Day 93: Mecan River Segment (Part 4), Connecting Route (x3), Greenwood Segment (Part 1), Waushara County
Day 93: Saturday, August 21st, 2021
Total Miles covered for the day: 5.1
Location 1: The northernmost 2 miles of the Mecan River Segment between Buttercup Drive and Chicago Road.
1.9 miles of trail covered.
You know those times when you've been trying to do something that wasn't even all that hard to do, but for one reason or another you just couldn't get it done, and then one day you finally get to do it? Today was one of those times.
After another week at home, we decided that come hell or hot weather, we were going to finish off the Mecan River Segment. You may have noticed above that while we definitely hiked the last 2.0 miles, I only claimed 1.9 miles of trail covered. That's because the Mecan River is listed as a total of 7.5 miles, and we had already claimed 5.6 miles of it, having carefully added up the little red distance estimates for the various pieces we hiked during our other three hikes. As a result, we only had 1.9 miles left to claim when we finished the Segment. Bummer.
We got a little bit of a late start this morning, because, well, life happens. Since we were in only one vehicle, we had our bikes with us to facilitate getting from one end to the other. We put both bikes up by the southern trailhead for the Greenwood Segment, then drove back down to the parking area on 6th Lane to start walking. It was 1:30 pm and the temperature was a hot, sunny 78 degrees. It wasn't hell, but we definitely had the humidity to contend with.
The 2 miles on the north end of the Mecan River Segment are nothing like the rest of the Segment to the south, save for the sandy footing. To start with, there's no river. Secondly, there are a lot fewer trees. In fact, the first 1.2 miles of that hike went through what is essentially open meadow or cropland.
On one hand, that made the trip really hot out there in the open sun. On the other hand, it gave me an opportunity to take some nice photos of wildflowers.
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| Purple Prairie Clover |
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| Button Eryngo |
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| Butterfly Milkweed Pods |
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| Butterfly Milkweed Flowers |
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| Hiking through a very long 1.2 miles of open prairie |
If this part of the Mecan River Segment had not been so beautifully mowed, it would have been real drudgery fighting through all the tall grasses, even if everything was in bloom. As it was, it was just hot.
Once we finally reached the trees, the walk became much more pleasant. It was still muggy, but it was a lot nicer walking in the shade. There were some geocaches along the way to keep us busy, but we were unable to find the one closest to the Distributed Camping Area (DCA).
Speaking of the DCA, I'd like to put in a good word for this one. It's high and dry, flat, and conveniently placed. There's a nice bench there, and it would be easy to set up and take down again. The big drawback would be no source of water nearby.
The other neat thing, as far as we were concerned, was that there was a log book by the camp, and it was there that we saw word of our recently met hiker friends, Sunny and Captain Chaos. They had stopped by here on their way south, signing the log and saying hello to the world. It was their first day of an intended 39-day hike that would take them all the way to the Eastern Trailhead. We think of them often, wondering if they made it.
The last two tenths of a mile include a tenth of a mile along a property line through the woods. before popping out into another sunny tenth of a mile along another meadow.
When we reached the north trailhead we saw this sign, which helped explain a comment we heard Sunny and Captain Chaos make, that they had started "at the halfway point".
Apparently, according to someone's estimation, the northern trailhead of the Mecan River Segment represents the midpoint on the trail. Had we known this sign was here, we might have made sure we hiked this spot when we reached our own 600-mile mark, which was more than a few long days ago.
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| Halfway!! |
The time was now 3:27 pm, and we had just completed map 52, but we hadn't yet reached our bikes.
Location 2: Connecting Route between the north end of the Mecan River Segment and the south end of the Greenwood Segment
0.5 miles of trail covered, plus 2.1 miles extra biking
Since our bikes were an additional half-mile down the road, along the connecting route, we had to keep walking.
There isn't much to say about this walk except that we passed a farm on the east side of the road that was raising longhorn cattle, and a house on the west side of the road that was raising out-back Wisconsin, beer-drinking cattle farmers out having a get-together with friends while the yung'uns rode around on ATVs. I smile and nodded my head as I walked by. They were nice enough to wave.
That was a lot more friendly than the longhorns, who just stared as we passed.
Once we reached the bikes, Theresa decided to just hang around and conserve energy while I biked back to get the car.
