Day 22: Plover River Segment (Part 1), Marathon County

Day 22: Sunday, October 27, 2013

Location: Northern Half of Plover River Segment, Marathon County, WI

Today was a glorious day for hiking.  We have missed many a glorious day this fall, but finally today we got out to stretch our legs along the trail, and we had a triple bonus.  First, we had our daughter Nicole join us today, along with her dog Joplin.  Second, it was her birthday (almost) we had a lovely picnic (more on that later).  Third, we were able to return to the part of the trail that we worked on back on August 3rd (see Non-hiking Day 1). 

So the occasion was our daughter’s birthday celebration.  She often walks her dog Joplin for long hours, and so it was only natural that we decided to celebrate her birthday by choosing a place fairly close to home and logging a few miles on the trail.  We decided on the northern half of the Plover River Segment, which is new trail cut in 2011 and 2013 by the Mobile Skills Crew.  We helped lop this part of the trail back in August, and we can truly appreciate the effort put forth by this rotating crew of volunteers and core team members.  The temperature was a sunny 45 degrees, the wind was slightly gusty, and the fall colors were a few rainstorms past prime.  There had been rain the previous week, but things had dried up nicely. 

We dropped a single bicycle off at the north end of the trail, on CTH HH, about a half-mile south of Bear Lake Road.  There really isn’t a place to park here, so it’s just as well we were using a bicycle.  Then we drove down to the parking area on Hwy 52 right near the Plover River.  The time was 12:15, and the four of us started north.  We got a short ways down the trail and ended up turning around and going back to the van to rearrange our equipment.  Then we started out again in earnest.  The first quarter mile of the trail must have been truly awful before they put in several hundred feet of elevated boardwalk to get through the rich, heavy muck that borders the Plover River.  There are actually two separate boardwalks, and I can’t imagine passing this area without them.  Toward the north end of these walkways we were walking past an area where there is an impossibly dense cedar grove on the left, storm-damaged and black with shadow, and on the right a similar grove that had been heavily pruned providing a far more open feel.  Actually, there is a small platform out there in the grove with two benches that may be the nicest sitting area we have yet seen on the trail. 

As we continued north, we were walking through a really nice oak and maple forest and the hiking was level, well-blazed, and easy.  With each of us strolling through a three-inch layer of dry leaves, I was rather amazed when Joplin spotted a deer and took off to get a closer look.  I would have thought we had scared every deer for a quarter mile, but they hold pretty close even with that amount of noise.  This was definitely  Class ‘B’ trail, leaning towards ‘A’.  There was not a single limb or tree down across the trail, and if it weren’t for the many, many rocks making the footing a little hazardous in the leaves it would have gotten the higher rating. 

We were delighted when we got a mile or so into the hike and reached the area where we had been pruning and trail building.  There was a lot of pride in seeing the effect we had in creating corridor that should last for many years.  There are no creek crossings on this section, and when we reached CTH HH we had covered a delightful 2.6 miles of trail.  Here is where I jumped on the single bicycle and rode back to the van (against a brisk wind the whole way) and returned to pick up my wife, daughter, and dog.  It was about 2:30, and the temperature remained very pleasant.

We drove south to the parking area on Highland Road across from Village Road, and carried our picnic supplies a short way down the trail and set up out of the wind.  We had a folding table, table cloth, three chairs, and a buffet of sandwiches, hot soup, pickles, deviled eggs, celery and cream cheese, chips, homemade caramel apples, and chocolate cake.  Beverages included Diet Pepsi, Coke, Root Beer, and Gatorade.  We even brought smoked pork bones for Joplin.  We were NOT going hungry.  We had a really pleasant picnic down there on the trail, and we laughed to ourselves thinking about how strange it would appear if any other hikers came along and saw us having a trail-side picnic complete with table and chairs.  After a while Nicole opened her presents (did I mention we had balloons, too?) and we packed up and got ready to tackle one more small section of trail. 

The parking area is actually about a tenth of a mile from the official trail down a blue-blazed connecting trail, and we quickly found our way heading north along the 0.8 miles of trail that was built in July of 2011 by the Mobile Skills Crew.  This was perhaps not their greatest achievement in trail-building, but knowing what they had to start with along this river I can forgive them the poor footing.  The first half of this trail meanders along the east side of the river, finally getting close enough to admire how crystal clear the water is.  Along this part of the trail, we passed two hikers going the opposite direction, and we laughed again at the picture we would have made had they walked past us having our picnic.  A little further we came upon a charming bench at the location where the trail crosses to the west side of the river across beautifully placed stepping stones.  Across the creek, we passed into a lovely hemlock glen with the characteristic soft-springy ground and park-like atmosphere.  An enjoyable tenth of a mile or so later the trail got ugly again, and we fought rocks and roots and hillocks until we reached a long log-walk taking us through another boggy area that would have been utterly unpleasant without it.  At the end of the log-walk we came upon STH 52, crossed over, and quickly got to the bicycle at the parking area. 

This time, the ride was only 0.8 miles, and there was a lot less wind.  I got back in the car, drove to the parking area where we loaded up, and happily headed home, a quartet of tired and happy puppies.  Running total: 208.2 miles of trail covered; 13.2 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking.  End of Day 22.

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Day 21: Newwood Segment (Part 1), Lincoln County

Day 21: Sunday, September 29, 2013

Location: Eastern Half of Newwood Segment, Lincoln County, WI

It feels like forever since we’ve been on the trail, and yet it’s only been two weeks.  Real life interjected itself into our relentless pursuit of the 1000-mile mark, and we needed to take a weekend and a half off.  But, when we awoke on this beautiful fall day, we simply couldn’t ignore the calling, and decided to go out for a short walk.  We decided on the Newwood Segment in Lincoln County for many reasons, and chose the eastern half to start with because it had better parking.  Truly, if you look at the maps, the western half of the Newwood Segment ends in a really odd place because you can’t get anywhere near it with a vehicle. 

Anyway – with no camping, and only a three-mile hike in the plan, we had very little preparation needed.  We just sort of loaded up and took off, although we still took both cars.  I dropped the van at the eastern trailhead on CTH E and then we drove to the very nice parking area on Conservation Road.  We started out by hiking north, decked out in our blaze orange gear, breathing in the cool beauty of autumn in Wisconsin.  Really – it was a stunning day.  The sky was as blue as I have ever seen it anywhere, including the desert, the ocean, or in planes.  With a foreground of brilliantly decorated maples, aspen, oaks, hickory, ironwood, ash, and a dozen other hardwood species, dotted with evergreen lushness, the scene was positively idyllic.  A day made for hiking.

The trail started out headed basically northeast, and it was in beautiful condition.  We walked for a long while on logging roads that had been carefully manicured and cleared of branches.  There were perfectly placed blazes along the way, and it was clear that whoever was tending the trail was working hard at it.  The terrain was fairly level, but hummocky.  Small bumps, like moguls on the ski hill, dotted the forest, and the trail did its best to weave its way through, over, and around them when not on the logging roads.  I would call it a Class ‘B’ trail, because everything was done as nicely as possible given the terrain – until we rounded the bend and headed back southeast.  We were walking along thinking how lovely a day it was, and how great the trail was.  Theresa even figured out the ‘troad’ thing from the Companion Guide.  I was trying to get something like ‘t-road’, as in ‘timber-road’, but I’m sure she nailed it when she said “Troad, as in a trail on a road”.  I don’t care what other people think, I like walking on troads through the woods.  I can spend more time looking around me instead of at my feet, and sometimes we can even walk side-by-side, which is nice.  Anyway, when we turned the corner (or thereabouts) the trail left the logging road and ventured off on what is described as ‘extensive reroutes’ that headed toward the New Wood River.  To be perfectly honest, the river was gorgeous, but once again I have to question the decision to place the trail exactly where it was.  There were places that were too steep (perhaps a 50% grade for 60 feet or so) and places that were severely angled to the side as it walked along the creek.  There was even one or two places where erosion had started because of the human and animal traffic.  I enjoyed seeing the river, but could only look when I stopped, because the footing along this area was hazardous.  If they had cut the trail five or ten feet further away from the river it could have been much more enjoyable, and might have gotten a better rating.  The mosquitoes were abundant and aggressive, as advertised, and I can’t imagine what it would be like going though this area when it’s been wet. 

