Non-Hiking Day 1: Saturday, August 3, 2013
Location: Plover River Segment, Marathon County, WI
Today was an exceptionally beautiful day. We volunteered to join the Mobile Skills Crew putting the finishing touches on the northern extension of the Plover River segment, from Hwy 52 where the previous segment ended to CTH HH. The weather was great, and we spent a wonderful day learning exactly what it takes to build and maintain a beautiful trail along very difficult terrain. As first-timers, we were given the illustrious title of ‘loppers’. We were handed our Stihl hand-saws and loppers, and told to make the trail beautiful. Remove offending branches, cut down small trees, that sort of thing. Actually, we were given better instruction than that, but we worked fairly independently among a group of about 40 people with a wide variety of trail-making tools who were very good at what they did. I liked many of them, and they were older than I would have pictured. Most of them had been on site, camping and working on the trail, since the previous Wednesday. We got just the barest hint of the amount of work they put in, and the results were delightful. I don’t really know how much trail we walked that day, but I think we nearly made it a mile down the trail at least, hacking off limbs and uprooting small trees that would later grow into bigger problems. When we were done for the day, we hung around and had an excellent dinner cooked by an elderly volunteer who was decidedly revered by the crew for the meals she was able to prepare. Theresa and I met a charming young woman from the Chicago area, Jamie, who had once worked up in the boundary waters, and at the same lodge Theresa worked at all those years ago. Theresa said it was like meeting herself. She got gooseflesh when she discovered that Jamie worked at exactly the same places she did. They knew many of the same people, even though a couple decades separated their paths. Small world. We decided not to tally any part of the trail today, because we would just go in and walk it later, anyway. We didn’t touch any signs, so it wouldn’t have counted anyway. Also – we picked up a copy of the official Ice Age Trail Atlas. Another great tool, and necessary if you really care about your hiking.
Running total unchanged: 28.8 miles of trail covered; 5.3 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking. End of non-hiking day 1.
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