Day 4: Connecting Route 2; East Lake Segment (Part 1) , Rib Lake Segment Taylor County

Day 4: Sunday, July 28, 2013

Location: Connecting Route between Pine Line Segment and Mondeaux Esker Segment, Taylor County, WI

Today we drove straight to WalMart in Medford.  They had better bicycle seats, and I wasn’t riding another foot along the connecting routes until something was done about the implement of torture that still felt improperly inserted somewhere in my anatomy.  We spent nearly an hour and a half selecting, installing, and adjusting our new bike seats.  I never would have believed I could actually have enjoyed riding again that day, but I left that parking lot with a whole new appreciation for ergonomic design. 

From there, we drove straight to the same place we parked the day before, dropped a car, and then to the far end of the connecting route between Pine Line Segment and Mondeaux Esker Segment, along Fawn Avenue.  We parked just off-road and spoke briefly with a local land owner who asked very nicely if we would be camping, and told us he would watch our vehicle for us if we were.  Really nice guy.  That’s the kind of person I really like meeting, and it makes me proud to be from Wisconsin.  We rode east 3.3 miles (with the wind) along this relatively flat gravel road and all the way to the beginning of the next segment (Pine Line).  At that point we realized we had never touched the sign, so we made the short trip off-road to perform that ritual, and officially ended our ride.  Running total: 22.5 miles of trail covered; 5.3 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking.  

 Location: East Lake Segment, between STH 13 Wayside and Beards Lane, Taylor County, WI

We decided next to hike a 1.8 mile piece on the western end of East Lake Segment, between STH 13 Wayside and Beards Lane.  We decided to leave one car at the wayside, then drove up and around until we got to Beards Lane, where we found limited but adequate parking along the road.  We touched the sign and headed west this time, walking through what turned out to be a surprisingly overgrown trail, which gradually got better as we approached the wayside where day hikers frequented the trail.  All along the way were beautiful park signs that had fallen to the ground because when they were put up a few years earlier, they used lag screws instead of carriage bolts.   At least a dozen signs lying uselessly next to their posts.  Oh well.  We drove back to Beards Lane to pick up our other car, and headed east again to where we would complete our last segment of the day.  Running total: 24.3 miles of trail covered; 5.3 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking. 

Location: Rib Lake Segment, Taylor County, WI

We decided to take Rib Lake in three pieces.  We dropped the van with the bicycles at the western end of the segment on Hwy D, in a large parking area made for the purpose.  Then we drove about a mile east to where the trail crosses Harper Road.  A large, convenient parking area was located at the beginning of the trail, and we walked the approximately half-mile segment back to where the van was.  It was wet, and the grass was long in places, but most of the walk was along ski trails built on logging roads.  In one part a new pine tree had come down across the road, but it was easy enough to go around.  At the van, we drove to the far end of the 3.3 mile connecting route on STH 102, and rode our bikes back to where we left the car.  It was about ¾ gravel, and with the wet roads we picked up our share of back-splatter.  My shirt still bears the stains.  Part of the trip passed the side-trail to Timm’s Hill.  9.5 miles, each way.  Maybe some other time.  Finally, we dropped the bikes, drove the red car to the east end of the Rib Lake Segment, found a place to park, and walked back to the waiting van.  This last third of the segment was extremely grassy and wet, and at one point the trail was difficult to follow as it pushed past an open area with no visible blazes, and later on when it ducked around a re-route on a very seldom-traveled area of long grass and lots of trees.  Could definitely stand some trail improvement here.  We were done hiking for the day, but we now had transportation in three places.  We drove back to pick up the red car.  (Theresa swears if it had been up to her, the Prius would have been lost somewhere in the north woods forever.)  Then we drove to pick up the bicycles.  Then we drove home.  Running total: 28.8 miles of trail covered; 5.3 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking.  End of Day 4.

