Day 66: Northern Blue Hills Segment (Part 2), Rusk County 

Tuscobia Segment (Part 1), Barron County

Day 66: Thursday May 27th, 2021

Total Miles covered for the day: 6.8, plus 0.3 miles extra hiking

Location 1: The Northern Blue Hills Segment, between S. Bucks Lake Road to the west and Stout Road to the east. 
4.9 miles of trail covered, plus 0.3 miles extra hiking

I have so many wonderful things to say about today I don't know where to start. I guess I'll start by saying we knew what we were getting into. We knew it, we accepted it, and we did it of our own free will. 

Here are some random thoughts to get started:

• Beavers don't care about people
• Water is very wet
• Most of the rocks on the trail have been there for 10,000 years
• The space-time continuum is disrupted by mud holes
• Sometimes the weather forecast is right
• Ticks will still find you when it's pouring rain outside
• 41 degrees is only acceptable for hiking when it's not raining
• It's always best to know which way is downhill on a long hike and plan accordingly

I took two days of vacation this week, hoping to be able to go hiking (weather permitting). We wanted to make a serious push to get more trail covered in our Western Gap, which is the unhiked portion of trail between the Western Terminus and Langlade County. The gap is now just over 60 miles, and we figured if we hiked Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and part of Monday we could significantly reduce that number. 

Except that the forecast for Thursday was rain. All day. From 7 am to 7 pm or later. And it wasn't supposed to be particularly warm, either. 46 degrees was the forecast. But we hated the idea of losing an entire day of hiking, so we figured we could just gear up and hike in the rain. No problem, right?

But we wanted to get our feet wet first, so to speak. Before we dove into some long segment of trail, we wanted to hike a small piece and see how bad the trail conditions were. So we parked one car at the western trailhead sign on South Bucks Lake Road, approximately 0.1 miles from County Hwy F, and drove to the other trail sign about a half mile further east, so we could hike the eight tenths of a mile between them. Then, and only after actual trail hiking, would we decide if we were going to hike more trail today or switch to connecting routes. 

We started hiking at 10:22 am, with the temperature a cool 41 degrees. It was raining steadily, but it wasn't a complete downpour. We had on our raingear and several layers underneath, so we would stay mostly warm and dry. We decided to hike with only our hiking sticks, not even fanny packs with food and beverage. 

What we found on this bit of trail was a single-track dirt trail, very wet from the rain, but not at all 'muddy'. It was hummocky, a little bit rocky. We were quite pleased, in fact, that the trail conditions seemed pretty good. 

There was a single bridge laid across a stream that would have been fairly simple to cross without it, but one never complains about a bridge over running water, especially in the rain. My only beef was that the trail had been cut too steeply on the west side of the bridge, and it's causing some erosion on the hill.

Ferns everywhere, enjoying the rain.

The early spring flowers were all gone. The trillium, enjoying their halcyon days only a week earlier, were almost entirely gone, with only the last few blossoms hanging limp and drab pink in the steady rain. The spring beauties were gone, and the trout lilies, and the hepatica. In their place the ferns have started their long reign, bowing only to the raspberries and leaving room for the occasional columbine, just now making their first appearances. There was also a fresh bloom of wild Geranium, but all of those hearty purple blooms were as downcast as we were, doing their best to weather the storm. Only the ferns seemed indifferent to the cold and rain. 

Wild Geranium in rain-shedding mode (flower down)

But to be perfectly honest, looking at life through the tunnel of a rain hood, I may have missed a few flowers along the way. 

When we reached the car, it was 11:04 am, and the temperature was still only 41 degrees. The rain was no lighter than before, but no heavier either. 

We decided that despite the rain, we would rather hike in the woods than on the connecting routes, because that way we would be out of the wind, and the trees would take some of the bite out of the raindrops. Plus, we felt that we wouldn't be bothered by mosquitoes and black flies if it was raining, so better to get the trail portion over with.

So we arranged our gear for the day and drove to the parking area at the end of Stout Road, which is the only way to cut the long-ish Northern Blue Hills segment into pieces. Even though this added 0.3 miles to the hike, twice, it was still worth not having to hike the full eight plus miles in one go. 

We started Part 2 of our day's 'adventure' at 12:30 pm. It was now 42 degrees, and it was raining steadily. It wasn't a gully-washing frog-drowner, but it was steady, heavy rain, on the order of a half-inch an hour, and 42 degrees was a bit on the chilly side. This was not going to be our favorite hike.

And having our worst fears about trail conditions confirmed within the first 0.3 miles, and before we got onto what is official yellow-blazed IAT didn't help our mood any. 

The spur trail started out with rivulets of water running down one of the two parallel tire tracks. This small amount of rain that had accumulated on the road itself needed somewhere to go, and the spur had been fashioned using a bulldozer. That typically means digging in a little, leaving nowhere for water to go to actually leave the road, and the added pressure of vehicle tires compressing deep ruts into the dirt pretty much guarantees that rain like this will cause erosion. 

