Elaine and Charlie’s excellent Minnesota park adventure

Dynamic duo shares tales from a three-year journey to all 71 state park and recreation areas

On June 15, 2007, Parks & Trails Council of Minnesota Board Member Elaine Elnes and her husband Charlie Silverson completed a three-year quest to visit all 71 of Minnesota's state park and recreation areas as participants in the Minnesota State Park Passport Club. In the process, the two also broadened their understanding of the state park system. Below you will find Elaine's first-person account of the inspiration behind their adventure and what they discovered.Elaine Elnes

I never imagined that I would go one-half mile underground to view a mine, spend more than 45 minutes in a cave, travel by boat 18 miles into Lake of the Woods, pick off wood ticks without flinching, cross-country ski where there were wolf tracks or climb hundreds and hundreds of stairs just to go back down again. But this is exactly what my husband and I did by visiting Minnesota state parks.

The seeds for our adventure were essentially planted on Sept. 17, 2004, while we were taking part in the Parks & Trails Council of Minnesota's 50th Anniversary Celebration at Itasca State Park. On our way to this event we stopped for a picnic at Charles A. Lindbergh State Park, purchased a Minnesota State Park Passport Club Kit at the ranger station and took a hike.

By the end of that first weekend we had visited three state parks. During the next month we saw five more and suddenly had earned a loon patch. We were hooked.

As our involvement with the Parks & Trails Council of Minnesota grew, we knew that this could be our way of learning more about our parks and contributing to the organization. At each park we would make our first stop at the ranger station. We introduced ourselves as members of the Parks & Trails Council and were often startled by their enthusiastic responses.

One memorable example of this enthusiasm took place during our visit to Whitewater State Park on Nov. 20, 2005. After introducing ourselves, Park Ranger Jerry Bachman immediately herded us over to the large window in the visitor's center and pointed to a nearby ridge, saying that without the Parks & Trails Council's help the ridge would have been filled with condominiums. This was the Parks & Trails Council's mission in action - preserving valuable parkland in the state for future generations.

Charting our course
My husband, Charlie Silverson, would study the map of Minnesota, planning stops at state parks as he plotted trip to Montana, or Arizona, or Iowa or wherever we were headed. He designed trips to the Minnesota River Valley, the prairies of western Minnesota and the parks of northwestern Minnesota.

The parks along the North Shore of Lake Superior are very familiar to us because we spend quite a bit of time at our family cabin. We had missed a few, however, including Moose Lake State Park with its incredible agate collection (located less than one mile east of I-35) and Judge C.R. Magney State Park (on the North Shore), until a year ago.
Our travels took us from the far northeast corner of Minnesota at Grand Portage State Park, a stone's throw from Canada, to the southeast corner (Beaver Creek Valley State Park where we hiked along the clear watercress-filled river), to the southwest corner (Blue Mounds State Park, where the prickly pear and buffalo reside), to the northwest corner (Lake Bronson State Park). But, our biggest challenge of all was getting to Garden Island State Recreation Area (SRA), 18 miles into Lake of the Woods in Minnesota's northwest angle.

We accomplished our goal of visiting all 71 state parks and recreation areas during the second week of June after spending eight days on the road in the northwest and north central part of Minnesota with our friends Fred and Eleanor Winston. Together we walked the long beaches at Garden Island SRA, hiked the boardwalk at Big Bog SRA, saw the showy lady's slipper and the yellow lady's slipper at Lake Bronson State Park, picnicked and hiked at Old Mill State Park and toured the Hill Annex Mine in Calumet during a thunderstorm. What a finish!

The state parks offer a tremendous variety of activities. We mainly take short and long nature walks, study flowers, have picnics, snowshoe, cross-country ski, see the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) projects, talk with the park rangers and visit the interpretative centers. Our state parks are great because they have something for everyone - every season of the year, rain or shine, snow or no snow.