There were several benches along the trail, but no bridges.  There were one or two places where a small bridge would have come in handy, but we were able to stay reasonably dry.  I cannot fairly call this piece of trail Degraded, because it had been very well maintained, considering.  Nonetheless, it barely rates a ‘C’, except for the view and the amount of care that has been put in to make it passable.  This area needs more work on the tread, a switchback or two, and one bridge (though it may be on private land).  Leaving the river, we finally jumped onto decent trail again, and walked the last half-mile or so in comfort along the old rail bed.  We left at 1:23 pm, and arrived at about 4:00 pm.  It was really too late to start another piece, so we just called it a day and headed home, but I’m glad we went, even for this short effort.  We ended right at the place where we finished our very first connecting route way back on July 21^st.  What a long way we’ve come, and not just in miles.  Running total: 204.8 miles of trail covered; 9.7 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking.  End of Day 21.

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Day 20: Connecting Route 1; Chippewa River Segment (Part 1), Chippewa County

Day 20: Sunday, September 15, 2013

Location: Connecting Route between Chippewa/Taylor County line and Chippewa River Segment, Chippewa County, WI

We woke up this morning to the sound of a boat being launched.  They didn’t bother us, we didn’t bother them.  It wasn’t actually raining, exactly, but it was still dripping a lot.  There could have been raindrops involved.  But it also looked like it was going to clear up, so we decided to stay and bike.  Theresa’s knee was feeling OK, so we had breakfast and made for the trail.  We dropped one vehicle off at the Bait Shop at the intersection of CTH F and CTH H.  Technically, this was still in Taylor County according to the highway signs, but in Chippewa County according to the Companion Guide.  Since we already had our happy dance the day before, we’re sticking with the Companion Guide. 

It’s worth mentioning that there is an error in the Atlas related to CTH H.  The Atlas shows it bending west near Brownville, but in truth it just keeps on going due south at that point.  The road labeled ‘H’ south of Brownville is actually 360^th Street.  The online maps have it right – no explanation how the Atlas got it so wrong.

To make a long story short, we biked our way 24.3 miles over the entirety of this connecting route, and found it to be mostly pleasant.  There is one place on 350^th Street, between 140^th and 145^th Ave where there is a vicious little farm dog that is to be avoided.  He’s a biter, and he can run faster than you can bike.  We actually avoided this monster by biking the alternate route of staying on CTH G south until we reached 130^th Ave which is actually an unmarked intersection, but it’s the first one that’s paved.  We avoided some serious up and down gravel hills on 145^th Ave, but more importantly we avoided the beast.   The rest of the route was relatively pleasant.  It was a cool day, and most of the roads were paved, and not too busy.  We reached the end of the connecting route somewhere around 6:30, which left just enough time for some last-minute hiking in Cornell.  Running total: 201.1 miles of trail covered; 9.7 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking. 

Location: Chippewa River Segment, between southern parking area on CTH CC and CTH Z (end of Segment), Chippewa County, WI

We had one vehicle sitting at the end of CTH Z uncomfortably close to the stop sign, but there was no ticket, so we left it there and went to the parking area just north on CTH CC.  The parking area was large, but the trail was a little overgrown, and the bridge leading out of the parking area had partially collapsed.  We tested it out, and it was apparent that people were still using it, so off we went at a pretty good clip.  Theresa’s knee had miraculously healed over the course of the day because of the biking (thank goodness, because it could just as easily have gotten worse), so there was nothing holding us back from completing this approximately 0.6 mile piece of the Segment.  As I mentioned, it was a little overgrown, but it was a pleasant enough trail around a small lake, with plenty of pretty views.  It was apparent that there had been quite a few trees and branches down along the trail, but someone had put in the hard work to clear it, so the going was easy.  I’d call this Class ‘B’ trail.  We got to the car in a jiffy, and closed out our day of hiking and biking, only to discover much later than we had taken the ‘closed’ portion of the trail.  Apparently there was a temporary reroute further to the north which we missed entirely.  It must have crossed the creek further inland and connected somewhere to the trail we hiked, but we were on yellow-blazed trail with good tread, so I’m counting this as complete, even if we didn’t take the new route.

The last thing we did was drive to Brunet Island State Park to assess the camping and the showers for future use.  This park is a real gem, and the showers are everything you could ask for, and included with the camping fee.  They do state that shower use is limited to registered campers only, but if you include camping, flush toilets and showers in the $16 fee, that’s a pretty good bargain overall.  Plus, the park was kept in excellent condition.  We will definitely be staying there on our next trip to the area.

Running total: 201.7 miles of trail covered; 9.7 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking.  End of Day 20.

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Day 19: Lake Eleven Segment (Part 2), Taylor County

Day 19: Saturday, September 14, 2013

Location: Lake Eleven Segment between Sawyer Ave and Hwy 64 (end of Segment), Taylor County, WI

Today is a day we have looked forward to with long anticipation.  A day we did not think we would see any time in 2013, and perhaps not ever.  Hiking this trail is a difficult challenge, and not one we were sure we would continue with.  Today, we would finish Taylor County. 

We have looked at all the counties in the guide book.  We have checked the maps in the Atlas.  With its 62.8 miles of hiking trail, and 84.9 miles of total mileage (not to mention the single-longest segment on the whole Ice Age Trail), Taylor County is king.  According to my calculations, we had only 7.9 miles of trail left in all of Taylor County, and it was the southern end of the Lake Eleven Segment.  By the end of the day, it would be behind us.

We weren’t able to drive out and camp on Friday night, because I had to call a square dance on Friday in Stevens Point.  So – Saturday morning we got up and quickly organized ourselves for a couple of days on the trail.  After dropping off our target vehicle at the STH 64 parking area, we got to our starting point on Forest Rd 558 at almost exactly 11:00.  There were several good places to park, and we chose one about 0.1 miles to the east of the trail crossing.  We were looking at the southernmost 3.8 miles of Lake Eleven Segment, which the online and companion guide describes as ‘challenging’ and ‘confusing’, noting things like tornado damage, raspberries, and generally poor conditions.  I can say with relief that all this is in the past.  The trail through this area is essentially a Class ‘C’ trail, with stretches of ‘B’ and even ‘A’.  Starting at the north, it was a little rugged, cutting past some down trees from the aforementioned tornado, but we barely noticed because the forest was doing an excellent job of recovery, and the trail workers had clearly outdone themselves keeping this area open and enjoyable for hiking.  There was one small bridge on the northern half of the trail, reasonably well built.  About halfway through, or a little more, we met a family of eight people, resting comfortably alongside the trail, all with their shoes off.    Even the inner linings had been pulled out of their boots.  This seemed – uh – a little odd.  They smiled and said hello as we passed, but they were a very quiet bunch.  We asked how far it was to the end of the trail, and the father said it was about a mile and a half.  That was about all they said.  We never did figure out why they were all sitting there with their shoes and boots off.  Even when we took a few more steps down the trail and Theresa fell through the first of several beaver dams up to her knee, fully within sight of the whole family and as they were watching us go, there was no sound out of the group – no gasp, no offer of assistance – just silence.  I yanked Theresa up out of the degraded beaver dam crossing and we marched on down the trail, not looking back. 

