Day 106: Point Beach Segment (Part 3), Manitowoc County
Day 106: Thursday, October 7th, 2021
Total Miles covered for the day: 5.4
Location 1: The Point Beach Segment, between the south trailhead and the parking area on Viceroy Road
3.5 miles of trail half-covered
Today was another cool, overcast day on the shores of Lake Michigan, but one I was unable to share with Theresa. She was in the midst of an extended hiking vacation, putting in miles for the Mammoth Hike Challenge, and today was another planned, advertised SnOTT Walk.
The problem for the day was the cold, wet forecast. Rain was certain, apparently, and it would get worse through the day and in the evening, and the forecast for Friday was rain, rain and more rain. The tent, as it turns out, is not as waterproof as we had hoped (was it ever?) and much of the gear was severely damp. However, it's better to throw damp gear into the car in the morning than soaking wet gear in the car in the afternoon. Wanting no part of that, Theresa decided to get up before dawn and break down camp.
Originally she was going to stay another two nights, with more hiking on Friday and Saturday, but Theresa has reached the age where camping in a wet tent and hiking in the rain for two days isn't as appealing as it never really was.
Fortunately, it had just barely started misting when she got everything in the van, and then after a short rain, the skies let up again, just in time for the start of the hike.
Piggy-backing on a different event that someone else had scheduled, Theresa advertised that she would be walking the Point Beach Segment, in the same direction as the other Event, from the same starting point, but only going half as far and half as fast. All Snails Welcome. Plus - there was the allure of the SnOTT patch, which is turning into quite the collector's item if all the online talk can be believed.
Unrelated - I've often wondered about the naming convention for lakes, specifically, where does one insert the word "Lake"? Why is it that in some cases the word 'Lake' precedes the named body of water, such as in Lake Michigan, Lake Winnebago, or Lake Mendota, but in some cases it's on the end, like Muskego Lake, Pewaukee Lake, or Saganaga Lake? And if you live near one of these bodies of water, you would never, ever say it the other way. Winnebago Lake? Never heard of it. Lake Big Cedar? Where you from, boy?
Which is all a way of saying I have a lot of time to think of random things, even when it's Theresa hiking and not me.
Today's starting point was the southern trailhead of the Point Beach Segment where the first couple miles are on the beach along Michigan Lake. At the start, she met up with several newly inducted and now official snails.
In no particular order, there was Rebecca Waga, Tim Holz and Elizabeth Holz. The last, Elizabeth, had earned her snail patch the hard way by walking with us for several miles on the Greenbush Segment on September 19th. Today she came again to get her patch, and brought her husband along to enjoy the nice weather.
And in perhaps the best moment of the day, just before they left they were all joined by Kathy Cootware flying in at the last minute to get her patch, which she had earned but not received the day before. I'm not going to guess at how many traffic laws may have been bent, but Kathy was over the top excited about arriving before they left, because she wasn't sure she'd get there in time and she had to go to work.
Sadly, there is no photograph of Kathy while she was hiking with Theresa, with or without the patch. A photo was taken but somehow it went the way of the ether. So instead, here is a copy of her profile photo.
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| Rebecca Waga with her SnOTT patch |
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| Tim and Elizabeth Holz, Theresa and Rebecca Waga |
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| A Rout of Snails on the Trail |
I had a good belly-laugh when I looked at that group photo above, with the lake in the background. Theresa often complains about how hot it is while we're hiking, even with temperatures in the 60s or even 50s. If you take another look at the photo you'll see the rest of the group all bundled up against the wind and the cold, and Theresa is just happy as can be in her tank top.
Once they reached the beach, a choice had to be made whether to walk on the soft sand above, the hard sand where the waves slosh up, or the semi-hard middle ground at the crest where the waves don't quite reach. As with many beach walkers, they chose the middle ground, and it went fairly well for them. Though I enjoy walking on a beach, Theresa said it wasn't her favorite, because the soft sand is sometimes hard for her to walk on. 2.1 miles of beach was plenty for her, and that's all there is on this segment.
The sign to leave the beach is obvious if you know what to look for. If you don't, or if you're not looking up and shoreward as you walk, it would be easy to miss. Not that you can get a whole lot further up the beach because there is an outlet for Molash Creek that crosses the beach, making for a very wet crossing if you try to continue north.
