Day 71: Connecting Route, Rusk and Chippewa Counties

Chippewa Moraine Segment (Part 3), Chippewa County

Day 71: Friday, June 11th, 2021

Total Miles covered for the day: 23.2, plus 20.6 miles extra hiking/biking

Location 1: The Connecting Route in Rusk and Chippewa Counties between the Southern Blue Hills to the North and the Chippewa Moraine Segment to the south.

21.3 miles of trail covered.

I have been sharing in recent posts that we have been working very hard at closing our Western Gap, which when the weekend started was down to 29.1 miles, comprised of the 21.3 mile connecting route, 1.9 miles of the Chippewa Moraine Segment, and 5.9 miles of the Harwood Lakes Segment. 

For the first time in our Ice Age hiking and biking adventures Theresa and I split up and covered ground on different days. Naturally this presents a problem with documenting how many days we've been at it, so to make matters easier I am documenting the connecting route as though we both covered the whole thing in one day, which was true for me though Theresa took a little longer, and had to do it going both ways.

I wasn't able to go out until Friday this week, but Theresa could go earlier, so she went out with one vehicle and did short out-and-back jaunts from the car. She used both hiking and biking, but actually did a lot of walking because of the hills and the heat. While she was there doing a solo hike, the temperature was in the 90s and the heat index well over 100. She went out early, spent a lot of time resting in the air conditioning in the car, and tried to stay out of the sun as much as possible, but in the end she got a migraine headache and was unable to quite finish before I arrived. By Friday she had managed to cover all but 1.1 miles of the connecting route, and had to go both ways to do it. 

Today the weather forecast was for another scorching day, reaching 90 degrees by 10 am, so to beat the heat we got up at 4:30 am just as the first light of dawn was thinking about arriving, and got ourselves out on the road by 6:00 am. 

The plan was for Theresa to walk the small portion of trail she hadn't covered while I biked the whole thing as fast as I could, and that's what we did. I dropped her off at the intersection of 267th Ave and Hwy 40, then drove to the western trailhead for the Chippewa Moraine Segment and parked the car. While Theresa walked to the car, I started biking north. 

It was 6 am, and the temperature was 66 degrees. Ready - GO!

The plan worked exceptionally well, and because I was motivated to finish before the heat of the day I wasn't stopping to take photos. But here was my experience overall.

267th Avenue was gravel and mostly downhill until I got to Hwy 40, then the route along Hwy 40 and on up 117th street was relatively flat and all paved. I buzzed past Round Lake County Park without ever really seeing it, rolling directly onto Round Lake Road and around the hairpin corner by 298th Ave. By the time I got to schoolhouse lake I had encountered a couple of small hills, and shortly before I hit the Rusk/Chippewa County Line, Theresa caught up to me in the car. 

We discussed maps and options and we decided she would just follow me in the van until I got to the parking area at Potato Creek State Wildlife Area on Dzimiela Road. At that point most of the hills I would encounter were behind me. It was 7 am, and the temperature was up to only 68 degrees. The plan was working. 

For the next leg, rather than simply continuing on, we decided to take me to the other end of the Connecting Route at the southern end of the Southern Blue Hills Segment and I would bike the other direction, once again ending at Potato Creek. 

I was on the bike and moving again at 7:20 am, with Theresa following behind in the van. Old 14 Road (or Bass Lake Road) between the Southern Blue Hills and Weyerhauser is a charming road with rolling hills, and they had been recently paved so it felt like I was riding on glass. The smooth surface made for an easy extra 3 or 4 miles an hour whether I was peddling uphill or rolling downhill. 

After crossing the railroad tracks and pulling into town, the Connecting Route follows the first right, crosses the tracks again, goes a very short distance along Hwy 40 and cuts south on Historic Road. Except that just as I pulled into town and within sight of the tracks for the second crossing, I was forced to wait while a not-too-long train lumbered through town. 

After the train passed I picked up speed and found myself on Historic Road very quickly. 

There is a historical marker very near Historic Road, telling exactly why this is called 'Historic Road', and you can read about it here if you care. 

If instead you're wondering about the trail conditions, this is a rough downhill road with an unpleasant gravel surface that makes for hard walking and hard bicycling. It was the kind of road where it was necessary to pedal when going downhill. Fortunately, it's only a mile long, so it didn't put too much of a cramp in my day. What it did do, however, was allow for us to plan the last leg of the trip. 

Theresa had one more section to hike that she hadn't managed to complete the day before, a 0.4 mile section along Right-of-Way Road. So while I biked towards that spot, she drove there and parked at the location she still needed to hike and started walking that roadway, needing to walk the distance both ways again to get back to the car. 

From my end, the hill on CTH F between Historic Rd and Right-of-Way Rd was impressively there, and biking up was a testament to how much walking we had been doing, because I was able to do it with surprising ease. Turning onto Right-of-way Rd I knew it would eventually turn to gravel, but that didn't happen until I was about halfway through the horseshoe. 

