Day 12: Saturday, August 24, 2013
Location: Eastern half of Mondeaux Esker Segment, between Fawn Ave and the Parking area just past the northern tip of the flowage, west of the Mondeaux Dam, Taylor County, WI
You wouldn’t think we could find a way to spend more money while camping in a national forest, but we just happened to notice that nearby, someone was selling another bike rack. Technically, we can load the bikes into the van on the inside, but frankly it’s a pain. Having another rack we can use to carry stuff on the outside will make for much easier trips in the future. Bike Rack for van: $125.00. Running total: $1518.49.
Traveling to, looking at, buying and traveling back from the bike rack, and then driving both vehicles to the drop and start locations took us until 10:15 am. A bit later than we really wanted to start, but the investment will certainly be of value later on. The temperature was a cool 70 degrees, and we hiked a short 0.6 mile piece at the extreme eastern end of the Mondeaux Esker Segment, from Fawn Ave to Fawn Ave. This section rated a ‘C’ on the hiking scale.
Over the course of the weekend, we came up with our trail rating system. ‘A’ stands for ‘Awesome’, the best possible trail conditions. ‘B’ stands for ‘Beautiful’, meaning a well-groomed trail with decent marking that may have some challenging spots but is overall a joy to hike. ‘C’ stands for ‘Charming’. You may find grassy areas, a number of down trees across the trail, a little occasional marshy or boggy walking, but all-in-all, a reasonable hike. ‘D’ stands for ‘Degraded’. This is a segment that was probably once in pretty good shape, but time and lack of use have allowed brushy understory to invade the corridor, trees have come down across the trail forcing temporary (or not so temporary) walk-arounds, there could be long segments with inadequate marking, and/or severe grade with inadequate switchbacks or dangerous rutting. Numerous rocks or tree roots could also lead to this rating, though a heavy combination of these factors tends to force the rating lower. ‘E’ stands for ‘Enthusiast’. Only a real trail enthusiast could possibly enjoy the segment. Any thick blend of the ‘D’ factors, with perhaps some flooding tossed in there will rate the segment an ‘E’. Finally, ‘F’ stands for ‘Fanatic’. These are the sections of trail that harbor basically all of the above, and probably include additional factors like smell, trails cut on the side of a steep hillside with no cut-in, crossing of beaver dams with gaps and holes hidden by long grass where you could fall through and break an ankle. Sadly, the next section of the Mondeaux Esker Segment rates an ‘F’.
There was really no way to shorten the next section. We drove to where Mondeaux Rd crosses the ice age trail at the southeast corner of the flowage and hiked east back to the car. This section was so full of fallen trees, exposed tree roots, rocks, thickly overgrown swampy footing and every other kind of nuisance and danger that only a person bent on hiking the entire trail would bother to walk it once if they knew what they were facing. I have no doubt that many people have fallen off of or through the beaver dam that lies in the middle of this section. It was so overgrown with weeds and brush that it was nearly impossible to stay atop the dam, and some parts of it had holes that I could have fallen into up to my knees. It didn’t help any that it was getting both hot and humid, but I cannot in good conscience recommend this piece of trail to anyone. We started it at 10:55 am and ended at 1:53 pm, a total of 2.9 miles and three hours of arduous labor. I say labor, because along this section of trail, I personally cleared no less than 50 logs and limbs that were blocking the trail. I’m not talking branches, either. I’m talking whole trees. I cleared hundreds of smaller limbs. I don’t think anyone had seriously worked on this section in years. It will be easier for the next hikers, but with the rest of the section so bad, I’m not sure it was worth my time. The temperature was now 76 degrees, and I was wet from head to toe with sweat.
Next we drove north to the intersection of 104 and 1588, where the trail was a mere 20 feet off the edge of the road. We started at 3:00 (we had taken a leisurely lunch break to cool off and change clothing). It was easy to locate by walking just off-road to the west. We hiked south and the trail started out in really good condition, as though it had been carefully groomed and cleared for easy walking. It rated a ‘B’ for the first couple hundred yards. Then we returned to obnoxious, hazardous walking on the tree roots and rocky hummocks. In one spot, the trail had gone through a recent re-route (I think) and it blazed along a steep, ankle-twisting hillside with little to prevent a fall if you slip. By 4pm we reached the waiting vehicle, once again thankful to have conquered the section, which rated an ‘E’ overall. Mondeaux Esker Segment was not looking like very much fun at all.
The next thing we did was drive to the Mondeaux Dam Recreational Area at the northern tip of the flowage. We wanted to scope out the showers for later, which operate on quarters and are open 24 hours. We decided to not try to hike the whole thing at once, so we drove down to the campsite at Eastwood Campground at 4:45 and jumped on the trail by using one of the many social trails headed down towards the lake. This added about 0.25 miles of extra hiking in both directions, but it was worth it. We hiked south along the eastern side of the flowage, and I’m happy to say this trail was delightful. The sun was starting to get lower over the flowage, and the view of the lake was spectacular from this vista. When we started out it was 76 degrees, but it had reached 80 degrees by the time we finished at 6:08 pm. This was close to two miles of trail, so that was a pretty good pace. I’d rate this piece of trail as a ‘B’.
We rapidly drove back north to the Dam, parked on the WEST side of the dam because it was free, and parking on the east side of the dam would have cost $20 (go figure) and started a very short bit of hiking at 6:15 pm, finishing at the campsite by about 6:45. Finally, we drove beyond the dam to a nice parking area just west along Park Rd, to ‘round the bend’ so to speak and finish our day. As it turned out, the walk was so short it was almost silly, but it looked longer on the maps. Hand-in-hand, we walked to the sign at the edge of the dam and touched our weary hands to it. It’s hard to say exactly how far we walked this day, except that it represented at least half of the 13-mile Segment. Let’s say 7 miles of trail with an extra 0.5 miles of down-and-back hiking. Running total: 99.5 miles of trail covered; 8.1 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking. End of Day 12.
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