Day 85: Connecting Route (x3), Devil's Lake Segment (Part 1), Sauk County
Day 85: Monday, August 2nd, 2021
Total Miles covered for the day: 18.9
Location 1: The Connecting Route at the bottom of the Eastern Bifurcation between the intersection of Cty Rd X and Hwy 33 to the north and Parfrey's Glen to the south.
3.0 miles of trail covered.
Day 3 of a 9-day adventure started with us getting up at our base camp in Oxford, then driving our cars and our two bikes to Sauk County, where we would spend the next several days biking off the connecting routes of the Western Bifurcation.
Why? Well, those doggone maps have dotted lines on them, and we like to fill them all in before we relegate a map to the 'done' category. Map 52, for example, has basically nothing but 'normal' trail on it, then in the lower left corner, the split occurs for the bifurcation.
Avid followers of the Ice Age Trail will know that this means the trail splits in two directions and goes around a large central area, then rejoins further south. It's like a river that splits to flow around both sides of an island. Eventually the two arms flow back together again. Well - we really didn't want to mark map 52 'done' until we had actually covered that little piece of dashed line that floats off to the west and onto map 53-W. But - having once made that small journey, suddenly we have part of map 53-W marked, and... there's no end.
So we decided the only way to handle it was to cover the western bifurcation and just be done with it. We chose to start in the south and work our way back north, headed towards base camp. That meant closing out on map 59 with the last of the Connecting Route that leads to map 61 and Parfrey's Glen.
In preparation for this large amount of biking we planned to do, I took the extra step of mapping out not only the coordinates of various turning points, but also their elevations. This meant we could look at any given piece of road and decide which direction we wanted to ride. This last bit of connecting route had a profile like Mont Blanc, so we did the practical thing and parked at the peak to ride downhill.
The peak is the Intersection of Bluff Road and Tower Road (given this information, you could almost guess that would be the highest point on the route) and we parked the car and got the bikes down.
As it turns out, I took only one photograph the entire day. But if I share nothing else with you, I want any reader of this blog to take note of what's in this photograph.
At a casual glance, what you see here is a tree, with branches, and a bunch of leaves. Please look again. Zoom in if you have to. Literally every leaf you see here in the foreground is poison ivy.
In most of Wisconsin, poison ivy is a low-lying brushy shrub, seldom growing over two feet high. Toxicodendron radicans is the official species name for all types of poison ivy, but there are five sub-species: T. eximium, T. divaricatum, T. radicans, T. rydbergii and T. verrocosum.
The one you're looking at here is Toxicodendron radicans (the sub-species), or 'Eastern Poison Ivy'. The danger of this plant is that the leaves, covered in urushiol, are often found at eye-level, or hanging high overhead. This is because this type of poison ivy climbs trees, often completely covering trees 50 feet high or more, and sends out branches, just like the tree itself. These ivy branches don't just cover the trunk of the tree, but instead can jut 10 to 15 feet or more from the trunk, reaching for sunlight, and an unsuspecting hiker could simply reach up and push these branches out of the way as they walk, mistaking them from some harmless tree branch.
I keep an eye out for Eastern Poison Ivy, and this is about as far north I have ever seen it. The only exception is that I spotted it at one of the parking areas along Levee Road along the south edge of the Wisconsin River. But the fact that it's here is evidence that hiking any part of the trail south of Devil's Lake puts you in a place where you must learn to recognize this threat not only from below as you walk, but also from above. Hiker beware.
So back to the hike, or rather the ride. I took very few notes, to go with the very few pictures. I can tell you that the picture above was taken at 10:37 am, and I know that the temperature was hot and muggy. In fact, let me just give you the weather information for the whole week. Hot and muggy, with occasional deluge. That about covers it.
The ride downhill to Parfrey's Glen took about 18 seconds, at an average speed of about 87 mph. We pedaled twice, and smelled the burned rubber from the brakes as we screeched to a halt in the parking lot.
OK, not really. But it was almost entirely downhill, and there is nothing gradual about it.
Then we repositioned the vehicles to repeat the process going north until we reached State Road 33 where we left off two years ago in September. My recollection is that O'Neil Road and Durwards Glen Road were very pretty, with trees close on each side, and that even County X had essentially no traffic. This finished map 59 for us, and we had a lot more planned before the day was done.
Location 2: The Devil's Lake Segment between N 43 25.952, W 89 43.150 and N 43 25.901, W 89 43.565, and then from N 43 25.818, W 89 43.685 to N 43 25.758, W 89 43.784.
0.8 miles of trail covered
The next thing we wanted to do was the 2.5 mile connecting route between the Devil's Lake Segment and the Baraboo Segment, and you would think this would be easy, but it really wasn't.
We wanted to bike the small piece of roadway starting from the Devil's Lake end. That meant we needed to first drop a car off at the Baraboo end, somewhere near the south end of the Baraboo Segment. While I parked on the side of the road, Theresa pulled into a parking lot, and we found a picnic table where we ate our lunch. We talked to our daughter over the phone, and made plans for where we would go next after finishing the trivial 2.5 mile connecting route down to Devil's Lake.
Leaving Theresa's car in the lot, we got into the van, started the engine, and it promptly stopped running. With a sinking feeling, I reached over again and started it up. And, just as quickly, it died. Our day, and possibly our entire vacation, just changed measurably.
