Day 47: Grandfather Falls Segment (Part 2), Connecting Route, Lincoln County

Day 47: Friday April 2nd, 2021

Total Miles covered for the day: 13.6

Location 1: Western half of the Grandfather Falls Segment between the trailhead to the north and the beginning of the out-and-back eastern half of the segment to the south (Newwood County Park).  
2.4 miles of trail covered.

Map 28 is a mess.

Seriously - is there another map in the whole book that is this difficult to figure out what part is trail, what part is connecting route, and where to go next? It looks like someone accidentally cut the trail in two pieces and tied a very ugly knot to put them back together again. 

Two weeks ago we had the entire Turtle Rock segment to do, half of Grandfather Falls, the Connecting route between them and part of yet another connecting route to finally get us off the map. Plus we had the Harrison Hills to finish up further to the north. So we got serious and knocked off Turtle Rock on 3/21/21, followed by the last of the Harrison Hills on 3/29/21. Suddenly Grandfather Falls and some connecting routes on Map 28 and a little bit of connecting route on Map 29 was all that was keeping us from finishing the entirety of Lincoln County. Challenge accepted.

I had to take the wayback machine to figure out that we hiked the first part of Grandfather Falls back on August 30th of 2013, exactly 2,798 days ago. I think that's the record-holder for the longest break between starting and finishing a segment. That was our fifth day of hiking the trail, and we hiked only the out-and back segment, mostly because it was an insane late-afternoon Sunday run up to the IAT to do ANYTHING. We looked at the the beautiful hike along the river and decided we would save that for another day, since it was so close. I don't think we had another 2,798 days in mind, but - that's the way it turned out.

So - back in 2013 (has it really been almost 8 years?) we claimed 1.6 miles of trail covered, though now the guidebook says that piece is 1.7, so now I guess we get an extra 0.1 miles to tack onto our trip. Bonus! 

Because today we were hiking with our daughter (who has bed knees) and her dog (who has bad knees) we decided to break the remaining 2.3 miles along the river into three bite-sized chunks. But we were also in only one car, so we brought along bicycles to work the logistics, planning on covering the connecting routes before we were done. Much thought and planning went into it - most of which worked out well.  

We started out by having Theresa drop me off at Camp Newwood Park. Then she and our daughter drove to the north end and started hiking south. The plan was to have me hike north, cross paths  with them along the way and give them a trail report to see if we felt daughter and dog would be able to safely make the rest of the trip. Having just hiked the Turtle Rock segment across the river we knew just how rugged the shoreline could be, so it made sense to do a little reconnaissance. Theresa was hiking north to south because first, it was downhill, and second we thought the northern piece would be the easiest. Well - it was downhill, but as for easy, it was not. More on that later.

I started out at 11:31 am, temperature 43 degrees, raring to go. I hiked down the stairs only to see that the trail actually didn't go down the stairs, but actually started out by the road, so I cut right, walked across the road, touched the post from so many years ago, and doubled back to start my hike. Right away I saw the efforts of the Mobile Skills Crew, who had obviously wanted to make this a feature segment. 

After a brief jaunt I came to the stairs that led up to the Campground, and found them to be in good repair. Then I marched through the Campground, passing by some open but unneeded outhouses, and took the rather steep hike back down from the campsite on the north end. Frankly, I don't know why they didn't take the trail along the river, except that for many hikers the outhouses would be a welcome sight. Even so, the path they took was really far too steep, and has been causing some erosion. On this day, I found it to be particularly hazardous because the top 1/4 inch of soil was thawed and muddy, while the ground below was still frozen. This made for dubious footing along the entire length of trail, when unassuming lovely path turned into a circus act if you step just the wrong way. 

Thaw/frozen trail footing aside, this stretch of river couldn't have been more lovely. It was scenic, easy walking, and there were several short bridges to prevent erosion and improve footing over this obviously highly used piece of trail. And it was scenic. Really pretty. Some of the bridges were a little tilted and could use shoring up, but they were still quite passable. Did I mention the scenery? Plus there was a bench along the river. Speaking of the river, there were places you could clamber out onto the rocks if you like (we didn't go out there) and one or two places it looked like you could actually rock-hop to the other side if you were a bit athletic. We didn't try that, either.

The lower 1.1 miles of trail (up to the first parking area north of Newwood) flew by, as did the second 0.4 miles to the second parking area just a little upriver. I don't know exactly what people were fishing for, but there sure were a lot of people fishing. Like others, I stopped to marvel at the penstocks, imagining the days when they were made of wood. A cooper's nightmare, to be sure. Then I popped up and around and over the bridge, and that's where things started to get a little dicey.

Immediately as I got into this last 0.9 miles along the north end of the Grandfather Falls segment (below the dam), the terrain got less friendly, with more rocks and more mud, too. It is only now I realize, long after finishing the hiking, that the worst part of Grandfather Falls, the northern 0.9 miles, is directly across the river from the worst part of the Turtle Rock segment. We should have known. 

This was about where I expected to see Theresa and our daughter, her dog in tow, and the further I went, the more concerned I got. The footing here was really getting poor. There were very rocky sections, and worse, places where the ice hadn't finished melting, creating truly hazardous ice crossings where there should have been trail. After about two tenths of a mile, having come to the conclusion that the three of them had reached icy, hazardous hiking and turned around, I finally saw them inching down the trail. 

