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.
No comments:
Post a Comment