On top of Minnesota: 7 Summits in 3 Days

Someday soon my life is going to be a lot more structured with church duties and other life responsibilities, which makes it all the more important to enjoy the time I have now. Lately, I've taken that opportunity. The Superior Hiking Trail has its own version of the "7 Summits Challenge," boasting 7 summits of varying heights but all with spectacular views and worthwhile climbs.

The view from Carlton Peak

Minnesota is sometimes mocked by people who come from more mountainous terrain. For them, I was hiking the Sawtooth "Mountains" with emphasis on the quotation marks. I understand the sentiment. I've worked in Idaho and Oregon, hiked in both the Cascades and the Rockies. What we have in Minnesota looks nothing like Mt. Hood or Mt. Rainier. That much is a given. Nonetheless, Minnesota has some genuinely challenging  terrain in the arrowhead with the Superior Hiking Trail and Border Route Trails displaying that in spades. As I climbed up Moose Mountain this past week I thought to myself how baseless it is to call this a flat state. It's not. After this trip, I can prove it.

From Lookout Mountain

Three days on the trail, over 30 miles and 3500 vertical feet, brought me a new sense of achievement. This was, finally, a trip to see the best of the north shore. From Ely's Peak in Duluth, to Lookout Mountain in Cascade River State Park, to Pincushion Mountain in Grand Marais, to Oberg Mountain, to Moose Mountain, to Carlton Peak, to Mount Trudee I traversed the length of the north shore, driving mile after mile to find the next vista. My quick advice for anybody pondering a similar trip: do it. Just go.

Oberg Lake from Oberg Mt.

At every summit was a view worth savoring. There were miles and miles of trees in varying shades of green, yellow, orange and red. Entire ridge lines of vermillion from sugar maples in the early autumn. And always there was Lake Superior 1000 feet or so below, vast and crystal clear with the odd ship off in the distance. It was heaven.

The second day I was the second car to arrive in the Oberg Mountain parking lot. It was before 8 am and the sun wasn't showing above the peak. By the time I finished with Oberg and Moose it was nearly noon and I returned to see more than thirty cars and hikers of every shape and size milling about the lot. My first thought was "Dang! I want this to myself!" But then I realized how the whole shape of the trail is due to those who have gone before and had the wisdom to build and protect the wilderness that is a part of the Superior National Forest. Finally, I was glad that there were others who had the same desire as myself to climb a summit and to see creation from a whole new perspective.

Autumn on the SHT

I would sometimes go several hours without seeing another person even on some of the most well-traveled parts of the trails. I spooked something large on the third morning that was likely a bear; I guess this not so much for the noise it caused (even squirrels sound like a herd of elephants when you're alone on the trail) but for the tracks and matted brush I spotted soon thereafter. Nature was at its best. It was, in a word, wonderful.

The last day was the perfect cap: a 3.7 mile excursion through Tettegouche State Park to the top of Mt. Trudee. I planned it this way because it was the southernmost peak outside of Ely's in Duluth, so I was closest to home. The view was merely a bonus, but what a bonus it was! Trudee, Oberg and Carlton are on my short-list for most beautiful hikes I have ever experienced and each of them is do-able in 3-4 hours. Oberg, in fact, is much quicker (an hour if you want).

From Mt. Trudee, looking back over Tettegouche State Park

I offer this all because this is a place worth celebrating. It helped to go when the colors were just beginning to peak. A dry late summer means that the leaves are changing quickly, so get out and enjoy it. Take a walk, whether it's on the SHT or in your backyard. Not everybody has the free time I currently enjoy, but everybody has a moment or two to take a break and relax. The reward wasn't just in the completion of the challenge but in the experience itself. This was no ironman; it was tough but not overwhelming. It was mostly just fun. And if that's not what it's all about, it's at least a good start.

Curiosity: Parallel Universes and... Heaven?

Life has been very full lately. I got engaged, I'm in the process of getting a call to a church (which is, I can say, quite the process), and tomorrow I'm heading out to do the Superior Hiking Trail's version of the 7 Summits. When I get back I plan on doing a serious, blogging recap of the journey, but for now I have had a few different thoughts that seem important to get down if for no other reason than to keep myself in the practice.

A week or so ago I saw the new Discovery Channel series Curiosity for the first time. Basically, it's big questions put before experts in the field who then do their best to simplify and explain the issue and raise new questions in turn. I can't speak to all the episodess so far (I know they did one on Is there a God with Stephen Hawking that I haven't seen and, frankly, it's hard to want to, knowing how Discovery has treated this issue in the past). Nonetheless, the two episodes I have seen were both intriguing, the kind of programming I expect from Discovery (and not this American Chopper or ghost-busting bologna).

The episode that really caught my attention was one on parallel universes. It was stuff that I had heard before but presented in a fascinating way. One of the theories offered was that there are, in fact, two realities that run parallel to each other. These two universes balance out the cosmos. In this theory, the Big Bang wasn't the creation of matter but the splitting of the two universes--one up against the other.

This is intriguing enough from a scientific perspective, but if we take the audacious step of thinking about this theologically then we have a whole new can of worms. I've heard heaven described as just a blink away, always just there an instant ahead of us. I don't know if this is scriptural--I looked briefly and couldn't find it--so if you know where this came from please do clue me in. But regardless, there is something about this that really jives with an understanding of the world down here and a spiritual world beyond.

Maybe heaven isn't so much an instant ahead of us as it is directly alongside, parallel to us. After all, in the creation story of Genesis 1, God separates the waters above from the waters below to make the earth and sky. In fact, much of cosmic creation amounts to separating similar entities. Whether it's the water from the water (Gen 1:6) or the day from the night (1:14) creation is tantamount to separation. Similarly, the first distinction in the Bible is between two different entities: earth and heaven.

"In the beginning God created the earth and the heavens."

In the beginning there was balance in this created order. Mainline Christianity has long ago given up the physical locality of heaven insofar as it can be reached in this reality, but in its place the language for heaven has become spiritual rather than scientific. Curiosity got me thinking: what if this is it? What if our language about the kingdom of God boils down to another reality opposing and yet parallel to our own? What if heaven isn't just a breath away but imminently present, parallel to us?

Suddenly, the incarnation isn't so much a break in the boundaries of heaven and earth as much as it is a rupture in the fabric of the universe. Isn't that what the gospel writers are telling us with the skies (Mark 4:10) and curtain (Mark 15:38) being torn apart?

Maybe all of this is a stretch. Things are rarely so simple that they can be summed up in a 60-minute television program, and yet I wonder... And that is what curiosity should be about.