This was my second attempt this year after a failed attempt in May due to an ankle injury. On the first day, we had strong storms with 50+ mph winds that resulted in poor trail conditions including flooding, and lots of blown down trees blocking the trail. The water levels due to the recent storms made it unsafe to do a wet river crossing at Split Rock River, so instead I followed the official reroute posted on the SHTA website using the spur trails on both sides of the river. The storms also resulted in the City of Duluth and the SHTA officially closing all natural surface trails within city limits. The SHT goes directly through the city on both natural and paved surfaces. There was no official reroute provided by the SHTA, so we created our own. Our reroute followed the SHT on the paved sections and bypassed the closed natural surface sections using roads that closely paralleled the SHT. As soon as I left city limits I reconnected with the trail.
Day 1:
Started at 5:59 am from 270 overlook to Lindskog Rd 9:15 pm (47 miles).
Day 2:
Started at 6:58 am from Lindskog Rd to Sawbill 12:00 am (50 miles).
Day 3:
Started at 3:52 am from Sawbill to Finland 7:48 pm (40 miles).
Started again at 10:58 pm...
Day 4:
Continued to Split Rock 7:10 pm (42 miles).
Started again at 11:30 pm.
Day 5:
Continued to Demonstration Forest 9:15 pm (41 miles).
Started again at 11:00 pm.
Day 6:
Continued to Rossini Road 1:55 am (5 miles).
Started again at 4:21 am...
Day 7:
Continued to Rose Garden 2:37 am (25 miles).
Started again at 3:50 am, continued to Southern Terminus 6:31 pm (38 miles).
Note: Alex's run was tracked on our website, with updates given here: https://fastestknowntime.com/attempt/alex-elizabeth-superior-hiking-trail-mn-0