Day 53: 

Southern Blue Hills Segment (Part 1), Connecting Route, Rusk County

Timberland Hills Segment (Part 2), Burnett County

Day 53: Wednesday April 14th, 2021

Total Miles covered for the day: 4.6

Location 1: Northernmost piece of the Southern Blue Hills Segment, along Yuker Road.
0.8 miles of trail covered

Monday was a day of rain. 

Tuesday was a day of rain and snow.

Wednesday morning we woke up in the car and looked out to an inch of snow covering the ground. But we were determined to make the most of it. 

Yesterday we hiked nothing but connecting routes, and decided we would at least start the day that way today. Between the Northern Blue Hills Segment and the Southern Blue Hills segment is a 1.1 mile connecting route, attached to a 0.8 mile piece of the Southern Blue Hills Segment that walks along Yuker Road. We had looked at hiking both of these the evening before but decided it would be too late in the day when we were done, so we left it for this morning. The trail used to go straight through, rather than taking this horseshoe-shaped bypass, but there is now a 'Trail Closed' sign blocking the way. I'm sure there's a sad story there somewhere. 

We started by driving down Yuker Road to the place where it heads south into the woods and park a car, then drove back to the other end of Yuker Road near County Highway F. If you're doing this, by the way, don't bother looking for yellow blazes along Yuker Rd. There are none, except for one on each end. 

Yuker road is unremarkable. It's a gravel road. It's mostly level. It curves a little. And it cuts nearly a mile off of the 7.3 mile Southern Blue Hills segment, so it's worth doing for old travelers like us that don't like segments that long. 

Location 2: Connecting Route between the the Northern Blue Hills Segment to the north and the Southern Blue Hills Segment to the south.  

1.1 miles of trail covered

Hiking done, we drove the van to the southern trailhead of the Northern Blue Hills Segment. I dropped Theresa off, then went about 1/10th of a mile or so farther west to park along the road where it was a bit wider. We hiked that piece of road from north to south.

Even though County Highway F is a paved road, and one of the few roads that cut through this part of Wisconsin, we saw literally no traffic in either direction as we hiked along the road. We had chosen to hike it from north to south, though it wouldn't have mattered which way we went because it was down in the middle and uphill on both ends. 

And here we actually saw yellow blazes. The hiking was chilly, because the snow hadn't completely melted yet, but the sun was out and the worst of the weather was over. And there were one or two things to enjoy along the way. Theresa noted a particularly pretty creek and woodland area, where the birds were singing, and everything just felt like it was coming to life. We heard the cranes and the geese flying around, and woodpeckers hammering at trees. There were a lot of birds, actually. And the sun was on our faces. I've had worse days. 

I also noticed an abundance of aluminum cans along the road, just ripe for salvage. When I'm done with the trail I'm going to write a book called 'Hiking the Ice Age Trail Connecting Routes for Fun and Profit". Or maybe not. Time to move on.

Location 3: The middle section of the Timberland Hills Segment, between Boyd Ln to the east and the end of Skinner Rd to the west.
2.7 miles of trail covered

Instead of nibbling away at more connecting route, or walking another part of the Tescobia Segment, we decided to head back to the west end and try our luck at a little bit of trail hiking. We decided to risk hiking some of the Timberland Hills Segment, adding to the tiny amount we had hiked on Tuesday. (Was that only yesterday?)

We parked our van back down at the end of Skinner Road, and drove the car up to the very nice parking area on Boyd Lane to start our hike south. We started at 3:15 pm, and the temperature was 44 degrees. A beautiful day for hiking. 

Let me just say that this was an absolutely beautiful trail with one huge draw-back. They apparently ran out of yellow paint while putting out blazes, because there were stretches where you could walk two tenths of a mile without seeing a single yellow blaze in either direction. Considering how the IAT has a propensity to careen wildly off a perfectly nice and hikable multi-use path into the woods and along some Billy goat trail full of rocks, it's only natural to keep your eyes peeled for just such a diversion from common sense. 

I'll tell you up front that there are no such changes in direction. The whole trail through this piece of the Timberland Hills Segment remains on broad multi-use trails that are groomed in wintertime for skiing. So the anxiety-inducing lack of yellow blazes can be ignored, to a point. Even so, I remember one intersection I came to where the trail split both left and right and there was no blaze in sight. If not for the fact that we had downloaded a series of GPS coordinates to our phones to use as trail guides, we could have easily gone a quarter or a half-mile in the wrong direction, only to have to back-track and try the other path until we finally spotted a blaze.  That, and ONLY that, is the only thing worth complaining about on this piece of trail. Now to the good stuff.

As we hiked, the gently rolling hills often went past lovely scenery, and we heard and saw many swans, geese, ducks (mostly buffleheads), cranes, woodpeckers, chickadees, phoebes, hawks, and many others. There was a cabin along the route that apparently is available for rent, at least in the wintertime. I'm not sure about summer. It might be worth asking. 

Of course, there were places along the path where persistent water made the area a bit muddy, and it was occasionally necessary to bypass a puddle by walking a little into the woods, but nothing too difficult. 

One oddity we saw was that along the trail, when rocks occasionally stuck up into the path, the tops of the rocks had been painted orange. We had great fun debating the purpose of the painted rocks. Was it because they intended to come through and remove the rocks that were marked? Was it because they needed to lift the lawnmower blades a bit when they got to the rocks? In the end, though, I think Theresa got it right. She theorized that the rocks were painted orange in an effort to forewarn skiers in case the snow got a little thin. If you see orange on the trail, stay away from it if you don't want to damage your skis. 

 

We ended our hike at 5:34 pm, the temperature a balmy 46 degrees. 

Running Total: 383.7 miles of trail covered; 36.8 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking. End of Day 53.

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