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 270th 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 260th 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 280th Ave and 270th 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 280th 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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