My trail report was exactly as above. very bad hiking ahead, until they reached the parking area, then easy sailing downhill and downriver. I decided it would be best if I turned and walked with them, at least to get past the worst of the ice. We walked as a group until the footing was less treacherous, and then I turned around once more and headed north. I danced around the boulders and ice to the car without any incidents, reaching the north signpost at about 1:00, with the temperature hovering at 47 degrees. I immediately drove the vehicle down to the first Parking area south of Tug Lake Road, where Theresa and our daughter were waiting for me. 

From here, I assured them, the trail was much better. We made a hasty plan for me to go back to the north end and bike the connecting route across the river to Turtle Rock and back, thus cutting off some time later in the day, and I would meet them, I assured them, at the next parking area. I truly don't know what I was thinking. Bad, bad planning. There was no way I was going to finish that and get back to them without making them wait an eternity for me to get there. 

But wait they did, while I biked both ways on the connecting route. 4.2 miles took me a lot longer than I expected, with the hills and the wind factored in. I was 20 minutes later than I expected to be, and they almost could have finished the lower .9 miles by the time I got back. I wished them well on the rest of their hike, and drove down to the park to drop off the car, and walked back up the trail to meet them, so we could walk the remainder of the trail together. 

All in all, I think I covered about an extra 1.4 miles of hiking, though Theresa just did the straight through mileage of 2.3, plus the bonus 0.1 we didn't take credit for the first time. Because I made her wait so long for me, she and her two companions didn't reach the end until 3:00, where it had warmed up to a full 51 degrees. 

Time for more biking.

Location 2: Connecting Route between the Eastern trailhead for the Turtle Rock Segment to the west and the western trailhead for the Grandfather Falls Segment to the east.  
2.1 miles of trail covered.

As I mentioned above, I biked both directions on this 2.1 mile connecting route, and having done so I can tell you there's a right way and a wrong way to do this. Traveling north from Grandfather Falls wasn't so bad, even though it was upriver, because I had a stiff wind at my back. But once I crossed the bridge and turned left to go the last 1.2 miles up CTH E to the start of Turtle Rock, it was uphill and upwind the entire way. Going back down was a breeze, but then once again, after crossing the river and heading south on 107 I was fighting the wind. Tough going all around. 

But that was hours earlier, and now it was Theresa's turn. Because we had only one car, only one person was able to ride at a time, and we wanted the very dangerous part of the connecting routes, along Hwy 107, to be done as soon as possible. To that end, I drove her up to the top of the hill on Tug Lake Road, and had her bike down to Newwood Park, with me trailing behind in the car, flashers going. This was actually part of the NEXT connecting route, but we took it how it came. We repeated the maneuver having me bike the same route south, before actually taking Theresa north to finish this 2.1 mile piece. All in a day's work.

We had a lot of miles to cover, and we didn't want to mess around with Hwy 107 any longer than necessary. I had Theresa go north from Grandfather Falls, the same way I did, until she had crossed the bridge and gotten to Cty E. Then I picked her up and took her up to Turtle Rock and had her bike down again to the bridge. Distance covered, 2.1 miles for Theresa, 4.2 miles for Brock.

Location 3: Connecting Route fragment between Newwood County Park (middle of Grandfather Falls Segment) to the west, and the intersection of Horn Lake Rd and Horseshoe Lake Drive to the east.

9.1 miles of trail covered.

At this point, the only thing separating us from the end of Lincoln County, connecting us from Map 16 in Chippewa County all the way to the near edge of Langlade county on Map 31 was approximately 7 miles of connecting route. We WERE going to finish this today, even though we had to do it one biker at a time.  

We took turns, Theresa and I, biking along while the van trailed slowly behind. First we reached the edge of map 28 (my God, that took how many trips?), then finally to the intersection of Horseshoe Lake Drive and Horn Lake Rd where we had nipped off a bit of the connecting route earlier in the week. Theresa reached our 'sign' to touch at 7:10 pm, on a sunny evening, with diminishing winds and the temperature stubbornly holding at 47 degrees.

I'll describe the route as mostly paved, quite hilly, and largely uneventful. We biked it west to east to avoid the sun in our eyes, and to make sure vehicles coming from behind would see us easily. The last 0.8 miles is gravel (as is the 1.2 miles down to Underdown) but all very passable. 

So this moment was important for many reasons. 

1) We had just completed Lincoln County.

2) We had just completed maps 28 and 29

3) We now had a continuous line on our maps going all the way to Chippewa County.

4) This is a cute story. Back in 2013 when we started all this insanity, we were driving south on Hwy 51 when Theresa pulled out the guidebooks and maps and said, "Turn here!" I did, and she ended up taking us left and right and up and down, and all the way to the end of Horn Lake Road, only to turn back around again and drive the 10 miles to Newwood Park. "Why," I asked, "did we do that?" She told me it was called a 'Connecting Route' and was how they got hikers from one part of the trail to another, and she wanted to see what it was like. So this was our very first 'Connecting Route' experience, and it took us eight years to come back and actually cover it. 

Mission accomplished, after a long but satisfying day.

Running Total: 356.5 miles of trail covered; 36.6 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking. End of Day 47.

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