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| Hyland Lake Park Reserve & Mt. Gliboa, MN | |
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| | Hyland Lake Park Reserve & Mt. Gliboa, MN | | | |
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Hyland Lake Park Reserve & Mt. Gliboa, MN
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| Hiking | 10.56 Miles |
734 AEG |
| | Hiking | 10.56 Miles | 3 Hrs 35 Mns | | 3.52 mph |
| 734 ft AEG | 35 Mns Break | | | |
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none
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| no linked trail guides |
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| no partners | | Aside from trying to obey the one-way trail rule and dodging mobs of mountain bikers, I really enjoyed myself at the Elm Creek Park Reserve and decided to check out one of the many other parks featured on the website of the Three Rivers Park Distract (https://threerivers ... .org). I decided upon the Hyland Lake Park Reserve since it was conveniently located to a company function I was attending.
While Elm Creek Park was very beautiful, I enjoyed Hyland a lot more. Hyland was much prettier and had much more water [lakes], which included not only Hyland Lake but lakes from several other neighboring parks. And the system of trails was designed so that you could easily hop from one park/lake area to another if you wanted.
Like Elm Creek, Hyland had both paved and dirt trails; however, it also had trails that ran through grassy areas and even some trails with footing made of woodchips. From the looks of things, a ton of time and money when into these parks/trail systems, and I could not have asked for a better, more relaxing way to end the evening during biz travel than to spend a few hours in such beautiful places.
After arriving at Hyland, I glanced at a trail map, headed down to the lake for some better views, and then followed a route that eventually merged with the main trail that circles the lake. Eyeing Route Scout topo, [which actually showed a few of the many trails], I noticed that I was headed toward Mt. Gilboa! In such a flat state, finding any kind of mountain was a real treated. As the trail began to loop around the mountain, I noticed some fairly well-defined spur trails/unofficial routes that no doubt led to the top. After the many mountains I’ve summited, hours/miles of continuous bushwhacking, and various obstacles I’ve overcome hiking in the ‘wild west’, the little bushwhack up to Mt. Gilboa, [that couldn’t have been more than two tenths of a mile tops], suddenly seemed like an impossible feat. My body was ready to leap off the official trail and have some real fun, but fear paralyzed me from pursing the off-trail approach… the lush vegetation was eerily similar to that of the tick-infested vegetation in my home state of CT…
Years had passed since I’ve had a tick, and I almost felt as though I could override the fear if I tried to… I’m sure glad I didn’t! As I circled Mt. Gilboa, I encountered an actual trail leading to the top. It was much narrower than the super wide trail I’d been on, but a trail nonetheless. Although the ascent took all of 60 seconds and was under 1/10th of a mile if I had to estimate, I felt a little F’er [ photo ] crawling up my shin a few minutes after having reached the summit. Having lived in CT most of my life, I knew the feeling all too well; and sure enough when I laid eyes on the offender a second later, it was large tick.  In an unsuccessful attempt to avoid touching the tick with my fingers, I put a small rock in front of it, but it wanted nothing do with the rock. I then flicked it off but could not find where it landed, so I frantically took off my shoes/socks to shake them out in the event it landed inside. After that, I proceeded with an immediate, full body check – peeking down my shirt, running my hands through my hair, brushing at the part of my back that I could not see in the event there were more ticks, patting/brushing my clothes/body the whole nine yards…
…mind you, all of this is taking place on a wide, dirt/gravel road leading off the other side of Mt. Gilboa [which actually has skiing during the snowy months and in the warmer months is a poplar place for people to walk/workout]. From a distance, it probably looked as though I had Tourette’s Syndrome.
After the tick encounter, I was happy to stick to the paved trails and/or the super wide trail with woodchip footing for the remainder of my loop. On the way back, I had some time to briefly walk down the entrance to Bush Lake Park and then a go a short distance around Bush Lake before running out of daylight and returning to where I’d parked at Hyland Lake Park. |
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| God save the Prom Queen, cuz [reality check!] AEG's King...! |
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