Barreling down the gravel I looked ahead and saw Theresa walking, and she was taking a very slow amble, indeed. I decided to make a fool of myself and I 'honked" loudly from my bike and make all kinds of racket as I came up to her from about 50 yards back. I really wish I hadn't done that. 

As it turns out, Theresa had been watching a doe and her fawn in a field just off the road, and the fawn had just started nursing, a sight that neither she nor I had ever witnessed before. The deer were unaware that Theresa was there, and but for my approach she would have been able to watch that tiny miracle a little bit longer. As it was, I broke the magic and the deer raced away. In hindsight, had I been more quiet the deer still would have heard me approach just five or ten seconds later, but that would have been five or ten seconds more of watching that special exchange between doe and fawn and I deeply regret that I interfered with that.

At that point I had only a few more miles to go, and Theresa predicted that I would probably be waiting for her at Potato Creek before she would arrive with the car. I took off on the bike. After I left, I'm glad to report Theresa did get to see the doe again as she crossed the road with not one, but two spotted fawns. 

As to her prediction, she did end up being correct, but only because I was too stubborn to get off the bike and walk, even up that ridiculous gravel hill on the south end of the Right-of-Way horseshoe road. Topping the hill, it was an easy downhill run all the way to Pondell Road, and then a nice, easy glide along the second Right-of-Way Road, then finally down Dzimiela Road and into the Potato Creek parking area. The time was 8:20 am, and the temperature was 70 degrees. We had beaten the heat.

In addition to completing the Connecting Route, we had also completed Rusk County, completed maps 12, 13, and 14, and had reduced our western gap to a mere 7.8 miles of hiking. 

When I asked Theresa what she remembered about the connecting route, she told me there were two things. The first was experiencing a head-spinning rush of sweet scent when she was walking past the corner of CTH F and Right-of-Way Road because there was a field there that was bursting with white clover. The smell reminded her of when she was a kid on the farm, and she would go out and lay in the clover and suck the sweetness from the tiny, little flowers while the sun baked down. She still does that every now and again. Suck clover flowers, that is. She does very little laying around in the fields any more. 

The other thing she remembered was the kindness of strangers. Several times as she was either walking or riding her bike, a vehicle would pause as they passed and ask her if she was ok. The heat index, remember, was 106 degrees, and people were concerned that she was out there by herself in the heat. One person asked her where her water was and she realized she had forgotten it in the car. He immediately drove home and got a bottle of ice cold water for her to drink. He was not the only person to stop and check on her. The next morning she woke up and found that there was a note on her car imploring her not to go out again in the heat because it was going to be another insanely hot day. She took their advice and stayed in out of the heat that day, the only reason she didn't finish the connecting route before I arrived on Thursday night. 

On the way to our next location, we passed by this soft-shelled turtle on the side of the road.

Location 2: Chippewa Moraine Segment, between the Interpretive Center to the west and 144th Street to the east

1.9 miles of trail covered

The fact that I had finished the Connecting Route by 8:30 in the morning gave us an unexpected opportunity, and certainly not one that Theresa had prepared for that morning at 5 am. It was still cool enough that if we went immediately we could hike the last 1.9 miles of the Chippewa Moraine Segment. The problem was Theresa needed to change her footwear and that meant going all the way back to the hotel. By the time we got to the trail and had our two vehicles in place, it was 10:30 am, and as we stepped out of the car to start walking, we heard the rumble of thunder. 

"Nope", Theresa said. "Not doing it. Not with lightning. No way. Nope."

I this particular case I agreed with her completely. 

So instead we looked at the weather to see how long it was going to rain. The forecast was for rain to continue until about 12:30, then it was supposed to clear up for most of the afternoon. So we decided to go down and take a drive along Hwy 178 out of Cornell because it ran alongside the Chippewa River and made for very scenic driving. 

We started down the road and got about 8 miles and the blue sky started popping out. 

"Seriously?" I said aloud. "It's not even 11:15."

So we waited a few more minutes, checked radar maps and hourly forecasts again, then shucked the whole thing and used the 'stick-your-head-out-the-window-if-you-want-to-know-if-its-raining' method. Despite what was showing up on the weather apps on our phones - it wasn't raining, and it didn't look like it was going to rain. We drove back to start our hike. 

We parked at the Interpretive Center one more time, and geared up, pausing only long enough to enjoy the many birds feeding there one more time. Then we touched the sign and we were on our way. It was 11:41 am, and the temperature had dipped down to 84 degrees thanks to the little cool front that came with the brief but heavy rain. 

Typical signage along this segment

Northern Maidenhair Fern

Common Bracken Fern (Pteridium aquilinum)

Having hiked two other pieces of the Chippewa Moraine Segment we knew exactly what to expect, and we weren't disappointed. We started out with a long, downhill stretch as we walked east, on a wide, dirt, single-track trail that was bordered on both sides by heavy mature oak forests and an understory of ferns. This early part of the trail had a great many roots running across the walking surface, but in the end it served as a means of preventing more serious soil erosion so it works out for the best. 