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Day 3: Connecting Routes 3 & 1; Pine Line Segment, Taylor County

Day 3: Saturday, July 27, 2013

Location: Connecting Route between Lake Eleven Segment and the first Connecting route in Chippewa County, Taylor County, WI

Here’s where a decision was made.  1200 miles is a long way.  I mean – it’s all about the journey, right?  We decided first, that it was our journey – not anyone else’s.    So – out come the bicycles.  We figured driving the connecting routes by car was a true cheat; but to us, doing the connecting routes on bicycle was fair game.  Second, we were taking two cars.  It wasn’t ideal, because we’d have to juggle our cars around, because we could only carry bikes in the van, but it was better than bicycling both ways, and we had targeted a 14.9 mile segment of road for the day.  Ambitious, perhaps, but we were gung-ho.  We drove both vehicles to the intersection of Hwy 64 and CTH F, and headed south about a mile.  We dropped off one vehicle, and then drove back north to the trailhead for the Lake Eleven Segment.  We got out the bicycles, geared up, and rode down to the first car.  I think it took about 12 minutes.  So – we locked up the bikes, drove back to the first vehicle, picked it up, drove back down and picked up the second car, drove BOTH vehicles another 2 miles or so down the road, then came back for the bikes.  We geared up again, rode the two miles to the waiting vehicle, and repeated this tangled exercise from one end of CTH F to the other, right through the town of Lublin, which was coincidentally celebrating Lublin Days.  Oh, the pure, simple joy of it.  Actually, we stretched out our rides a little bit each time; maybe three miles per segment at the most, and at some point we drove to the far end and rode back to the middle, because it was downwind.  It was our first time on bikes in a long time, and we were getting our peddling legs back in shape, so to speak.

The weather was excellent, we always had food and water nearby, and the ride couldn’t have been nicer.  Except for our butts.  If I ever meet the evil son-of-a-sea-merchant who developed the tiny, little leather-crowned crotch-busters they distribute with ten-speeds and laughingly refer to as ‘seats’, I will find new and unique ways of inserting one on their person exactly where mine ended up most of the day.  Theresa’s was a little larger but no better.  There definitely had to be changes. 

Back to the weather.  Actually, we drove through rain most of the way there.  We were a little concerned, but we had the whole day, and the forecast was rain in the morning, cloudy in the afternoon, which is exactly what we got.  We saw that it was raining all around us, but our trip was almost entirely dry.  So – we finished our bike ride, 14.9 miles, and had time to spare. 

Location: Pine Line Segment plus connecting route leading west to East Lake Segment, Taylor County, WI

The next logical thing to do was hike a short 1.0 mile segment named Pine Line Segment.  Built and maintained by Boy Scout Troop 53, it promised to be a fine little walk.  Better yet, this was to be our first official completed non-connecting route segment of the trail.  First, we drove to STH 13 Wayside on the east end and dropped a vehicle, then drove back to the west end and found a place to park in a field about 1/10 of a mile up the road.  We walked back the 0.1 miles to the sign, and started our hike.  It started out a little rugged, along the edge of what was clearly someone’s pastureland between two barbed wire fences, a little overgrown, and clearly not well-traveled, but easily enough marked, now that we knew we were looking for yellow blazes.  It ducked down across a small marshy area and quickly entered the woods.  The trail was OK – not great, but clearly a trail.  In the few miles I’ve hiked since that time I have seen much better and much worse.  Exactly one mile later we came out on STH 13, and walked the 0.6 mile connecting route back up to our car.  We walked far enough to touch the next sign (by now a familiar ritual) and got back in our car to retrieve the other vehicle.  Still a lot of back-and-forth driving.  We definitely needed to improve our techniques.  This was the end of our journeying on Saturday, and we drove home tired but happy in our two vehicles.  We were making real progress, and actually having fun on the trail.  Running total: 19.2 miles of trail covered; 5.2 miles ‘extra’ hiking.  End of Day 3.

