I’m – I don’t know – maybe a third of the way down the trail that leads from Meyers Beach to the Sea Caves at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, and I suspect I should turn back. After all, this is not a path designed for the handicapped.

The signs at the trailhead warned that it was about 2 miles of rugged terrain, but I entered with confidence that I was up for about anything short of mountain climbing. One doesn’t need mountains to fall off of, however, and I’ve now tumbled over exposed roots, into ravines with earthen steps retained by logs, and through both dry and soggy creek beds. My alpenstock remains my greatest friend, but is not always as reliable as it has been in the past.

The questions of an out-of-his element hiker follow a probably predictable pattern. The first couple I meet coming back down the trail, I greet with a friendly smile and a nod.

“Beautiful day.”

“Yes, quite.”

A quarter of an hour later, I ask the second pair I meet about how long the trail takes, and I’m told about an hour. Ten minutes and as many staggers later, I’m wondering whether there is a portable toilet somewhere along the trail (there is not), but ask the third couple only about the conditions ahead. The man, thin but still sweating heavily, looks grim.

“There are about a dozen ups and downs just ahead,” he says. “But the first one is the worst.”

Soon enough I realize he said that only because the first one ahead is the last one he had to cross on his struggle homeward. For me, going the other direction, the slopes just get crazier and crazier: More steps, more steepness, more stumbles. At one point I manage to fall in a manner that twists me completely around, so I’m looking back the way I’ve come. For a spiritual person, this would be a sign to go back, but I’m more densic than mystic, and I turn about and trudge onward.

The last couple I meet is older than I, two tanned and hardened souls, each of whom carries a tripod. I no longer care about the condition of the trail, which I have decided is beyond hope. I have only one question: “Is it worth it?”

The woman laughs knowingly.

“I wasn’t sure until I got there,” she said. “But then the ground just opens up like it’s the end of the earth, and it’s wonderful.”

Desperately in need of the earth’s end, or any ending, I pick up the pace a little (after darting into the undergrowth for a zipper break) and finally make it to the chasm and the caves below. The split in the earth is spectacular, thin and deep, but it’s no place for photography, which flattens everything out. I'm also afraid I'll get so occupied with my camera that I'll step off the edge. Better to sit and listen to the water sucking on the cliffs below.

The ground is soft with needles and dust, while Lake Superior chews away at the rock some 100 feet down. Soon enough I realize there is a pattern to it, though not clock-like. It’s more akin to restless breathing, as if the lake were a dreaming, fitful beast.  I’ve heard that it wakes up in a terrible mood.

My reverie lasts 3 minutes before a family stumbles into view and I know it’s time to go back. The trail is exactly as long and as difficult as it was on the way out, but there’s no doubtful anticipation at the end. Somehow that makes it go faster.