Day 88: Connecting Route, Juneau and Sauk Counties
Day 88: Thursday, August 5th, 2021
Total Miles covered for the day: 13.0
Location: The Connecting Route between County HH to the north (map 57f-W) and Lage Road to the south (map 58f-W), bypassing Wisconsin Dells itself.
13.0 miles of trail covered.
This was day six of a nine-day adventure. Days ago we set our sights on biking the entirety of the Western Bifurcation. As I mentioned in posts past, we were working our way north from Devils Lake. Today was the first day where we started battling rain, and it would be a recurring theme throughout the rest of our vacation.
Last night we slept at home rather than at base camp, which meant we were over an hour and a half away from our starting point. Plus, we left a car at the Mecan River Segment the night before, thinking we would finish off the last piece on the north end before starting our biking. But then we reevaluated our priorities, and determined that if anything was to be left undone, it would be a much further drive to get us down to Wisconsin Dells, and we could do the Mecan River Segment as a day hike if we needed to. So -
The first thing we did was drive down to pick up Theresa's car. Then we motored both vehicles toward Lage Road west of Wisconsin Dells. On the way, though, we stopped by our base camp in Oxford to see how our campsite fared through last night's severe thunder storms. No problems. No branches on the tarp, and only a tiny amount of water inside the flaps. Excellent. Onto the trail.
Our route today included getting past the off-putting obstruction known as Wisconsin's wettest tourist trap. 'Welcome to Wisconsin Dells' reads many a sign, but since our objective was to get past or around it, seeing that the suggested route passes directly down Hwy 12/16 in a plummeting loop around Trappers Turn Golf Course, we weren't feeling very welcomed.
Walking in the suggested direction into the Dells has very few benefits. On the plus side it leads the hiker past Rocky Arbor State Park, and into the Dells where shopping, or perhaps the all-important rest stop can be had. We, on the other hand, were on bicycles, making the ride along these roads beyond hazardous, akin to foolhardy. We needed an alternative, and it was here that we were happy to remember that the Connecting Routes represent merely a suggested path, and were not mandated if we wanted to reach the hallowed status of Thousand-milers. But then, we were doing this on bicycles, so any consideration of 'rules' was utterly moot.
Which leads to our route. We had no intention of riding bikes or walking all the way down the hill into Wisconsin Dells, just to claw our way back up the hill to meet up with the place we left off at the Juneau-Sauk County Line. Yet we needed to get under I-90, so our options were limited.
We chose instead to use Hwy 12/16 to get beneath the I-Road, which limited our use of that road to just a quarter mile, rather than the 1.5 miles suggested by the 'official' route. Then, a short run along Plaza Road, Curry Road, and Old Hwy 12, all of which was done in the total absence of any other vehicles, led us down to Lage Road where we left off two days before. This got us back on the dotted lines.
I should mention that despite the hours of driving and erranding, we got a fairly reasonable start. I didn't record the exact time, but it was about 1:00, and surely could have been worse.
Once again, we decided to use the bike-and-follow method, enabling one of us at a time to travel down the road while the other provided safety and support. Theresa started first, and with me running interference, made her way under the I-Road and onto safer ground on 60th street.
The route we took would have looked like this, starting at the county line on the right, traveling down to Wisconsin Dells and back up and over the next few hills.
I know we traded off riding and driving, and believe me, the logistics of getting around all that traffic safely took a lot out of us mentally. And we were starting to get tired. All that probably led to the problem we faced when I was biking the I-90 piece and Theresa was following. I started riding at the south end, on Lage Road, and was working my way north. I told her to meet me on the other side of the I-Road, on the far end of the short piece on Hwy 12. This was mostly because it wouldn't have been possible for her to drive slowly behind me through here.
I will only state for the permanent record that she made a wrong turn and ended up waiting for me in the wrong location. After waiting what seemed like a very long time, I finally saw her down the road coming from a very unexpected direction. She found me. No lives lost. On we went.
I took no photos as we went today. The ride was pleasant enough, and the hills didn't feel quite as severe as they look in the elevation maps. The highest point of the ride was when we rode past the world famous Stand Rock on County N. I'd like to say that we stopped and took pictures. Truth be told, I didn't even know it was there. Was it possible to see it from the road? I have no idea. I'll have to drive back that way some day.
Though we were untroubled with sight-seeing, we were dealing with some pretty stout winds, and the overcast skies promised rain sooner rather than later. As first one of us and then the other made our way to the corner of County HH, riding along the increasingly rural roads culminating in a ride past the Lemonweir River backwaters on 55th Street, we could tell that our day was finished. The first few fat drops of rain were falling as we were loading Theresa's bike onto the rack, and the skies opened up on our way to camp.
Thankfully we got a break during the time when we were making dinner, but we fell asleep that night to the sound of pitter-patter raindrops on the tarp.
Running Total: 640 miles of trail covered; 68 miles 'extra' hiking/biking. End of Day 88.
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