No one reading this blog will care what was wrong with my car, but I want to spend just a few words thanking an unnamed employee at O'Reilly Auto Parts who helped me diagnose, and ultimately fix the problem, all in less than an hour. More than 90% sure that the problem had been solved, yet still harboring a healthy measure of doubt, we drove the van down to Devils Lake to find our starting point.
Once again, the task was harder than it should have been. This was because the trail markings at Devil's Lake are completely inadequate.
Where, for example, did the connecting route intersect with the trail? This should have been easy, because I had actual coordinates (N 43 25.758, W 89 43.780). The problem wasn't locating the coordinates, it was that once we got to that very spot, the Ice Age Trail was nowhere in sight. There were no telltale little yellow blazes anywhere, and it took us quite a while to find them. And we weren't alone.
Driving through that mass of humanity and quite literally finding hundreds and hundreds of parking spots all filled, we pulled over to the side, as far out of the way as possible and spotted another couple having the same trouble we were, except that they were on foot. And they wanted absolutely no part in having us assist them in any way, nor did they seem the least bit interested in helping us find the trail. It was every hiker for themselves. In retrospect, I recall that they went walking in absolutely the wrong direction, destined to add a good half mile or so to their walking before hitting a dead end and having to turn around. Since they weren't carrying a significant amount of beverage, I hope they found their way back before hitting the end. They didn't appear to be enjoying themselves very much when we saw them.
As for us - we followed the general direction we saw them going, but we did it in a car and thus wasted less time and effort determining it was the wrong way. When we turned East on North Shore Road towards the Northern Lights Campground, we finally spotted the elusive trail blazes, and found them meandering along a very steep road, so we decided to keep driving and find out where they went. We also had the dual purpose of evaluating camping and shower facilities, so we ended up spending quite a bit of time driving around before settling on our starting point, at the top of the hill near the shower house. Hours had passed. It was 2:00 pm. We were on our way.
This meant we rode down the road, following the Ice Age Trail blazes until they disappeared on us. More accurately, I should say that I missed an arrow. Perhaps if I was walking, rather than riding, I wouldn't have missed it, but the hairpin turn just south of the place where the trail ducks under County Road DL got me lost, and we ended up turning right rather than left. This led to a significant amount of extra biking, for which I take full responsibility. On the positive side, I now know more about the Northern Lights Campground than I would have otherwise.
Paper maps, a satellite image on the cell phone, and a bit of time proving Theresa right, and we finally got back on track, riding down the hill and finally - finally - getting to the start of the connecting route. By doing this we actually ended up covering 8/10ths of a mile of the Devils Lake segment, while leaving a piece of hiking in the middle of the two tiny bits we covered. It wasn't terribly efficient, but at least we got a good parking spot.
Location 3: The Connecting Route between the Baraboo Segment to the north and the Devils Lake segment to the south
2.5 miles of trail covered
So at long last we were biking the short 2.5 mile roadway north to Baraboo. I don't know what time it was, or how hot it was. I do know that the high temperature each day during the entire week was not less than 84 degrees and humid. Biking was a lot more comfortable than hiking.
Sooner than we expected, we got to the parking lot where the car was waiting for us, but we need to go just a bit farther to reach the Baraboo Segment and actually 'touch the sign'.
"Follow me!" I said, and once again I led Theresa askew as I missed a turn and instead of crossing the river, headed up the road until an unfamiliar hill forced me to stop and reassess. I was now responsible for a full 1.2 miles of extra biking on the day, and my confidence was a bit lacking. Nevertheless, we corrected the problem, reconnected to the trail, found our way back to the car and then to Devils Lake, and we were able to continue with a little more biking north of Baraboo.
Location 4: The Connecting Route between Dellwood Wisconsin to the north and the north end of the Baraboo segment to the south, in the parking lot of the UW Baraboo campus.
8.7 miles of trail covered
We finally got some wind in our sails, and we decided to end our day by biking a bit of the Western Bifurcation.
This is where all the preparation put in before the trip really came in handy. The Baraboo area is really hilly, but if you recall I had elevations to go with the route. This meant I didn't need to drive up to the top of Hogback Road to know that it was uphill from North Baraboo. We decided to change our tactics a bit.
Instead of parking vehicles and riding together, we went to the tactic of one person riding and the other following behind in a vehicle. For one thing, it became easier to cover ground, being able to avoid walking up long, steep hills. For another thing, it was a lot safer. These roads don't have much of a shoulder. In this way, we managed to work our way north along the route, up and over the peak on Mirror Lake Road, and well off Map 60W, making our way all the way to Dellwood. Most of the route was fairly bucolic, but we were happy to get off the short bit of Hwy 23, as this was a very busy road indeed. With the breakdown of our car, we didn't achieve anywhere near as much as we thought we would, but it was enough. Unknown to us until after the tally was taken, we had just crossed the magical 600 mile mark. Having added the Western Bifurcation to our planed journey, this meant that we had passed the halfway point for the second time.
We went back to Devils Lake one more time before heading to our campground. I'm happy to report that the showers there have nice, warm water. Sadly, they have no benches, no clothing hooks, and no privacy.
Running Total: 607 miles of trail covered; 67.7 miles 'extra' hiking/biking. End of Day 85.
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