At about the three-mile mark, we hit a long, low bridge over a fen/bog area which looked a little like an attraction you might see at Wisconsin Dells.  It was laid on logs across the bog, and it had sunken and pitched unevenly all along the way, making for an unnerving, if not too dangerous, crossing.  I’m glad I was walking on those boards when it wasn’t raining.  Those were definitely the dangerous when wet variety.  Further down the trail we crossed two more bridges, and I think two more beaver dams of various length and stability.  Overall the trail was well-blazed and easy to follow, as I’ve said.  There was only one tree we encountered that I couldn’t move.  We ended our hike at 1:45 pm, the temperature at 70°, which was up from the 60° we started with.  Still, not too bad.

We got in the van, and drove to our next stop.  We had the choice of doing two one-mile sections, or just doing the two-miles in one bite.  We chose the latter and parked on Winter Sports Road, starting our hike at 2:30 pm.  The carsonite sign said it was 0.9 miles to the crossing at FR 1417 (Chippewa Road) and this section of trail passed with nothing of note, except to say I would call it Class ‘B’ trail all the way.  No bridges, and no blockages – easy, pleasant walking through the forest.  When we reached Chippewa Road, the sign looking back the other way said it was 1.0 miles to where we started.  0.9, 1.0, take your pick.  For reasons I’ll mention later, I’ll choose the 1 mile.  The next section, 0.9 miles from Chippewa Road back to the car on Forest Rd 558 was Class ‘A’ trail all the way – a real joy to hike.  Mostly level, and it shared troads almost all the way.  We came upon one creek crossing where there was a bridge built by the WCC that was so high it was almost silly.  We figured if the river ever got that high, you wouldn’t be able to get to either end because the whole area would be flooded.  But – it would still be there after the flood.  That thing was solid.  Except for the ladder-like steps leading up and down on each end.  Those were uncharacteristically poorly made.    We reached the road at 4:30, hiked the extra 0.1 miles back to the car, and quickly made our way to Sawyer Avenue, to begin our last section of the day, of the Lake Eleven Segment, and of Taylor County as a whole. 

You would think we would practically be running.  Only problem was that Theresa’s knee was hurting, especially on downhill stints.  This was really bad news, because even tiny downhill slopes were causing her pain.  We had 2.1 miles of trail left, according to the sign, and it was going to be a slow hike, but there was no way Theresa was giving up.  We started out at 4:34 pm, temperature all the way down to 64° again, and made our way south and west to the end of our day.  This last two miles of trail was a perfect amalgam of all the trails in Taylor County, or maybe the perfect average.  This was squarely a Class ‘C’ trail, with loads of rocks and roots.  The slope of the trail wasn’t too bad, and there were very few branches or trees to deal with, but with footing that bad I just couldn’t give it a ‘B’.  One thing we liked about the route is that the people who chose the route didn’t feel like they had to take us to the top of every esker-like hill around.  We were allowed to walk along the base of most of them, and only required to climb up and over one that I can recall.  By 6:30 we were very close, and by 6:35 the end was in sight.  Theresa’s knee was really giving her problems, but together, hand-in-hand, we inched down the last steep slope to the road and touched the carsonite sign (for lack of anything better) at 6:45 pm.  Fatigued and hurting, but happy, we danced a happy dance right there in the gravel and set our sights on rest.

When I added up all the pieces of trail based on the distances given on each of the signposts, it was something short of the 14 mile total for the entire Segment, so I’ll just give us credit for the whole 7.9 miles today, even though it’s possible we hiked a little less.  In the end, we must have put the 14 in there somewhere.  No matter.  We got the second vehicle, had some dinner, and decided we would find a place to park for the night that would make it easy for us to start biking the connecting segment heading from Taylor County into Chippewa County, up towards Cornell.  We ended up driving to Otter Lake County Park, where we rejected the campground and ended up sleeping by the boat launch.  I had brought the correct air mattress with us this time, and we got to bed relatively early.  There was a light rain falling, which was especially calming knowing we didn’t have to deal with a wet tent in the morning.  We figured if it was still raining in the morning, we would just go home.  If Theresa’s knee was bothering her, we would just go home.  We should have added – if the air mattress springs a leak in the middle of the night, we would just go home.  It did, and we didn’t.  Fortunately I had a patch kit with me and was able to get a decent patch put on it in a matter of a few minutes, but it didn’t hold air right even after that, and out night was less than ideal.  Running total: 176.8 miles of trail covered; 9.7 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking.  End of Day 19.

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Day 18: Jerry Lake Segment (Part 3); Lake Eleven Segment (Part 1), Taylor County

Day 18: Sunday, September 8, 2013

Location: Jerry Lake Segment between FR 572 and Sailor Creek Road (end of Segment), Taylor County, WI

Sunday morning while camping in the forest.  It calls to mind gentle whispers of morning breeze, soft dew on the grass, frogs singing good bye and birds singing hello.  It means hearing the gentle rustling of aspen leaves and the chirping of the last few active crickets.  Maybe somewhere deep in your brain you even register the first mutterings of the earth as summer starts to lose its grip and the season begins changing to autumn.  And, if you’re where we happened to be on September 8, it also means pickup trucks, honking horns, hound dogs baying and shotgun shooting somewhere off in the distance.

Last night we kept the windows and doors closed because it was supposed to get fairly cool, and we weren’t disappointed as we woke to a mere 55 degrees, with the inside of the car heavily fogged because we were closed up inside all night.  Maybe the fogged windows explain why the truck honked at us as it drove by at 6:30 in the morning.  Maybe not.

The first thing we wanted to do this morning was finish Jerry Lake Segment.  We had only 1.8 miles of trail left, and we were feeling really pretty good.  We dressed and brushed our teeth, and didn’t even have breakfast, although we did drink our coffee.  I haven’t mentioned before, but Theresa makes our home-brewed coffee before we leave each weekend, mixes it with just the perfect blend of Hazelnut Coffeemate and doses it out in empty Gatorade bottles so we have a mug every morning.  It’s cold, but it’s good.  We drove up and dropped one car at the end, where it sat the day before, and then drove south to the end of the Segment, at the southern crossing of the trail with Sailor Creek Road.  We were a little disappointed, really, because there’s no sign.  There’s nothing there to indicate that you have reached the beginning, or the end, of the longest trail segment on the entire journey.  OK, to be technical the Gandy Dancer Segment is 15.1 miles compared to 15 for Jerry Lake, but Gandy is just a bike path, really.  That hardly counts, and besides, with the new trail cut in 2012 that leads to that excellent bridge across the North Fork Yellow River, Jerry Lake has to be at least 15.2 miles long.  I’m giving it the crown.  And there’s no sign.  I can’t even remember if there was a sign at the other end, but I don’t think so.  Come to think of it, we looked across the road and there’s no sign marking the beginning/end of the Lake Eleven segment, a very impressive 14-mile Segment all of its own.  For someone who likes to ‘touch the sign’ to mark the beginning or the end of their day’s hike, it left me feeling empty somehow. 

No matter.  Off we went.  It was 7:40 in the morning, and 55 degrees.  This was really an excellent piece of trail, and would have been rated an ‘A’, except that there were many downed trees along the way.  I cleared as many as I could, 20 or more, but there are at least 2 major snags I left behind that force walk-arounds and another 10-15 logs left laying across the trail that people can easily go over but should still be cleared.  There were no bridges built in this piece of trail, and none needed, since there were no mucky areas in this weather.  We could see one or two places where people had placed a few branches for wet weather crossings, but all-in-all this was a very nice hike.  Early on, we got to the Jerry Lake campground, where we located the one place where apparently we could have gotten to the water last night for our bathing, but we wouldn’t have been able to locate it easily in the dark.  It was a great camping area which had been recently used, and even better there was a pit toilet of sorts back in the woods, which comes in remarkably handy when you need one.  Toilets and toilet paper are two things you don’t truly appreciate until you don’t have them.  Fortunately, so far, we’ve always had the paper.  Actually, as we were hiking Theresa got a phone call.  That’s a little startling in the middle of the forest.  Someone needed a square dance caller for later that day.  Even if we could have gotten there in time, which was questionable considering our current location on the trail, we didn’t want to go. 