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Day 2: Connecting Route 4, Lincoln County WI

Day 2: Sunday, July 21, 2013

Location: Connecting Route between Averill-Kelley Creek Wilderness Segment and Newwood Segment, Lincoln County, WI

I should explain what I mean by 'Connecting Route 4'.  We are working with the Ice Age Trail Companion Guide, 2011 edition.  On the blue page for Lincoln County, there are five connecting routes identified.  This is number four on the page, reading from top to bottom.

What a difference a couple weeks make.  This weekend we were putting in a driveway (by hand) on our land up near Winchester using shovels, rakes, and a wheelbarrow to move 28 yards of road base gravel.  That’s two truckloads, and it’s hard, physical labor.  Nonetheless, as we were driving home I realized that we would be crossing the ice age trail somewhere along the way and I pulled out our now handy Ice Age Trail Companion Guide and quickly found where the trail crossed Hwy 51 North.  We turned off at Irma, drove around a bit, took a look at one of the connecting routes, then found where several of the segments started and ended, just looking for places to park and scoping out future hikes.  Then we got to the 0.6 mile connecting route along CTH E and decided we’d just do it.  We parked, walked from south to north, touched the sign, and then walked it north to south.  We realized that if we didn’t alter out methods, we’d end up having to walk the whole silly trail twice.  Nevertheless, we celebrated our first completed segment of the trail.  Running total: 2.7 miles of trail covered; 5.1 miles ‘extra’ hiking.  End of Day 2.

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Day 1, Take 2: St. Croix Falls Segment

Day 1, Take 2: Saturday, July 6, 2013

Location: Interstate Park, St. Croix Falls, WI

We stayed last night at the Dalles House Motel.  A reasonably priced cinder block motel where the most I can say is that they didn’t run out of hot water.  In fact, there was enough to run out of the sink and all over the floor, but that’s another story entirely.  We stayed up too late, and got up too late, but we were ready to start our day.  We had maps in hand from our previous investigations, but couldn’t get the internet to work at the hotel, so we had only the maps and our memories to go on.  We drove up the hill and started our search for the beginning of the trail.  Actually, we parked at the Ice Age Center and Gift Shop, and decided the first thing we would do was hike backwards on the trail until we got to the sign at the front of the Park which clearly showed “Ice Age Trail”, leading away from the park.  We walked approximately 0.1 miles, got our bearings, and started walking along the trail following the first sign with a mammoth on it.  It was almost unbearably hot.  It was 10:00 in the morning, and pushing 90 degrees with high humidity.  The mosquitoes acted like they had been waiting their whole lives just to see us.  Flies were pervasive and persistent.  We got to the edge of the tree-line, and walked through the open meadow for another .2 miles until we reached the sign.  Photo op with the sign, and we decided to hike a little farther, at least until we reached the end of the Park, so we hiked down a beautifully paved bike path, with painted yellow lines in the middle.  We walked all the way to the edge of the park, turned around, and headed back up the hill.  We walked back up until we found the place where we had turned left to follow the trail, and then turned left to continue our hike until we went all the way down to where we had started the day before.  The shortest route was along the Skyline Nature Trail (0.75 miles), down the Ravine Trail (0.5 miles), across the Lake of the Dalles Trail (0.5 miles), and finally to the boat landing, then back up the same trail we started up to the River Bluff Trail.  With the heat, and the bugs, and miles of walking we weren’t used to, we were tired, and stopped for a while to rest.  We pulled out our maps to read.  After reading a LOT more carefully, we discovered that the start of the trail was NOT at the river, but was in fact up at the Pothole Trail, a charming 0.4 mile loop trail that was well-marked and labeled quite clearly as the beginning of the Ice Age Trail.  And it was only 0.8 miles away, all uphill, and temperature still in the 80s even in the trees.  Three hours after we turned left from the adequately marked Ice Age Trail to take a 2.5-mile wandering journey through the beautiful but unrelated trail system of Interstate State Park, we found ourselves out of breath, and nearly out of energy, at a sign stating we were at the Western Terminus of the Ice Age Trail.  Thus far we had covered about .3 miles of trail twice, wandered lost for a good long time, and eventually ‘found’ the trail again.  In retrospect, I can’t imagine what made us think it was a good idea to leave the trail we were on, which we knew to be the correct trail, and go looking for the other end.  Mostly because would not have imagined that the trail, in fact, goes THROUGH THE PARKING LOT of the Ice Age Center and Gift Shop, and the charming young woman inside had no idea of the fact. Long story short, we finished the loop segment, walked along another (mostly uphill) 0.5 mile piece called the Horizon Rock Trail, and finally back to the car, where we gratefully drank volumes of water and Gatorade. 

