Eagle Mountain is the highest natural point in Minnesota, at 2,301 feet (701 m). It is located in northern Cook County and is in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Superior National Forest in the Misquah Hills, northwest of the community of Grand Marais. It is a Minnesota State Historic Site.
Eagle Mountain is only about 15 miles (24 km) from Minnesota's lowest elevation, Lake Superior, at 607 feet (185 m). It is part of the Canadian Shield. Confusingly, there is another, much shorter, peak named Eagle Mountain in northern Minnesota. The shorter peak is part of the Lutsen Mountains ski resort.
The hike to the summit can be made in about two and a half hours. The distance to the peak is about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) with an elevation gain of 550 feet (168 m). The trail is rocky and moderately strenuous. Whale Lake is located about halfway along the trail and offers two campsites to hikers. The peak of the mountain is marked with a plaque. As the peak is located in a national wilderness area, a permit is required. Self-issued permits are available at any Superior National Forest ranger station or at the trailhead.
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View from near the top of Eagle Mountain.
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The rugged Eagle Mountain Trail at its junction with the trail to Brule Lake.
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April hike to Eagle Mountain
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Plaque marking the peak of Eagle Mountain
Famous quotes containing the words eagle and/or mountain:
“O thou undaunted daughter of desires!
By all thy dower of lights and fires;
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;
By all thy lives and deaths of love;
By thy large draughts of intellectual day,
And by thy thirsts of love more large then they;
By all thy brim-fill’d Bowls of fierce desire,
By thy last Morning’s draught of liquid fire;
By the full kingdom of that final kiss
That seiz’d thy parting Soul, and seal’d thee his;”
—Richard Crashaw (1613?–1649)
“If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale revelation of the barroom and the police court. The same ear is fitted to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)