There’s little else to say about this section, except that it was really nice walking, fairly level, and well blazed.  We finished up about 9:05, and the temperature had risen only to 62 degrees.  Great hiking weather.  Running total: 162.7 miles of trail covered; 9.1 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking. 

Location: Lake Eleven Segment between Sawyer Ave and Sailor Creek Road (end of Segment), Taylor County, WI

So – by 9:05 in the morning, we had finished the great and famous Jerry Lake Segment, which frankly wasn’t even a goal for the weekend before we started.  Next we moved on to the Lake Eleven Segment, starting from the north.  We drove one car down to CTH M (what’s this hard stuff on the road with the lines painted on it?) and drove down to where the trail crosses about a half-mile east of the Richter Road intersection.  There really is no decent parking near the trail on this highway, and if it weren’t for a driveway of sorts we found about 0.2 miles further east, it would have been a lot farther before finding somewhere to park.  We ate our breakfast, loaded our bags, and started our looping hike around the east and north sides of the Mud Lake basin.  It was here, just as we started out on this section that we met an obstacle that nearly ended our hike.  Theresa had a little headache at the car and took Advil, but by the time we got in the woods it turned into a migraine.  Only time would tell if it went beyond early symptoms and reached the severe pain stage, but we took this hike very easy, and I left behind whatever snags and limbs were on the trail.  Fortunately, the trail was excellent – Class ‘A’ most of the way with a few Class ‘B’ problems, such as downed trees and overgrowth of raspberries and other trail-side sun-loving species.  These were the result of having a corridor so wide in places that the sun got through and created the same type of mess you find along power lines, where thickets of berry bushes can choke a trail to impassability, though it never got that bad.  There were also some places where roots and rocks made for less-than-ideal footing, but I have no complaints.  Even with Theresa’s headache, we made the 2-mile trek in just over an hour and a half.  We never really got a good look at Mud Lake, but when we got to what I can only think of as Mud Creek, we found an excellent bridge that was an absolute necessity if you were going to make a dry crossing.  There were three bridges in all, and each appreciated.  When we reached the car it was 11:38 am, and the temperature was still only 64 degrees, so the hiking gods were taking good care of us. 

The headache tolerable but not gone, we decided we could keep going.  We drove the car down to the place where the trail crosses Perkinstown Avenue, about 0.4 miles east of the intersection with Richter Road.  There was fairly good parking here, and we headed north at 12:00 even, temperature still at 64 degrees.  This was a relatively short (1.3 mile) section with no bridges, no down trees, few hills, and very little to write about.  I have to classify this as Class ‘A’ trail with one short (0.2 mile) part in the middle where it is more of a Class ‘C’, with rocky terrain, a log crossing (dry in this weather) and some bad footing.  Then as quickly as it started, it switched back to ‘A’ hiking, with wide-grassy trails, easy footing, and great trail markings.  We reached the end by 12:54, and the temperature was still comfortable at 73 degrees.  The humidity of the day before was mostly gone, and there was even a nice breeze to keep us refreshed.  Only one more piece to go.

Here’s where the madness kicks in.  We were about 0.6 miles from the edge of the map in the atlas.  That blasted, dog-eared, mocking ink-stain of a map telling us, ‘just a little farther…’  {sigh}  Except that the next piece of trail was 2.9 miles long, and we were both tired.  Theresa was very tired.  The headache hadn’t helped any, either.  There’s a place where the trail crosses FR 397 as it goes south where we might have been able to consider ourselves off the map, but that was a no-vehicles trail that would have added another 2 to 3 tenths of a mile, and we would have had to walk west at least a tenth of a mile to be sure we got off the map, then walk back east again to where the car was headed.  That seemed like too much for too little, and despite Theresa’s better judgment we decided to hike the whole 2.9 miles from Sawyer Ave to Perkinstown Ave to end our day. 

We drove the van to Sawyer Ave and went to load our packs, only to discover that all the Gatorade was 2.9 miles away in the car.  All we had was water.  Water is good and all, and it’s good for you, but when you sweat, it tastes salty.  When you put drops in your eyes, they are saline.  When they feed you through an IV drip, they use saline solution.  Our bodies need salt, and we were running low.  Gatorade would have been really helpful at that moment, and we didn’t have any.  In hindsight we should have driven back to get some, but we were already showing poor judgment just walking that last piece of trail and we went ahead without it.  It didn’t bode well as we stared off the edge of the road where the trail dropped steeply down to a boulder crossing just below a small beaver dam.  We also discovered that the pack I use to carry the water shoes (just in case we have to ford a creek) was also in the car.  We hoped we wouldn’t need them. 

Let me classify this 2.9 mile section as a Class ‘A’ trail, which is marred by a handful of ascents and descents that were more suitable for donkeys than hikers.  It wasn’t as bad as the hike up the Hospital Esker in St Croix Falls, but still it had to have been nearly a 25% grade in some places (25 foot climb over a 100-foot linear march).  A good rule of thumb for trails is no more than 8%, and the reason is clear.  When you have trails that are too steep, you get erosion, and there were places on this trail where time and water eroded it so badly that it resembled an accident scene from a gravel truck hitting a pile of mine tailings.  Every time the trail went up and down, the route chosen was too steep, and there were even one or two places where the hiker is asked to hike up a hill just to hike right back down again, and not even for the reason of crossing to the other side.  Some reroutes are in order if we want to try and preserve the integrity, safety, and beauty of the trail. 

Along the way we found one nice bridge, and the campgrounds at Lake Eleven are reasonably nice.  The whole section was picturesque and dry, and if it weren’t for the severe up and down crossings, this would have been one of our nicest hikes of the day.  

We also discovered that despite all the miles and miles of empty trail, there’s always the chance of meeting someone.  To date, we had met perhaps 20 trail hikers, but had only actually crossed paths with those going in the opposite direction twice.  Make that three times.  Of all the times to have a person come jogging by on the trail going the other way, this ruddy-cheeked bearded fellow came lumbering along just about the time that Theresa was taking a bare-cheeked rest on a rock to take care of necessities.  He was literally jogging by.  I had no time to distract him, and there was no time for Theresa to do anything other than smile.  He laughed and kept jogging, saying something like, ‘no problem – I’ve done it, too’.  He even kept his eyes averted.  Champion fellow – quite the chivalrous gent.  Theresa was somewhat embarrassed (there’s a pun in there somewhere) but she got over it quickly enough.  I mean – it was only a number 1, not a number two.  How embarrassing can that be? 

We reached the end of the trail at 4:07 pm, about 7 minutes later than I had hoped.  The temperature was back to 70 degrees.  We drank deeply of the Gatorade, and drove back to pick up the van and head home.  We had covered 8 miles of trail, with an extra 0.4 miles along CTH M.  That was enough.  Running total: 168.9 miles of trail covered; 9.5 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking.  End of Day 18.

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Day 17: Jerry Lake Segment (Part 2), Taylor County

Day 17: Saturday, September 7, 2013

Location: Jerry Lake Segment between FR 572 and primitive campsite located 0.3 miles south on FR 350 where it intersects the Ice Age Trail, Taylor County, WI

As mentioned in the notes for non-hiking day 4, we woke up in the morning parked just off some remote gravel road in the middle of the Chequamegon National Forest.  Not even the mosquitoes were out.  Actually, ‘morning’ is stretching it a bit.  We woke up in the deep gray of the early, early morning to the sound of pickup trucks and the baying of hound dogs.  Truck after truck went racing through the pre-dawn stillness, headed who knows where, to do who knew what.  We actually heard and saw them over the next few hours, always in their trucks, always with the dogs hanging heads and tongues out the sides of their boxes or chained to the top of the truck as the ripped down the road.  I’m sure they stopped somewhere – we just never saw it.  I presume the dogs got out eventually and went somewhere, but not where we were, so we didn’t care.