We were done with the hiking in the park.  We got back in our car, drove to the place just outside the park boundary where we turned around, and said, “Let’s at least hike to Hwy 8, so we know where to begin next time.  Seemed like a good idea.  We got out, and started walking.  Hwy 8 was in sight, no less than 0.2 miles away.  But at the bottom of the hill, the bike path we were on curved to the right and crossed the road to the Polk County Tourist Information Center.  Can’t miss that turn, huh?  We went into the Tourist Information Center, glad to get out of the heat, and asked about the trail we were on.  Said we were interested in hiking it at least until we got to Hwy 8.  It was 4:00 pm.  The woman said we should be able to make it there and back before they closed at 5pm.  So – off we went, at a pretty good pace, considering the heat.  We walked about 0.7 miles across increasingly confusing terrain until we reached Hwy 8, then turned and headed back.  We got back just in time to purchase our copy of the Ice Age Trail Companion Guide, and to get yet another map, which told us that once again, we had taken a wrong turn no less than 0.1 miles into our hike and gone off on another wild goose chase.  Undaunted, we went back to the place where the bike route crossed the road, and looked beyond on the west side of the road, where we found our first actual Yellow Blaze Mark.  Actually, we had seen several, but this was the first time we realized how vital these small yellow marks were to succeeding in our journey.  We walked the 0.1 mile to Hwy 8, and just a bit beyond, until we touched the sign for the next sub-segment leading up to the Hospital Esker.  We walked back to the car, and determined that our next effort would start with better planning.  Net result: 2.1 miles of trail hiked (0.5 miles of it twice); 4+ miles of useless wandering in 90+ degree heat and humidity.  End of Day 1, Take 2.

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Day 1, Take 1: St. Croix Falls Segment

Day 1, Take 1: Friday, July 5, 2013

Location: Interstate Park, St. Croix Falls, WI

“Let’s walk the Ice Age Trail”, she says.  OK, fine.  1200 miles – that should take us, oh – the rest of our lives. 

Our first day on the trail was not really our first day on the trail.  I should explain.  Theresa and I had a square-dance calling gig out in Western Wisconsin on the 5^th of July, 2013, a Friday.  The event didn’t start until 7 pm, so we felt we had enough time to do something productive with the rest of our day.  Instead, we decided to do something completely unproductive.  In the past, we had talked about walking the Ice Age Trail.  I thought, ‘Can’t finish if you don’t start’.  So, with very little planning or preparation, we headed for the beginning of the trail.  We drove up to St. Croix Falls, headed for the park and asked where the trail started.  We had just enough time to go to the beginning, walk a very short distance, and head for the gig in Woodville.  We were informed by the two friendly people at the front gate that they didn’t really know where the trail started.  They offered maps of the park, which didn’t help much, but we paid the $25 for the annual park sticker and went to the next stop, the Ice Age Center and Gift Shop.  Here, we thought, we could get on our way.  The young girl behind the counter, however, was also unable to tell us where to go to begin our journey.  She offered us more maps, and wished us good walking.  Time was short.  We studied the maps, made a decision, and headed for the boat landing.  There, we thought, we could begin our trip by dipping our toes in the water, turning around, and walking east.  Which we did.  We also spotted a nearby trail, the River Bluff Trail, which we were certain would get us going in the right direction.  We walked up the steep trail to a breathtaking view off the top of the bluff.  Mosquitoes were fierce.  It was hot and humid.  We were out of time.  Our journey begun, we walked back down the hill and headed for the car.  End of day 1, Take 1.

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