, a nice private site. Although it backed up to the lake, there wasn't a clear path down the steep bank. Site 18, Sawbill Lake After stopping by the well-stocked (and reasonably priced) camp store for some last minute supplies, we roasted hot-dogs over a small and smoky fire built with the green firewood sold for $5 a bundle at the same store. Green Firewood :( Before we'd even had time to break out the marshmallows a huge thunderstorm rolled in that lasted until just before dawn. Mom and Dad's  REI tent stayed bone dry, but the larger Eureka! that I shared with my brother and sister left us a little soggy by morning. Day 1: Sawbill to Hub Lake I was already awake when the sky started turning grey early on the morning of our first day, so I got up and began pa...