After a brief post-piddle crawl-back-in-the-sack period, we got up for real, brushed our teeth and got dressed for the day.  The temperature was headed towards hot, and it wasn’t even 8:00 yet.  OK – it wasn’t exactly hot, but it was humid.  It had rained the night before, there was zero breeze, and we were at 65 degrees.  It felt more like 70.  Even though we slept undisturbed the night before with windows and doors open in the van, the morning light and rain brought out the bugs, so we countered with repellent and we were ready to go.

We drove one vehicle to FR 350 and dropped it at the trail head, then drove the other car down Lake 19 Road (FR 108) where it intersects with the trail a mile or so south of Lost Lake Road.  We found a place to park there, and hit the trail, our newly beloved hiking sticks in our hands.  8:00 am, 65 degrees. 

As much as we were dreading this piece of trail, we were pleasantly surprised by the well-established tread, the broad corridor, the level ground, and the generally well-blazed trail.  There were a few trees down along the way that I was unable to clear, but all-in-all, this was a mostly ‘B’ section of trail, with a few class ‘C’ pieces mostly because of some mucky crossings with no bridges, heavy and close pine growth along the trail, and some roots and rocks, but we have come to expect that on most trails.  There was one nice bridge along the way which crossed an area I’m sure gets much worse in wet weather.  I’m still glad it was there.  It felt like a long way to the campsite, but we eventually got there shortly after 10:00, and we caught FR 350 back north the 0.3 miles to the waiting car.  We reached the end at 10:35, temperature 73 degrees.  We had breakfast and a short rest.

Our next jump took us to Forest Road 571, also known as Sailor Creek Road, at the first (northern-most) place where it crosses the Ice Age Trail.  We parked the car in a great little pull-out just north of the trail, and were ready to go at 11:15 with the temperature now at 77 degrees.  The trail headed quickly northeast, and we were delighted with one of the nicest sections of trail we have had the pleasure to walk.  This is the famous ‘Hemlock Esker’ section, in the heart of the Lost Lake Esker State Natural Area.  I’m not sure why the IATA decided they needed to rename the esker, but ‘Hemlock’ describes it well.  There is really nothing so relaxing as a hike through an old-growth hemlock stand, and when that hike is a mile long, riding atop an esker affording scenic views of the surrounding woodlands and marshlands, it really can’t get much better.  The esker took us north to south, then the trail headed back northeast and up to Lake 19 Road where our other vehicle was waiting.  Along the way we crossed at least five bridges that we can remember – one was extensive – and there were two nice benches spaced evenly along the top of the esker, which we happily took advantage of.  The trail was well-blazed, and fairly level, and it was easy walking the whole way.  If it weren’t for the downed trees on the path (the ones I couldn’t clear) it would have been a straight Class ‘A’, but for those factors there are pieces that have to be rated a ‘B’.  We finished at 2:09 pm, and the temperature had climbed to 81 degrees, with absolutely no wind. 

As we were pulling out, we spotted another car slowing and stopping right in front of the trail.  We backed up to tell them they could use our great parking area if they wanted, and ended up getting into a nice conversation with ‘Ed’, a man who was driving the support vehicle for a woman attempting a thru-hike by the name of Melanie McManus.  Her website is http://epiciceagetrail.blogspot.com/.  I like her style of writing.  I sort of wish we had met her in person.  But she was behind us, and we were looping along behind her.  We were not destined to meet.  Actually, I read that she is basically running the trail, and had made it all the way from the western terminus to where we crossed paths in 8 days.  That’s over 200 miles.  More than 25 miles a day.  Brings new meaning to ‘running total’.  Impressive, but not our style of hiking.  We liked Ed, though.  Nice guy.

The next jump took us to a spot 0.4 miles west along FR 576 where it crosses the Trail the first time (east).  FR 576 isn’t a very good road, and we were glad to have finally found the trail.  At 3:00, with the temperature at a clingy 81 degrees, we pulled off in the grass and hiked north the 1.6 miles back to the beginning of the esker piece.  This was also a very nice trail, though not up to the standards of the hemlock esker.  There were three bridges built along the trail which were nice to have, even in the dry weather.  I’d go so far as to say the middle bridge is absolutely necessary, though it is in need of repair because one end is starting to collapse.  The blazes were easy to follow, and the trail was broad and soft, but there were a few rocky crossings where additional bridges would come in handy.  Also, there was a really nice camping area along this piece.  I’d say this was mostly class ‘B’ with a few small ‘C’ sections.  It was now 4:14 pm, and up to 83 degrees.

Our next hop was a toss-up between a short 0.7 mile run from FR 576 West to FR 576 East, or the much longer 2.5 mile hike starting at Haymeadow Road, FR 572.  We decided on the later, because we simply didn’t want to push one of our vehicles another mile down FR 576.  It was actually a little late to be starting, but the weather was starting to break a little and we thought we’d just go for it.  At 4:30, we parked along Haymeadow Rd (all the maps show Hay Meadow Rd, but local signage is just one word) and started north.  It didn’t bode well for a long ways, with Class C trail dominant over the first three quarters of a mile.  There were four low bridges of the slippery-when-wet variety, and one crossing in a mucky area where someone had put log circles in the mud as stepping stones.  I advise stepping ANYWHERE but on these bits of log, which are skating rink-slippery even in totally dry weather.  Then we found our first MSC blaze, and the trail instantly improved.  You can tell a Mobile Skills Crew blaze because they draw-shave the bark, then carefully paint a perfect 2”x6” yellow blaze with at least two coats of paint.  Anyway, when we saw that our spirits rose, because I remembered reading that they had recently been through the area.  Within a quarter mile or so we saw the Mobile Skills Crew plaque, just as the trail made a sharp turn to the right along brand new trail cut in 2012.  The trail itself was beautiful, but recent logging made a mockery of the signage, and most of the trees with blazes had been cut to the ground and removed.  It’s not hard to follow the trail, but it’s a real shame that so much hard work was erased.  At the bottom of the hill, at the end of the logging area approaching the river, you get a great view of The Bridge – a 67-foot span across the North Fork Yellow River which is a truly impressive sight out there in the middle of the forest.  We paused to watch the water trickle under us past the black rocks of the river and imagined the water roaring past in wetter weather.  This was a really nice improvement on the trail and they are understandably proud of their work.  From here the trail cut back northwest again along the river, which must afford a spectacular walk when the creek is running full.  Near the northernmost part of this section is a drop-your-jaw pretty remote campsite along the river beneath the hemlocks, which we just happened to catch with a late afternoon glow.  I wish we could have stayed longer, but we were running out of daylight.  We found ourselves at the western crossing of FR 576 at 6:20, and we really hoofed it along to the car, which we reached at 6:45 pm, with the temperature down to a tolerable 75 degrees.  Still no breeze, but the dew point was low enough that we didn’t have to swim the last part of the trail. 

We picked up the second car and drove to the Parking area at the western (southern) end of the Segment by Jerry Lake right along Sailor Creek Road.  There’s a sign there, but it’s not really the end of the segment.  That happens a couple tenths of a mile further south.  We had hoped to walk into Jerry Lake to do a little bathing, but the edge of the lake proved unreachable because of the floating bog mass and muck.  No telling what the bottom would have been like – we never got into the water.  We read later that if we had hiked north a bit to the campsite there was a way into the water, but it was already pretty dark, so we just hiked back up to the car and bathed trail-side.  All I can say about our apparel from the lake back up to the car is that it involved shoes.  No sense getting dressed just to get undressed again.  We set up our sleeping bags again on the mattress, under-inflated this time to limit how severely it bulged up on both sides, and slept very soundly after covering 10 miles of trail, with another 0.3 miles of extra hiking, not even counting our jaunt down to the lake and back.  Running total: 160.9 miles of trail covered; 9.1 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking.  End of Day 17.