A word about map 52. I would have to look back at our book to see if there was a bigger gap, but I don't think so. We started map 52 back in August of 2013, and we just finished it today, fully 8 years and 5 days later. That bested even map 29, at seven years, 8 months, which I believe had been the previous record-holder. Considering how much focus we put into completing things once we start them, I find it amazing that this map, full of easy walking trails and beautiful scenery, managed to stay unfinished for so long. We hiked or biked along the trails on this map on nine different dates through the years. Amazing.
Location 3: The Greenwood Segment, between the parking area on Browndeer Court and the intersection of Browndeer Court and County GG, including the half-mile along the roadway
1.8 miles of trail covered, plus 1.1 miles extra biking
We decided to skip a section of the Greenwood Segment between Bow String Drive and Browndeer Court, and instead cover the next piece north of and along Browndeer Court itself. The best approach, we judged, was to park at the parking area and ride our bikes down to GG where we could lock them up and start walking back. We started walking at 4:39 pm, and it was 82 degrees and muggy.
The hike up the road was uphill and gravelly, but easier than it would have been if it wasn't on the road. Then the trail cuts north into the woods, and we found ourselves walking through a wonderful piece of central Wisconsin woodland. They should have called it 'Oakwood Segment' instead of Greenwood Segment, because oak was definitely the predominant tree species. The path was near idyllic, which made up for the heat.
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| Grey Goldenrod |
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| Common Goldenrod |
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| A fabulous walk through the woods |
Besides all the goldenrod blooming, we also found ourselves in a dense stand of hazelnuts, and they were ripe and ready for picking.
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| Hazelnuts, ripe and ready (aka 'Filberts') |
We did in fact harvest a few, but they are far too hard for a trail snack, and we had to satisfy ourselves with cracking them open and eating the tiny, sweet nuts at home.
After taking a needlessly wandering but fairly enjoyable loop to the north, we were able to overlook yet another large prairie area. It was the field that makes up a large part of the Greenwood State Wildlife Refuge. There was a bench to sit on and enjoy the view, but we found it occupied by a woman and her two dogs, so we weren't able to make use of it.
A short time later and we found ourselves at the parking area, with our waiting car. It was 5:55 pm, and it was still hot and muggy. I gave up on looking at the temperature. It was not going to relax one little bit today, so we just went with it.
There have been plenty of days we called it quits by 6:00 pm, especially if we were planning to drive home, but today was an exception. We got it in our bonnets that we wanted to close out on the Central Gap by Labor Day, and it we were going to achieve that we needed to use every bit of sunlight and energy we had available to us, so we decided to cram in a little more biking to cover the remaining connecting routes in Waushara County.
Location 4: Connecting Route between Bohn Lake and Greenwood Segments
1.0 miles of trail covered
It was time to make tracks if we were going to get more done before sundown, so Theresa dropped me off on my bicycle at the eastern trailhead for the Greenwood Segment and I started riding north. She drove the one mile north to the south end of the Bohn Lake Segment and started biking south. It took almost no time at all to cover this ground, and we were off for yet one more Connecting Route before we were done for the day.
Location 5: Connecting Route between the Deerfield Segment and the Bohn Lake segment
1.8 miles of trail covered
Once more, using the two-way method, we were able to complete a tiny bit of roadway with one car and two bikes. I dropped Theresa off at the southwest end of the Deerfield Segment and she started biking back toward Bohn Lake. In the meantime, I drove back down to the Eastern trailhead for Bohn Lake and started biking north.
The distance was 1.8 miles, though if you add up the pieces on map 50 it only comes up to 1.7 miles. Again with the rounding. We were trying very hard to beat sundown, so I didn't do much by way of photography, but I did stop long enough to capture this shot of some yellow foxtail grasses glowing golden in the setting sun.
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| Yellow Foxtail |
That last shot was taken at a few minutes after 7:00. I took it shortly after completing my ride while I was riding back to meet Theresa. Somewhere in the middle of this 1.8 mile stretch of roadway, each of us, going in opposite directions, crossed the 700 mile mark on our journey. I'd like to think it happened exactly in the middle, when we crossed paths.
We had 8.7 miles left in our Central Gap. After today's effort, we believed we would finish it before Labor Day as planned. Only time would tell.
Running Total: 701 miles of trail covered; 77.5 miles 'extra' hiking/biking. End of Day 93.
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