Day 57: Highland Lakes Segment (Part 1), Langlade County

Day 57: Friday April 30th, 2021

Total Miles covered for the day: 2.2

Location: The Eastern Highland Lakes Segment, with Forest Road to the west and the Eastern Trailhead to the east on CTH B. 
2.2 miles of trail covered

When I got off work today at 2:00 we decided to be completely impractical and drive up to Langlade County to take a little bite out of our map. We packed up our gear, what little was needed for such a short journey, and picked up our daughter and her wonder-dog Joplin. 

We drove to what is now the Eastern Trailhead for the Highland Hills segment, located on County Road B, on the driveway for Camp Susan and left our target vehicle in the spot that seemed dedicated to the purpose. Then we drove our launch vehicle to the designated parking area on Forest Road to start our day at 3:40 pm with the temperature a warm, sunny 53 degrees.

Hiking from west to east, we found the first half-mile or so of trail to be quite pretty, passing close to Alga Lake. We stopped briefly atop the very scenic overlook to Alga Lake and enjoyed a brief snack and the view of the lake, even though we had hardly gotten started. "This is the pretty part of the hike", I said, knowing that most of this 2.2 mile piece would be walking along a gravel road. 

I can't really think of a way I could have made this walk any nicer. The sun was shining, the trail was beautifully cut along the edge of the lake, but not so close that we had to cling to the edge of the hill like mountain goats. 

Along the route there were signs on different types of trees, making it an interpretive trail as well as a beautiful hike. The one draw-back was that there was an overall scarcity of yellow blazes, but in truth it would have been very hard to get lost on this first half-mile, as the track was single-threaded and there was nowhere else to go.

Sooner than we expected we arrived at Camp Susan, a 4-H camp that wasn’t in operation yet for the year. This was our sign that somewhere, back a couple tenths of a mile or so, we had passed our 400-mile mark on the trail. We decided that we crossed 400 miles at precisely the location where we were overlooking Alga Lake. We performed a retroactive happy-dance, and hiked on.

Camp Susan lies between Susan Lake to the south and a perpetual bog to the north, that is shaped a bit like a ghost or a bat if you look at the topography lines. This wetland area is significantly flooded, and apparently has been at least since last fall where 6-8 inches of water covered the driveway. When we got there it was down to 3-4 inches, but it was still quite flooded. The Ice Age National Scenic Trail Hiker Resource Map suggests a short bypass uphill from the driveway on the south side to get around it, but as far as I can tell that meant walking all the way around Alta Lake on the south side. This was quite doable, but we chose instead to trust to our waterproof shoes and plow through. Sticking to the shallowest water we could find and moving quickly, we all made it through unscathed. 

I'm not sure we're the right kind of people for Camp Susan. The cabins go for $425 a night on weekends. We, on the other hand, sleep in tents when we're really glamming it, or in the van when camping isn't available. I like old school better. 

Once past Susan Lake, the trail started following a road that ran to the north of Alta Lake and stayed a very drivable road all the way to the waiting vehicle on CTH B. It was certainly an easy hike, because this was the driveway for Camp Susan. There were essentially no hills and pretty good footing all around. Basically a long, gravel driveway. 

One thing that was interesting as we walked was that we passed through mature stands of trees that had a very unnatural feel to them. There was very little understory, and there was grass growing beneath the trees. We identified one stand of mature balsam trees, entirely limbed up from below, and I had never seen anything else like it, ever. Someone had, at some point in the past, gone through extensive work to give the 1.5 mile driveway to Camp Susan a park-like quality to it by grooming all these tees and allowing grass to grow underneath. It was at least partially successful, though not as successful as they were probably hoping for. I could see there was still some effort being put in to stack the branches and keep things sort-of tidy, but it was tidy in the way a 14-year-old boy's room might look if he was told he had to clean up his room or he couldn't go to the sleepover at his friends house that started in a half-hour. 

There were a few birds. There was a nice breeze. It was a very nice walk with the family. We ended our hike at 5:00 pm, with the temperature unmoved at 53 degrees. A little picnic, and it was time to go home.

Running Total: 401.9 miles of trail covered; 36.8 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking. End of Day 57.

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