From the Overlook: A Look Back on 40 Years

Updated January 26, 2026

“Superior Hiking Trail 40th Anniversary Logo” by Kris Kiel.

This year the Superior Hiking Trail turns 40. We are celebrating by looking back at the events of the past forty years that brought us to today. The stories below trace the Trail’s journey from a bold idea to the current 300-mile footpath that winds along the rocky ridgeline of the North Shore. These reminiscences and retrospectives detail how the Trail is truly more than a path, it a living link between people, place, and purpose.

1986: The Big Idea

Volunteers promote the Superior Hiking Trail at Winterfest in 1988.

In 1986, Leland Scharr (Lee), Superior National Forest Tofte District Ranger, prepared a student project to fulfill the professional development requirement for the Outdoor Recreation Management program at Clemson University. This project would study the demand for a hiking trail, determine capacity of northeastern Minnesota to provide access, identify use projections, estimate the cost of construction, and gage local interest and support for the project. This document became the guiding framework for what we now know as the Superior Hiking Trail.

At the time Lee was writing his paper, the concept of a long distance hiking trail along the North Shore was already developed and parts were even being built. The trail was included in the 1979 Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan (SCORP) as well as a 1973 Forest Service trail plan for the Tofte Ranger District. Like many great ideas, there is no one originator for the Trail. It was a collective development by many thought partners. However, Scharr’s feasibility study gave teeth to these concepts and built agency amongst local land managers, resort and business owners, and community members.

In a July 2012 letter from Lee, he reflects on on the beginning of the Superior Hiking Trail Association, “In January 1986 (the day the Challenger space shuttle exploded) we had our first meeting with local resorters and interested people to see if there was support needed to go after funding based on the demand data I found for the feasibility study.”

With a strong partnership and shared vision between the Superior National Forest and the Minnesota DNR, alongside the communities and business owners of the North Shore, the Superior Hiking Trail Association was created.