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Non-Hiking Day 4: Camping for the Jerry Lake Segment, Taylor County

Non-Hiking Day 4: Friday, September 6, 2013

Location: Parking area on Mondeaux Ave., just west of the White Birch Trail, Taylor County, WI

This time of year, there really isn’t much hope of driving over an hour from home after work on a Friday and getting in any hiking before dark.  So – we headed back out to Taylor County on a Friday night to camp, ready for an early start to another weekend of hard hiking through the Chequamegon.  After what we went through with the east end of the Jerry Lake Segment a couple weeks earlier, we really weren’t looking forward to it.  We decided we would begin right where we left off, which meant parking at the largish parking area about 0.3 miles north and 0.3 miles west of where we actually wanted to begin, down at the primitive campsite located at the intersection of FR 350 and the Ice Age Trail.  The parking area is vastly better for overnight camping than the FR 350 trailhead, which is where we would actually drop a vehicle in the morning. 

Unfortunately, we discovered too late that we didn’t bring the right air mattress with us for the van.  We brought the queen-size instead of the twin, so we had a really interesting time sleeping in the middle of a clamshell balloon pushing up and out on both sides.  On the whole, it wouldn’t have been too bad, but it was incredibly hot for September, and we ended up sleeping with the windows and doors open in the van.  Could have been worse.  At least there was no poison ivy this time.  No miles hiked: Running total: 150.9 miles of trail covered; 8.8 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking.  End of non-hiking day 4.

Day 16: Pine Lake Segment; Connecting Route 1; McKenzie Creek Segment (Part 1), Polk County

Day 16: Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Location: Pine Lake Segment, plus 0.6 mile Connecting Route between McKenzie Creek Segment and Pine Lake Segment, Polk County, WI

Poison Ivy!!

In the morning I got up to take a leak and looked around on the ground where we had parked both Saturday night and Monday night.  Everywhere I looked that was inches past the mowed area, there was poison ivy, which we hadn’t noticed the first time we were there.  And these weren’t three-leaved maybes, they were spot-on, dead sure patches of poison ivy.  I suddenly remembered my morning necessities of two days earlier and my butt started itching just thinking about it.  I looked over at the place where I crashed into the thicket and saw – nothing.  No ivy.  Not that I was going to crawl right back in there and get a better look.  If I somehow survived that morning without infection, I wasn’t going to count on two such miracles.  I warned Theresa when I got back to the van, and we were both far more careful how and where we walked as we ate breakfast and got ready to go hiking.  I laughed again at the underwear.  Whatever guy thought it was a pretty good joke to hang it on that limb probably paid a steep price for the laugh. 

This morning we were reversing direction, and working our way home.  The last few days have been grueling, and late, and besides that – there was nowhere left on the trail that was further west.  East was our only direction to go.  Our next segment was the Pine Lake Segment, 3 miles of total hiking, to which we added the 0.6 mile connecting route which led over to the McKenzie Creek Segment.  For some reason I have yet to figure out, we didn’t chop this into two, or even three pieces like we could have.  Instead, we just drove to the parking area on 270^th Ave at the south end of the McKenzie Creek Segment and took our bikes the short distance west and south to the eastern end of the Pine Lake Segment where we started our journey westward.  We started out hiking across a hot, dry prairie, which eventually cut through a sliver of woods before coming out onto a dirt-covered private road.  We looked across the road and saw where the trail went, so we hiked across and onto another hot, dry prairie – a large fallow field, really.  We went first back east along the edge, then north along the edge, then west along the edge to a pond, then south along the pond, then north along the pond, then west along the edge, then south along the edge, then back east again to end up all of about 50 feet from where we started.  The entire looping trip around this field was an exercise in stupidity that did nothing but walk us around some farm field.  We read in the companion guide later that this was supposed to have been a white-blazed trail walking across ‘glacial gold’ but all I saw was grass.  And it was definitely yellow-blazed, not white-blazed.  Maybe I was just annoyed at having to walk in a big circle when I was just trying to make distance.  Anyway, this added 0.3 miles to the trail, and we then headed back south into the woods we had just stepped out of. 

In general, I would classify this as Class ’B’ trail.  Pretty good footing, reasonable blazes, typical corridor.  The trail was shared by a lot of horse travel, and there were horse apples to prove it.  We hiked up and down a lot of hills, and then climbed over a fence using a sturdy but challenging ladder-thing built by some trail-minder, and then through a really nice oak savanna.  We broke out into a fairly open area where there was a pond, a lot of sunlight, a couple of benches, and a lot of poison ivy.  The difference in temperature between the shaded woods and the open prairie was about 15 degrees.  At the south end of this piece, the trail dumped onto 260^th Ave, where we had to track west for about 0.2 miles along the road before heading south again.  This piece of trail was really nice, heavily wooded on one side, open on the other, and fairly straight until it bends sharply to the east, running through the woods nearly parallel to the road before finally reaching STH 48.  Straight across 48, the trail goes through more heavily wooded trail, all Class ‘B’, and then suddenly opens up to a clearing where someone’s semi-permanent campsite is visible.  It’s not well-marked at this location, and it’s hard to tell that the trail goes almost directly across the field past the camper that looks like it’s been there since the Nixon administration, and then to the northern edge where a fence blocks access to a large corn field.  At this point, the trail goes almost due west again, along what appears to be a snowmobile trail that certainly doubles as a deer-hunting area based on the very nice tree-stands in evidence.  This last half of a mile was very easy trail, fairly flat, and very open, and we easily cruised to our waiting van on Round Lake road where we left it earlier that morning.  End of segment.  Running total: 149.3 miles of trail covered; 8.8 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking.

Location: McKenzie Creek Segment, between 280^th Ave and 270^th Ave (end of Segment), Polk County, WI

Our first segment of the day took longer than we expected, and to be truthful, we had lost some of the wind in our sails.  The weather had been just plain hot all weekend, and so we planned on doing just one more piece before our day was finished, the southernmost part of the McKenzie Creek Segment.  We drove up to 280^th Ave and all the way to the west end where it meets McKenzie Lake, which is coincidentally at the southern end of the McKenzie Creek State Wildlife Area.  Imagine the odds.  Anyway, this was an absolutely gorgeous area that could easily be used for lake-bathing, and McKenzie Lake is banned to motor boat traffic of all kinds, so this limits the number and type of people you would find there at any time, but especially on a Tuesday afternoon.  We were alone, but we didn’t make use of the lake because we had hiking left to do.  After we ate our lunch, we headed south along the trail.  I know we were tired by this point because I didn’t even record how many miles the sign indicated this portion to be, but I’m guessing about 1.6.  The thing I remember most about this section is the springs.  We hiked up and down many hills, saw hunting stands and beautiful wooded areas, but there was one spring in particular that was completely orange with whatever fungus or slime grew in that incredibly cool, clear water.  There is a type of groundcover that only occurs where there are fresh springs, and there were several places along this trail that had it in abundance.  The trail cuts along the west end of a large such area, which becomes a visible creek, and then further south after you cross a bridge is where the orange springs are.  A little farther south yet, just before climbing a fairly steep path to a waiting bench is another spring that just breathes out nascence and purity.  Its places like this along the trail that form lasting images in my mind.  Soon – it was hard to tell if it was too soon or not soon enough – we came to the end, touched the sign, and got back in the car.  We came to realize that with each completed section or segment of trail, when we reached the western end we were ‘touching the river’, connecting our dots all the way back to the St Croix River through forest, bush and bramble, across roads and creeks,  bridges and hillocks.  We were now halfway across map 4 in the Atlas, and each piece gave a sense of accomplishment. 