And it got worse. Within a tenth of a mile, little side-rivulets came tumbling down out of the woods to join the water on the road. There was now a steady flow of water digging deep into the muddy, sandy soil. And we continued hiking down, down, and downhill. The side rivulets became side streams. All water from the surrounding forest came pouring off the sodden soil and dumped onto the trail where it gathered into a reckless force, gashing out foot-deep washouts and turning the 'road' into a ravine. 

"Go hiking", they said. "Explore Wisconsin", they said. "It will be fun", they said. 

So when we finally reached the bottom of the hill, three tenths of a mile later, the torrent of water that was rushing down the road finally started leaving the road, going downhill to the northwest. Water from the other direction was equally impressive, and there was a morass of flowing water where the road was supposed to be. In the middle of that pond we saw the spot where the official IAT cut northwest off the road, following all that water downhill. We found this sign sticking up out of the water.

Now - we had reached this spot at 12:42 pm, twelve minutes after we started walking. But that's where the space-time continuum thing comes in. Mudholes in cold rain must have every bit as much influence on space-time as large planetary objects, because I could have sworn it took us a half-hour to get there. 

Thankfully, the trail did not stick to the bottom of the topography, which meant all that water had somewhere else to go for a while, and we didn't have to walk through it. This first part of the trail follows an esker, or a ridge, or some other hilly formation where we were able to walk a short distance along the ridge top with steep drop-offs to both sides. 

This didn't last terribly long, and fairly soon we were hiking down a steep hill, only to find ourselves in Beaver territory.

Directly in front of us, where there used to be a nicely-blazed charming piece of trail that went between two lakes that had been created by beavers, was a newly constructed beaver dam that lay directly on top of the now-buried trail, raising the level of the upper lake by approximately three and a half feet. And it wasn't possible to just walk around below the dam because another dam construction somewhere downstream had backed up that water all the way to the footing of the dam we were walking on. The trail was gone, and there was no going around it. The only way through was over the top. 

To the uninitiated, the idea of walking across a beaver dam sounds really interesting. Fun almost. I mean - the thing is water-tight, right? So it should just be a matter of stepping where there was dirt or a solid branch or log, or whatever. Piece of cake, right?

Except that it's not. If you look carefully at the photos above, especially the first one, you can see that beaver dams are constructed in such a way that a great many of the top-most logs and branches are sloped uphill, against the push of the water. And, you'll also notice that most of the branches used are stripped of bark. And this was a brand-new construction, so most of those logs were slippery to begin with, and it was pouring rain, which made it worse. And to top it all off, there isn't anywhere near as much mud as you think there should be, especially if you think of the dam as a crossing, rather than what it is really intended to be, which is a way to stop water. 

You see - beavers don't care about humans. They aren't trying to build a bridge that makes bipedal crossings of their pond constructions convenient. They aren't even building it as a bridge for quadrupedal crossings. Your dog wouldn't find it very crossable, either. And they don't care about the bridges you may have built, or the trails you have in place. They will build right on top of them, or just drown them, all to suit their own needs. Greedy, self-centered little buggers - it's almost like they're trying to be more like us. 

To be honest, this was nearly the end of our hiking day. Seventy-five feet of ankle-breaking beaver dam was crossed one step at a time, looking for anything that provided 'safe' footing, leaning heavily on our hiking sticks and cursing the whole situation. All that rainfall had lifted the pond on the up-water side to the absolute crest of the beaver dam, and water trickled over the top in dozens of places. The mud was so fresh we sometimes dislodged some as we stepped.  

After what seemed like an eternity, we finally got across, only to look uphill and see the entire canopy of a newly fallen aspen tree pointing down the trail directly towards us. We had to pick our way under, over and through the many branches just to get down the trail. I actually did stop and pull out the saw at that point. I spent a few minutes cutting the branches off the main trunk of the tree so it would be easier to get through if anyone else was insane enough to hike through here in this weather. I didn't bother to throw them off the trail though, because I figured the beaver would just come back and see that they were now cut and ready to drag away and do the job for me. For all I knew, it was our approach that scared the beaver away, because this tree didn't look like it had been there more than a couple of hours. 

When I was finished cutting the limbs off the tree and helping the beavers out, I caught up to Theresa with her foot up on a log, trying to adjust her leg gaiters.  

And that's when it started to hail.

I don't know if someone in heaven was trying to send us signs, telling us to turn around and go back. There were certainly enough reasons for us to abandon the effort and live to hike another day, but once we had passed the beaver's gauntlet, the hail felt more like an 'I-told-you-so' than a warning. But by then it was just too late. We were committed. 

It didn't hail large, and it didn't hail long, but the rain never slowed down. At least the trail conditions improved for a while. 

We were once again on a nice single-track trail, passing through a nice balsam woods, staying to the tops of hills for the most part. It was still fairly hummocky, with nothing major going up or down. We walked past a nice pond, where I took this short video.

We ran into a few more beaver problems, but nothing like the first dam crossing. As we passed the many ponds there were several places where the water was just too high, and we had to carefully pick our way across.  

