Skiumah, a quick respite from the world

If you spend too much time reading and writing the news nowadays you’ll end up with some mental issues if you don’t take a break.

Seems like it gets a little worse each day. I’m hoping something good comes from our current strife, but I have to admit, I’m not all that optimistic.

William Wordsworth wrote in 1802, “The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!”

Those words still ring true today with protests and a president eagerly stoking the fire.

We’re blessed to have so much respite in our backyards and at least a few times a week we try to take advantage of it.

Last week we went up Skiumah Creek. The trail ends at Skiumah Lake. When we hiked up there a few years ago, the trail actually petered out in a patch of brush before the lake.

Since then the trail has been extended another quarter mile or so, making the lake much easier to get to.

The lake itself is half-choked with downed trees and brush. Still, it offers nice views and there’s a lot of flowers along the way if you go this time of year.

The trail crosses into the Great Bear Wilderness a little more than halfway up. Once the snow melts, you could probably climb Mount Penrose above the lake without too much trouble, provided you don’t mind alders.

The trail is pretty much a straight-up affair, with 2,000 feet of elevation gain over 1.5 miles or so.

If you’re out of shape, it’s a good place to get into shape.

Skiumah Creek is a gorgeous little bugger. There’s a log bridge over it so you don’t have to worry about crossing in high water. I’m not sure if that bridge is new or not. It looks fairly new, and is quite robust.

On the way down you get nice views through the trees of Mount Stimson and Pinchot in Glacier National Park.

Skiumah, for what it’s worth, is the battle cry from the University of Minnesota that dates back to an 1880s canoe race, where the dumb members of the rugby team thought the Siuox they were racing were yelling Ski-u. The rugby players added the mah to make it rhyme with rah, at least that’s what the Wikipedia entry says.

We actually ran into some Minnesotans on the trail.

They were younger folks. I noticed a sign in the rear window of one of the rigs.

It read, “My name is George. I can’t breathe.”

Seems like they were trying to do a little escaping, too.

Chris Peterson is the editor of the Hungry Horse News.