We had also gained new friends.  A good walking stick is lightweight but strong, wide enough at the top to give a nice, firm grip, and gently tapered to the bottom where the weight of the swinging stick is effortlessly in rhythm with your body movements.  It should have a fairly smooth surface, but it should be rough enough to give a decent grip, at a location just above a natural bulge, or curve in the stick, giving just the right amount of back-pressure as you pull yourself along.  The length should be about as tall as you are, so that it can support you on hills, and won’t poke your eye out if you fall while holding it.  When you find the right stick, you just can’t let it go.  Theresa and I had both found just such a stick for ourselves.  Rather than lean them against a sign for the next lucky hiker who came along, these came home with us, and have become our new trail companions.  Running total: 150.9 miles of trail covered; 8.8 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking.  End of Day 16.

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Day 15: St Croix Falls Segment (Part 2); Connecting Route 3; Gandy Dancer Segment (Part 2), Polk County

Day 15: Monday, September 2, 2013

Location: St. Croix Falls Segment, between the parking area just north of STH 8 and River Road (end of Segment), Polk County, WI

Morning came, and Theresa asked me, “You didn’t even wake up last night, did you?”  That’s a little like asking me if the sun might decide to come out an hour or two early that morning.  “No, why?”  “Because we had a visitor last night.” 

We knew it was risky parking in town and sleeping in the car.  Most cities and towns have policies against such a thing, if not ordinances or downright laws.  There was no sign at the parking area specifically stating no overnight camping, but that didn’t make it ok, either.  On the other hand, since we were sleeping in the car, we figured the worst that could happen is that we would get rousted and we’d have to move ‘camp’ down the road a couple of miles.  Theresa said the cop (I used the word ‘gendarmerie’) stopped and shined their lights directly at the car, and she was sure they would be knocking on the glass, but they never did.  Eventually, she said, they just moved on.  Thinking about it from their perspective, we figured here was the scene.  Cop car drives by at night and spots two vehicles parked way back in the parking lot, almost hidden from view.  One vehicle, the larger one, is fogged up on the inside.  They’ve seen their share of ‘parkers’ and figure they need to roust this pair.  The lights usually do it.  They pull in and shine their headlights on the foggy van.  No reaction.  No movement.  No teenage heads popping up, or vehicle bouncing around while people grab for clothes.  Hmm.  I suppose I should call in the plates.  SOP, and all that.  Wait for the response.  Both cars belong to the same couple.  How old?  And there are bikes on the back of the car.  They’re parked on the Gandy Dancer State Bike Trail.  I guess there’s nothing wrong with that.  And who cares if they were fogging up the windows a little? 

Some of it is probably true.  Maybe all of it.  Either way, there was no knock on the window, and I never woke up for any of it.  I did get out of the van in the early morning light and illegally urinate behind a small building next to the trail.  I refuse to say what Theresa may or may not have done to relieve herself.  No one saw her, and no one can prove anything.  I did however take a full walk around the outside of said building, and I discovered that it was a three-walled shelter erected for the exclusive use and pleasure of those walking or biking the trail.  There was a picnic bench inside, it had a concrete floor, and there was even a garbage drum with a plastic trash bag liner.  I love small towns.  This was someone’s Eagle Scout project, and there were local businesses that sponsored the building, and someone obviously cared enough to maintain it.  I couldn’t have been happier.  It was chilly that morning, with a more than light breeze, and it felt good to get out of the wind, sit at a table and have our breakfast. 

This morning, we wanted to make certain we finished the St. Croix Falls Segment, and if possible the connecting route and remainder of the Gandy Dancer Segment all the way back up to Luck.  We got a little bit of a late start, but not too bad as we drove one vehicle to the parking area just north of STH 8 at the south end of the so-named Hospital Esker.  Then we took the other car up to Fairgrounds Road and parked at the Parking area across from the fairgrounds.  This seemed like a reasonable first stint, and we geared up and headed into the woods.  This part of the trail walked up and through Regal Park, and the difference in vegetation was striking.  It was a lovely uphill climb to start with, across lots of exposed bedrock and through sparse, stunted trees.  It was very pretty in its own way.  The trail wrapped over the park and onto a sort-of road, and then through a very odd piece of woods with almost no undergrowth.  As it turns out, it was a heavily used piece of woods behind a school, and the undergrowth had been trampled to bare dirt.  The trail darts out through a spit of woods as though clinging to the last shred of decency before opening to a parking lot for the school itself.  Understandably, there were few blazes at this point, but we took our best guess and headed straight across the parking lot next to the school and found our next trail sign heading into the woods behind the building.  The trail goes immediately to the right, cutting through the woods as one of many highly used trails.  Then we slipped past the end of North Jackson Street, and straight west until we met the end of E. Kentucky Street, where we headed downhill through the residential section until we turned left on South Roosevelt St and through the parking lot for the St. Croix Regional Medical Center.  This was another place where blazes were few, and having a photocopied map of the route would have helped a lot.  Nevertheless, we found ourselves at the north trailhead for the Hospital Esker.  We passed a couple of people coming the other way down the trail, a man and his five-year-old son, but they weren’t geared up for hiking, and it looked like they were just making use of the trail as a diversion.  I’m all for it.

We climbed the trail headed up the esker, and were immediately annoyed at whomever chose this particular route, because we were once again dealing with a 20% grade or more, and there was a serious erosion problem on both ends of the esker.  The view from the top was great and everything, but this piece really needs a gentler hand and some rework.  Actually, at the top of the esker there was one part of the trail that was so close to the edge that it has started to collapse, and it’s only a matter of time before a hiker follows the gravel and stones that are already falling over the edge of a very steep hillside. 

Back at the car now, our next jump took us to the end of Mindy Creek Court, where we took the bikes for a very short ride south to Oregon Street, and then to the end where Sunrise Road heads north.  We locked the bikes there and walked generally south to where the trail crosses Louisiana Street and then to the parking area where we had left the van what seemed so very long ago.  The trail map shows that this is a nice, straight line, but in reality the new trail has been cut and in use so long you can see it on the satellite photography.  It never actually goes into the woods, but it darts over and skirts the edge pretty effectively, and then back across the middle of the field before finishing right back where it always was.  I’m not sure what this little reroute did for us, but I guess it was better than a straight line.  It was pretty good trail, but it needs better blazing at the end.

We got back in the car and drove down to Lions Park, where we would begin our next section of trail, heading west into the Wert Family Nature Preserve.  This is an innocent-looking piece of trail on the maps, and in fact started out as a nice, gentle trail, but there was no getting around the fact that by the time we were done, we would need to climb well over 200 feet to our waiting car.  Right at the beginning we felt there could have been an additional blaze or two to make sure we were taking the correct path into this beautiful preserve, but once we found the first blaze past the trailhead sign (about 400 feet) the rest of the trail was very well marked.  This was a lovely, old-growth forest with only a few trees and limbs in the way, easily cleared, and the trail was cut artfully through the woods in such a way that you could hardly notice the climb.  Then it suddenly turned uphill with purpose, and we were walking up a staircase of rocks that could only have been placed there by our friendly MSC Unit.  We crested this short hill only to plunge back down again to a creek crossing, again artfully sculpted into the rock face with secure, stair-like steps.  Then, across a series of stone blocks almost invisibly formed into stepping stones, we looked to the left and saw the trail heading resolutely up the edge of a very steep ravine.  Apparently, all 200 feet of the climb would be on this one hill, or so it seemed.  But – contrary to the rest of the steep hills we had faced in the county, this trail cut at a reasonable angle, perhaps 10%, and was both manageable and gentle to the soil.  We didn’t see any of the bears that were reported by the person we walked past on the trail, but we did see lots of bluebirds at the start, and other birds as we hiked through the woods.  At long last (we thought we’d never stop going uphill) we crested out at Day Road, and had only a short courtesy-crossing to our waiting car and the end of Mindy Creek Ct.  We drove out and picked up our bicycles, then back down to the end of River Road, to the very end of the St. Croix Falls Segment.