This went on until we finally got up onto a four-wheeler track and away from the ponds. This was actually really good hiking, but sadly it didn't last long. We ended up crossing a road of some kind, though I didn't get coordinates and have no idea where it was when looking at a satellite map, and from there on it got nothing but worse. 

The two-track that we were following turned into alternating mud, muck, ponds, washouts, and eventually a place where the trail attempted to cross the convergence of two major streams, and major rock-hopping was needed to stay even a little bit dry. 

Parts of the trail have been washed out completely, and work-arounds become the norm, although there are places where intact bridges make river crossings less nightmarish.

I noticed one spot as we walked along that had obviously been built up by dumping dirt and building a raised area for the roadway, similar to what you'll find with railroads. Except that instead of installing a large culvert to let the stream flow through naturally where it used to flow, they diverted it to run on the uphill side until a much lower crossing further down the trail. 

Oh, you silly humans.  

Never - and I do mean NEVER - try to divert water uphill using dirt. The roadway is slowly being eroded, and it's getting to the point where even four-wheelers won't be able to pass soon. And all that mess downriver could have been avoided if they hadn't tried to outsmart the creek. 

So once we got the last of the creek crossings behind us, we found ourselves on a logging road, and if anything, it got worse again. The puddles in the road had turned to ponds. Whole lakes. There were eagles in trees fishing from the ponds that were forming on the trail. OK, there were no eagles, but time and time again we found ourselves clinging to the side of the hill, trying to make our way through the sucking muck without losing our shoes.  

We found Lake Okeechobee sitting across one part of the trail, followed by several iterations of the Okefenokee swamp. 

But nothing lasts forever, not even mud, and the last 1 1/2 miles wasn't too bad. We got up out of the muddy river areas and onto some upland grassy tracks, but the grass was very long and going to seed. We very nearly missed one turn because a bear had knocked down a corner marker for a critical 90 degree turn. In general, not quite enough blazes for our comfort, though they were recent and very neatly painted.

The last 1/2 mile was very grassy, and almost entirely downhill. It definitely needed mowing. If not for the rain we would have picked up 100 ticks through here. Instead, we only got a dozen or so. The rain even lightened up a little to a steady drizzle rather than a continuous downpour. Enough so that I was able to take a few more pictures.

As we spilled out of the woods and onto S Bucks Lake Road, it was 4:30 pm, and the temperature was back down to 41 degrees. Our hands were numb and our feet were soaked through to the squishy socks stage. It was still raining steadily. We had survived. 

Location 2: The western end of the Tuscobia segment, between the western trailhead to the west and 21st Street to the east.
1.9 miles of trail covered

You would have thought, reading what we went through on the Northern Slog, that we would have enough sense to stop for the day, but you'd be wrong. In fact, as I remember back and type about it now I can't imagine what made us think that 'just one more piece of trail' sounded like a good idea. 

And yet, after picking up our cars, we decided to head down to the far end of the Tuscobia segment and nibble off a bit more of that piece of trail.

So we dropped off one vehicle at the western trailhead, and drove the short distance to the parking area on 21st Street. This isn't a large parking area, and I'm not 100% sure we were parked where we were supposed to be, but it worked out fine. 

The time was 6:00 pm. It was 42 degrees, and it was still raining. 

There are a few parts of the Ice Age Trail that travel along these rails-to-trails conversion bike paths, and I love every last one of them. While it's true you are less likely to see swans and beaver dams, and the path will remain uncharacteristically flat and straight, you will nevertheless see a lot of what is 'out there' in Wisconsin, and nobody said that hiking had to be hard all the time. 

The Tuscobia Trail is straight, reasonably well maintained crushed gravel that has been allowed to get a little long in the tooth. There is just enough dirt on the trail over the top of the gray crushed stone that it gets muddy during weather like this, and I wouldn't want to ride a bike on most of it when there has been recent rain. 

There is one spot where there is a major dip in the trail, marking a place where an old bridge had been removed, and it is now possible to go right down to the edge of the creek. There is a bench there, and sometimes people come here to fish, though it seems a pretty small creek to me.

Of the many plants that lined the trail, this is one I didn't want to see. It's called Giant Hogweed, and it's dangerous to humans. It won't sting like nettles, and it doesn't contain urushiol like poison ivy, oak or sumac, but it has a chemical in the sap that will make your skin extremely sensitive to sunlight, and you can get severe burns and scarring if you don't wash it off thoroughly.  

Giant Hogweed. Learn to avoid this dangerous plant.

Another interesting flower we were seeing for the first time this year was Limber Honeysuckle, a very pretty climbing vine or low shrub that produces gorgeous red and yellow flowers. It's considered invasive, but I think it's nice. 

Limber Honeysuckle

And then we were done. 

At 6:59 pm, with the temperature all the way up to 43 degrees, we reached the sign and found ourselves back at the car. 

It had just stopped raining.

Running Total: 457.7 miles of trail covered; 39.6 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking. End of Day 66.

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