Instead, the trail cuts inland and walks up to and along the edge of Molash Creek, cutting back to the southwest a significant distance through a beautiful combination of hemlock, cedar, and mixed hardwood. Eventually it turns northwest again, and connects with a bike path just before marching straight out to the Viceroy Road parking area.
When I asked her what she remembered from the walk, she said there was one spot on the beach where she had to do a little backtracking, because there was a small creek that fed down and formed a horseshoe, and the only place to cross it was really close to the water's edge. She and the group had walked about 300 feet up the horseshoe, and had to double back to get to the only part of the outlet that could be crossed in a step.
Last, she remembers that after they reached their cars, and before anyone was a quarter mile down the road, the skies opened up and it started to rain in earnest.
As I mentioned, there was supposed to have been another group there at the start who were planning on hiking the entire segment. Only one person arrived for that hike, however, and that was Rebecca. Rebecca walked with the SnOTT group for the first hike, and had plans to meet up with one more hiker at the Viceroy Road parking area, but that fell through, leaving her high and dry.
Theresa had no plans to continue hiking today, especially since there was rain coming, but once she realized Rebecca didn't have a partner to hike with, she offered to continue walking if the rain would let up again, as the weather forecast indicated it might. This gave Theresa the opportunity to complete the rest of the Point Beach Segment and gave Rebecca the chance to achieve some more distance after her long ride to get there.
So, the two of them parted ways with Tim and Elizabeth and decided to wait out the rain to see if it would lighten up as forecast. When the break in the weather came, they headed to the north end of the segment.
Location 2: The Point Beach Segment between the north trailhead and the equestrian parking area on County Road O.
1.9 miles of trail half-covered, 1.0 miles of trail re-covered
This is another case where the map says you have 2 miles to hike, and you only have 1.9 miles left to the whole segment, due to rounding on the tiny segments and hiking in bits and bites. Truthfully, it would probably make sense to round up, given how much mileage is invested in darting left and right on the trail avoiding the hazards, but that would just be 'extra hiking', so I guess she only gets credit for 1.9 miles of new trail.
If you've been keeping up, Theresa actually hiked the northernmost 1.0 miles through the Rahr School forest three days ago, but Rebecca wanted to hike it so much that Theresa just went with the flow. They dropped a vehicle off at the Parking area near the light house and then drove up to the trailhead to start their hike.
Theresa found the boardwalk to be as charming and amazing the second time through as the first. Once on the east end of it, they noticed other evidence of how the school system uses the area, including a fenced in area to show the impact of deer (ruined by a fallen tree), an active fire pit for who knew what purpose, and a fenced-in area that was used for... ??? They couldn't figure it out.
They also encountered the archery class again, and had to carefully stroll past to be able to continue south.
On the other side of County Road V, the trail straightened out a bit and they walked through a privately owned chunk of land and finally into the State Forest. As they were hiking, Rebecca noticed two separate geocaches that were evident from the trail. Thinking someone left a water bottle behind, Rebecca went to investigate, and it was Theresa who recognized them as geocaches. Both were in sorry shape, but because there is little to no cell phone reception out there, Theresa was unable to log the 'Found It'. As it turned out later, these were archived geocaches that could no longer be found on the online maps, so after locating two of these things, we still have no idea exactly where they are, and sadly, they remain as geotrash in the woods.
Progress was slow for the pair, as Theresa was still nursing very sore feet, and she had been doing a LOT of hiking over the last several days. But eventually they did reach the waiting car, and just in time.
Once again, shortly after arriving at the end of the hike and getting back to both vehicles, it started raining, and this time it would stay that way.
Theresa was tired, but with the rain coming down there was no reason to wait. She had a two-hour drive ahead of her, so she started off immediately and the rain just kept getting worse all the way home. The decision to go home and not try to hike again out there on Friday was an excellent one. By Thursday night she was safe at home in her warm little bed, and Friday would be a well-deserved day off before heading south to another SnOTT Walk on the Albany Segment on Sunday.
Brock's Progress on the Mammoth Hike Challenge: 18.2 miles
Theresa's Progress on the Mammoth Hike Challenge: 31.0 miles
Running Total: 750.1 miles of trail covered, 10.0 miles of trail half-covered; 106.3 miles 'extra' hiking/biking. End of Day 106.
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