For some reason, this innocent 5.3 miles of trail (could it really only be 5 miles?) seemed to be taking forever to hike.  The more I look at it, the more I think that we only covered a little over a mile on that first day, not the 2 miles I thought we had.  Oh well – we were covering it now.  We parked the car at the end of the Segment, and were disappointed to find – nothing.  No sign proclaiming the end, and very little in the way of markings at all.  We knew we were in the right place, but expected more, somehow, of the very first (or last) trail segment on the whole trail.  We started hiking south, and the trail was actually pretty poor.  It started as a Class ‘C’ trail with lots of branches, rocks and roots, and rapidly fell to a Class ‘D’ trail for brief stints.  To begin with, there were almost no trail blazes to be found, only the occasional arrow marking a change in direction.  ‘Stick to the River’ the companion guide warns.  How about we put up some more paint along the trail so we don’t have to write about how few signs there are in the guide book?  We were walking through the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway, and it was scenic, I suppose, but we saw very little of it because we had to pay such close attention to our footing.  There were a few places where the trail went down into ravines in ways that would shame those who are now cutting new trail.  The erosion was severe, and the footing absolutely treacherous.  Signage became non-existent; if not for the mandate to ‘follow the river’ we may have taken one of the many side-trails, because none of the trails were marked.  Also, the crossings themselves were absurdly dangerous, and considering how much effort has been made to put bridges across muddy areas in the middle of the national forests, miles from the nearest road, it’s totally unacceptable that these crossings are so dangerous and degraded so close to what may be the beginning of the trail for some hikers.  It’s enough to discourage them from continuing the hike.

Then we reached the riverside campground, and the trail changed completely for the better and for the worse at the same time.  There was a path up to a pit toilet, and another path leading along the river which was wide, bordered, and paved with crushed gray gravel.  There were bridges you could go across with training wheels on your tricycle, and in fact we passed a couple meandering along comfortably with their baby in a stroller.  The problem was, there were no signs.  None.  Not one yellow blaze in sight, and we kept going on that trail for another half of a mile or so before finally seeing a yellow mark where the trail left this gravel walkway and headed back into the woods.  I don’t know what it is about the people who maintain these segments.  The better a trail is, the less likely you will find marks.  It was true of the Portage River segment, it was true of the Gandy Dancer Segment, and it was certainly true here.  If not for the warning to ‘stick to the river’ we would certainly not have known which way to go.  There’s no excuse for it here – you could maintain this piece of trail on crutches.  The one truly beneficial sign we saw was a small sign posted in front of a patch of poison ivy, picturing the plant and giving the hikers a chance to get a good look at it in the wild.  We studied it carefully, because it has been a few years since each of us had done that, and reminded ourselves exactly what it looked like.  After what seemed a very long way, we finally reached the parking lot, and the van.  It was about four in the afternoon, and we had a bit of a problem.  Theresa’s shoes had met their Waterloo.  Or their Mud-erloo, or something like that.  She had stepped on a mucky piece of trail and became instantly aware that the waterproofing she faithfully applied to the leather exterior of the boots provided no protection when there was a four-inch crack in the sole running the width of the boot right through to her socks.  She had finally, and for the first time in her life, completely blown through a pair of boots.  Only had the darn things 18 years.  They just don’t make boots the way they used to.  Sheesh.  End of Segment.  Running total: 130.9 miles of trail covered; 8.5 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking.

Location: 4.5 mile connecting route between St. Croix Falls Segment and Gandy Dancer Segment, Polk County, WI

So – now what?  Or next section was going to be all biking, so we didn’t need boots, but the next day was more hiking.  Now what?  We called around and found a Gander Mountain store in Forest Lake Minnesota, 25 miles and perhaps 50 minutes away.  They would be open until 9:00, but if we tried biking the 15 miles or so of Gandy Dancer and connecting route first, we might be cutting things thin.  So we abandoned the trail for a much-needed break from the heat and drove out to get Theresa some new boots.  Long story short, add another $159.99 to the expenses; $1697.45 and counting.  We also stopped at a Culver’s for dinner, and by the time we got back to Wisconsin and our car, it was 6:20.  Sundown would be about 7:45, dark would come about 8:00, and black night would come by 8:25.  We had 15 miles of trail/biking route to cover, and it looked like we weren’t going to reach our goal for the day of getting all the way back up to Luck, but we were certainly going to get as far as we could.  We left the van at the River Road trail head, and took the bikes back up to Centuria, where we parked in the large parking area next to the trail on 170^th Ave.  For the record, this would be an excellent place to park/camp in the future, if you’re looking for a place to hang out for the night.  We rode our bikes down the last mile or so of the Gandy Dancer segment, and onto 160^th Ave, where we headed due west into the setting sun.  We were really pushing our luck on this one, because any vehicle that would have been coming behind us would have had just as much trouble spotting us as we were having just seeing the road in front of us.  After a mile or so of up and down biking, we started heading downhill, and except for a couple of bumps along the way found ourselves screaming downhill all the way to STH 87, where we had to really burn the rubber on the breaks to make a safe turn north until we could turn off on River Road and continue our downhill coast all the way to the car.  If we had tried to ride this section coming the other way it would have taken us two hours.  As it was, I think we covered it in 40 minutes.  End of connecting route (and a little more).  Running total: 135.4 miles of trail covered; 8.5 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking.

Location: Gandy Dancer Segment between STH 48 Parking area in Luck, WI and 160^th Ave (end of Segment), Polk County, WI

We rapidly put the bikes on the car, and drove like wild up towards Luck.  Our thinking was, if we got there about 8:22 as our GPS device told us we would, we could just go slowly down the Gandy Dancer Trail on our bikes and finish up even if it took a lot longer.  By the time we got to Milltown we thought better of it and decided we’d try for just the first half of the trip.  We had left the Atlas in the wrong car, and so didn’t have a good idea where the trail cut through town, or where the parking area was, though we knew there was one.  We ended up turning right on 2^nd Ave when we got into town (a mistake) and drove all the way out of town until we met the trail about three-quarters of a mile south.  We found ‘adequate’ parking for the van, but by now were really glad we chose the shorter piece.  It was still possible to see, a little, but there was no moon and out where there are no city lights – dark is dark.  Thankfully I had a flashlight with me, and by the time we realized it would be impossible to ride without light, I turned it on and we were able to bike slowly along the trail in the tiny pool of light cast by the flashlight I held.  It was possible to feel the long, slow uphill grades, or the long, slow downhill slopes only because the peddling would suddenly become harder or easier.  It was a very interesting ride, and we both commented about how unlikely it was that we would be doing this exact thing at this particular point in our lives.  Biking at night is one thing, but miles and miles from home, without proper lights on the bikes, and in temperatures below 50° is quite another.  It had been plenty warm earlier in the day, but now it was getting genuinely chilly.  As it turns out, there must have been a storm that passed through recently, because over and over again I found myself shouting “Tree to the right” as we peddled past a down branch, or tree that encroached the space on the west side off the trail, and at one point had to stop completely and lift our bikes up and over a tree that had completely obstructed the path.  None of which we would have seen if we weren’t using the light.  We would have been walking.

But – with the light, and the wide, easy, off-road path to bike on – suddenly our goal of reaching Luck that night was again possible.  It was pitch black, and it was down to 40°, but it was possible.  We drove the bikes back up to Luck, got our warm shirts on, and rode the last few miles of trail down to the car just south of Milltown.  We did it!  End of segment!

Rather than parking in Luck again and risking same, we decided to pick up both vehicles and drive back to Moh’s Mountain for another peaceful, undisturbed evening.  It was downright cold that night, so we parked our cars where we knew it was relatively level and snuggled in for the night.  It was late, but we were where we wanted to be.  Running total: 145.7 miles of trail covered; 8.5 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking.   End of Day 15.

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