Sanne's first bikepacking trip

[Slim]

We found ourselves with a free weekend in mid November. We thought  of a MTB ride but realizing it was gun-deer hunting season we decided being out in the woods with a lot of guys with beer, guns and ATV's was not a very safe concept. Instead we opted for a road ride on the Gitchi-Gami state trail along the northshore of lake Superior in Minnesota, USA.


This was the first trip for my daughter Sanne(2). It was planned as a S24O: drive up to Gooseberry Falls State Park on Saturday afternoon, park there and ride to Split Rock State park to camp at one of the cart(/bike)-in campsites. Then on Sunday morning continue north to the trails end in Beaver Bay, hit the fabulous brunch buffet at the Northern Lights Roadhouse and then turn around and ride back south to Gooseberry.

When we got to Gooseberry it was raining steadily, we considered holding off for a day but then we'd miss out on the brunch buffet, not an option! So we went into the visitors center and pulled on all our rain gear, when we got to the trailhead though, it had stopped raining. We had a pleasant ride to Split Rock,with more and more clear patches appearing. Sanne enjoyed eating camp food and snuggling in the tent. I didn't dress her quite warm enough so later in the evening we took her into our sleeping bag and then she slept fine.

[Pivvay]

Cool! Pictures?

[sherpaxc]

I would love to see some pics as well as my wife and I are planning something like this in the future.  How long of a ride was it?

[Slim]

I would love to see some pics as well as my wife and I are planning something like this in the future.  How long of a ride was it?

Sorry, I wasn't done but wanted to post it so it wouldn't get lost if something happened to the computer.
We rode about an hour on Saturday, from 4 to 5. Then on Sunday we rode about 45 minutes to the restaurant, ate a big brunch and rode about 3 hours back.
The time depends a lot on how long your child likes to ride in the trailer. Now she is bigger she usually doesn't like to ride more than an hour, So we had planned to ride an hour or so on sunday afternoon, take play break, then ride another hour. But she fell asleep in the trailer so we just kep on riding, and in fact doubled back in order to stay out in the great weather a bit longer.

[Majcolo]

Nice pics, your daughter is too cute! I have great memories of northern MN, many canoe trips in the Boundary Waters and the Quetico and an MTB ride on some random trail off the Gunflint.

[bmike-vt]

is that a tout terrain trailer? how do you like it?
nice trip... can't wait to do this with the fam...

[Slim]

Yes, It's a Tout-Terrain trailer, the only offroad child trailer available, as far as I know. http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?p=3942620#poststopI love it. It lets me go MTBing with my wife or when I'm home with my daughter. This thread also has some other child transport options and talks about how long their child rides.

We rode about an hour on Saturday, and she slept most of the way. On Sunday morning we rode about 45 min to the restaurant, then after lunch she fell asleep so we rode about 3 hours. Usually if she doesn't fall asleep, about 1 hour is her limit these days.

I put a more detailed gear description in the  personal setups section.