Day 79: Baraboo Segment, Sauk County
Day 79: Monday, July 5th, 2021
Total Miles covered for the day: 4.0 plus 4.0 miles extra hiking/biking
Location: The Baraboo Segment in Sauk County.
There is no such thing as the 'Perfect' day to go hiking. It's like plotting a Cartesian bell curve. Most days will fall somewhere in the middle, with some good aspects (temperature, breeze, trail conditions) and some bad aspects (mosquitoes, muck, inconvenient parking), and as you go further out to the right with fewer and fewer detractors you get those rare days that are really, really nice days. But no matter how far to the 'good' side you are from the average, there is always some aspect that could make it even better.
All of this comes to mind because as we were hiking and bike riding through sweltering heat and dripping humidity I realized that, while today was clearly several standard deviations towards the 'awful' conditions for hiking end of the scale, I can think back on some of the absolutely fabulous days and that made it a little less terrible.
So why on Earth were we out doing anything at all today? Long story short, I sat down with my Excel spreadsheet of trail miles covered and trail miles remaining, did some Jethro Bodine ciphering, and came up with the statistic that were were exactly 0.9 miles short of halfway done with the trail.
We weren't going to go. After the terrible heat and bugs we encountered over the last two days we were planning on getting together with our daughter and just having a nice Fourth of July picnic somewhere, since Monday the 5th was the 'official' holiday. But heck fire, Uncle Jed! Nine tenths of a mile!
So we modified our plans a little. We still picked up our daughter and went for a picnic in the park, we just drove two hours south to Baraboo before we started looking for our picnic table. We had ham and cheese sandwiches and pickles, if anyone is keeping score. It was a mighty fine picnic, save for the heat.
The Baraboo Segment is that four-mile wander through the campus hills and along the Baraboo River, which I have to say is one of the nicest river walks I have ever seen in any town, anywhere. And because the segment is paved most of the way, it is possible to ride a bicycle for most of it.
Because we were in only one vehicle we were somewhat limited in our choices as to how to manage the trip. In the end, we decided to do the biking portion first. I dropped Theresa off at the south end, at the corner of Manchester Street and Effinger Rd, and she would bike west and north along the river walk. I drove up to Lower Ochsner Park and dropped our daughter up there next to the river with her super-dog Joplin, and I started biking south and east. We crossed in the middle somewhere, of course, and when I reached the south end I turned around and started biking back the way I came.
The plan was to meet back up at Lower Ochsner Park and plan our next leg. Unfortunately,
Theresa got mesmerized by the river and ended up getting a little bit lost. At biking speed there weren't quite enough blazes to make the turns - or the lack of turns - immediately obvious so she got a little more viewing of the river than I did. She also missed a turn onto Second Street because of a missing arrow, and as a result ended up biking up that terrible hill, only to reach Ochsner Park from the north end, get dead-ended at the children's play area, and end up riding around the whole area, arriving at the rendezvous point mere minutes before I arrived, having biked both ways.
I mentioned that it was hot and miserable. Unlike most days, I didn't bother getting a starting time and temperature, but I know that we started sometime after 2:00 and the temperature was well into the 90's.
Though we had covered only 2.1 miles, it was a surprisingly enjoyable ride through the city. Along the way we passed Circus World Museum, home of the famous Ringling Brothers Circus. This brought back a lot of memories for Theresa, because her father had once worked as an electrician for the Historical Society and did quite a bit of work at Circus World after semi-retiring from his first career as a biochemist. They visited the museum regularly back then, and she was able to tell us a lot about the place as we later drove by.
We also enjoyed startlingly lovely views of the Baraboo River, tempered only by a monument recognizing that the area was once the site of a large number of Indian Effigy Mounds. This carries a special sadness for both of us, but at least someone had the grace to erect a large stone monument commemorating the sacred ground that still lays here beneath the pavement.
Even Ochsner Park turned out to be scenic and very accessible, and our daughter and her dog enjoyed several dips in the river to stay out of the heat while we biked. We both decided that no matter what, someday we would come back down to walk the river path because we wanted to take it in at leisure.
 |
| A little History at Ochsner Park |
We were only halfway done, but still - after only 2.1 miles - we were questioning if we should do more. But we didn't want the day to be a total waste, so we toughed it out and did the next leg. Theresa and I both biked north through Ochsner Park as far as we could along the trail, until a stone staircase presented more of a challenge than we were interested in with our bikes, and we rode an alternate route along the river that eventually took us up behind the Elementary School.
I then turned around and went back the other way, this time following the 'correct' route and, after finding myself at the playground in the park, walked down the staircase carrying the bike, so that I could get back, pick up the car, and return to where Theresa was waiting to give her some air conditioning. It was literally so hot that heat stroke was a possibility, so we were taking no chances.
This left us exactly 0.9 miles of hiking to do, up and over the bluff that provides the backdrop to the very small UW Baraboo campus, and then past the high school and to the waiting car. The only saving grace was that once under the canopy of oaks, we were in the shade and less vulnerable to the stifling heat and sunshine. Once again we dropped our daughter back at the park with access to the river and we parked at the north end of the segment in the UW parking lot. The trail is a little hard to see there as it ducks into the woods, but if you cruise the edge of the lot you'll see it.
The trail here goes rapidly uphill for quite a while, then peaks out and dips right back down again. It's quite well-marked, but I was a little surprised it wasn't more tread-worn, given the proximity to all the schools. The crisscrossing trails associated with the disc golf course were far more used, and as we hiked the IAT we found that the grasses were encroaching a bit as we walked. This wouldn't have been an issue, except that we encountered a little unavoidable poison ivy near the top of the hill as we passed through the burned-out area. The burn seemed intentional, and appears to be an effort to create a more open hill-top with a park-like atmosphere. They should try raising goats.
On our way down the hill, I stopped Theresa just long enough to admire the biggest Jack-in-the-pulpit plant I have ever seen in my life. It stood nearly three feet tall, and each leaflet on the three-leaved stem was over a foot in length. The bundle of seeds was the size of a jumbo egg, and I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself. It was easily two to three times bigger than any other specimen I have ever seen. It was like seeing nothing but dogs your whole life then suddenly encountering a horse.
When we reached the end, I had to walk back up to get the car. I did check the time and temp at that point. It was 5:15 pm, and the temperature had slid all the way back down to only 89 degrees. We knew it was cooler because we had felt the change, having been out in the worst of it earlier. When we checked, we found that the temperature had been as high as 95 degrees, with a heat index of 103. Not the nicest day hiking.
But hey - we got to have our picnic. And we are now officially more than halfway done. And that's not nothing.
Running Total: 567.9 miles of trail covered; 64.8 miles 'extra' hiking/biking. End of Day 79.
No comments:
Post a Comment