Early Meadow Rue

Roots and Rocks on the Trail

The terrain is very hummocky, and every hill leads to another pond or lake. One side trail led to a remote camping area, but we didn't choose to follow out that far to see it. For one thing we were trying to beat the heat as it climbed steadily while we walked. For another thing, there was more thunderstorms in the forecast, and we didn't trust the skies. We didn't believe it would hold out until 4 or 5 pm, so we wanted to keep moving. Third, even though it had rained recently, there was no reprieve on the humidity. The walking was easy, but it was like walking through liquid air, the sweat just laying limp on our bodies as it couldn't evaporate into the already-saturated air. 

Learn as you hike!

When we reached the halfway point at County M we didn't even slow down. Theresa smacked both road signs as she marched through and didn't even turn her head in the process. 

Which is not to say we weren't getting any joy out of it whatsoever. As I mentioned, there were lakes everywhere. In fact, I'd estimate we were never any more than three-minutes' walk in one direction or another from the last or the next lake. And in every pond or lake there were red-breasted mergansers, along with a small variety of other ducks. We never got close enough to get a photo, but they were plentiful. 

Also the birds never gave up their serenade as we passed, and there were at least 3 or 4 benches placed along the trail at particularly lovely spots. We like benches. Benches are our friends. 😁

Two-flower dwarf dandelion among the ferns

Two-flower dwarf dandelion

More roots and rocks

South of CTH M the trail goes straight south, more or less, and then takes a left as it intersects with the Circle Trail. Then about two tenths of a mile later the trail joins up with the 'Plantation Trail', and it was obvious from the first that we weren't in Kansas any more. 

American Fly Honeysuckle

Canadian Lousewort

No sooner had we started walking on the Plantation Trail than the grass got long, the forest canopy changed, and we started running into mud. It's not that there were no problems earlier - there were one or two places where the trail got too close to the ponds and there was a little mud to avoid - but all of the sudden we were on an old logging road made by a bulldozer and those will invariably hold water that you have to walk through or around. 

It didn't stay that way long. It's not like the last 4 tenths of a mile were terrible, but they were different than the rest. We practically ran the last legs of this segment. Sweat was dripping from our bodies. The flies and mosquitoes had discovered us, and we could hear the distant rumble of thunder. We reached the car at 12:46 pm, and the temperature was 85 degrees, with a heat index in the 90s. 

All in all, the Chippewa Moraine Segment is a showcase trail, with plenty of blazes, and perhaps a few too many roots on the trail from overuse, and it brings you easily from scenic waterway to scenic waterway. There are other segments that are similar, like the Grassy Lake Segment and parts of the Timberland Hills Segment further out west, but none that come close to the sheer frequency of the ponds. 

To celebrate our achievements of the day, including the fact that we had gone over 500 miles of covered trail, we decided to drive to Chippewa Falls and visit the world-famous Leinie's Lodge, the outlet for Wisconsin's own Leinenkeugel's Beer. The drive was beautiful along Hwy 178 and I recommend it if you're in the area. 

On the way home we made one more stop at the Visitor's Center in Cornell, right next to that... thing. You know, the gigantic steel thing that sits proudly next to the highway and the dam, with fencing around it. The enormous thing that leans over with precarious, rust-covered uncertain anchorage that causes you to choose your route carefully if you're waking nearby. The thing that is pictured in profile on all the two signage. That thing. You'll know it when you see it. 

What it is - which you probably already know because there's no way you can drive by without stopping to find out just what the heck it is - what it is, is, a pulpwood stacker. What's a pulpwood stacker, you may ask? Well, near as I can tell, it's a device for making really big piles of wood. And the town simply loves this thing. They claim it's the last one in the world. I have to say I believe it, since most folks would have just torn the thing down and used it as scrap iron. But I guess then Cornell would have to call itself Clean Water City, or Trailway City, or something like that instead of the catchy "Stacker City". And what fun would that be?

And here, too, we learned about local legends Jean Brunet (Pronounced 'Djaun Broo-nay') for whom the island and local State Park are named, and Ezra Cornell for whom the two was named. Fine fellows, I'm sure. I wish they had some history here about the indigenous peoples who lived here prior to the European invasion of 1832. They were the Ojibwa people, for whom the Chippewa River was named. 

I'm sure they had a name for the island, too. 

Afterwards we went back to the hotel and collapsed. Then, for the third time that day, the skies opened up and the rain came flooding down from the heavens, this time so thick and fast that we couldn't see across the street, and the streets themselves turned into rivers. Even though I can't claim that we remained 'dry' all day, I can say that we were lucky enough to avoid being caught out in any of the rainstorms. Planning and luck made for a great day.

Running Total: 506.8 miles of trail covered; 60.8 miles ‘extra’ hiking/biking. End of Day 71.

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