Day 119: Hartland Segment (Part 1), Merton Segment (Part 1) Waukesha County
Day 119: Friday, November 19th, 2021
Total Miles covered for the day: 4.9
Location 1: The northern half of the Hartland Segment, between the Cottonwood Ave Wayside and the north trailhead.
3.2 miles of trail covered
OK, so there's a little explaining to do. We swore that we wouldn't go out hiking during the gun deer season, and yet here we are, the Friday before opening morning, starting another weekend of hiking. What?!?
Yes, it's true. We weren't going to hike (we thought). We didn't want to hike (we thought). And yet when someone got in touch with Theresa on Monday earlier this week and asked where we were going to be hiking this weekend, we started looking for places we could hike safely. The IATA lists a number of places where no hunting is allowed during the gun deer season, but we could see from the fact that they included Walla Hi on that list that their recommendations couldn't be trusted 100%.
However, after doing our own research (man, does that sound bad at this moment in history) we determined it would be reasonably safe to hike here in Hartland, at Lapham Peak, and in Delafield, so here we are again, wrapped up in cold weather gear and putting one foot in front of the other on the Old Yeller Trail.
The primary culprit of this was a delightful new acquaintance by the name of Mary Schwab, and we took the opportunity to invite Sanjay Shoney with us, who has also been reaching out often to find a time when he could hike with us. Today would be that day, even though we would be hiking at night and he had already walked this particular section of trail.
I was able to get off work early today, so we made it to our meeting place before dark had even fallen. We met our fellow hikers at Centennial Park, the north trailhead for the Hartland Segment.
The photo below was taken at 4:01 pm, as we gave Mary and Sanjay their SnOTT patches.
Smile!
The plan was to finish the north half of the segment, one small piece at a time. For the first leg, we drove as far as the public library and pulled into a parking area just off Haight Drive.
A guy who happened to be passing by said, "Across the street, then down between those buildings."
Turns out he was right. We have no idea who he was, but he knew enough about us to point us in the right direction. Once we got down the narrow driveway between the two buildings and straight back into the woods, we were on an urban paved pathway that leads north along a narrow greenspace that follows the Bark River through town.
We passed by this beautiful covered foot bridge, though didn't have to cross it. I was actually a little disappointed about that.
Finally we spilled out onto Centennial Park and bid farewell to Sanjay, but Mary stuck with us for the next two legs.
The three of us drove down to the parking area on CTH E known as the Maple Wayside. I'm going to assume there were maples there, though I didn't really see them because it was full-on dark by then. The trail cut through the woods behind us, but our direction was across the road and north again, still more or less walking through town on Maple Avenue.
This changed just as we crossed the railroad tracks and cut west across Nixon Park. The trail takes two false starts to the north, but then bends back west again, eventually cutting south of the teardrop pond on the Bark River that was clearly man-made and designed for its picturesque nature.
As we crossed the River again using East Park Avenue as a bridge, we nearly missed the turn to the north. Theresa and Mary were chatting away and having a grand old time, and probably would have kept going all the way to Capitol Drive, but I pulled them back and we kept going north.
We walked the one more block, directly past the Library and into the parking lot where Mary's car was waiting. Or - I thought that was Mary's car. Did she move it? Maybe that's her car that the two of them are walking towards. But no...
"Hey you two - where are you going?"
"I don't know - where's the blaze?"
"The trail goes that way," I said, pointing in the opposite direction. "But we've already walked that part. You just walked past the car."
The really great part about this is that no one cared, and we all got a good laugh out of it. Theresa and Mary were having a great time, and were so engaged in their conversation they didn't even know we had reached the end of this leg. It was 5:58 pm, and the temperature had dropped to 30 degrees, but we were all having a great time, so one more leg was in order.
We drove down to the enormous parking area on Cottonwood Ave known as the Cottonwood Wayside. Again, I can only assume there were cottonwoods there. I didn't see them. But I did see a nice Loop Trail that we chose not to hike.
It took us a bit to locate the trail across the road, but I blame the darkness. There were plenty of trail markings, just not anything right there in the parking lot. Across the road we went, and turned left, once again making our way north and a little bit east. This last leg was short and sweet, and it was a fantastic hike through a small wooded area full of ancient, gnarly oak trees. There was a sign indicating that the area was closed at dusk, but we decided to stretch the interpretation of 'dusk' a little. It wasn't even 6:30 yet, and what would they say? Go back to the car? 'Yes ma'am, officer. That's what we're doing. The car is that way - we just got caught out a little too late. Sorry about that.' Hey - it's still dusk in Denver, right?
The last small bit included a couple of boardwalks, and I did stop to take a picture of one of them. You can probably see why I wasn't Mr. Shutterbug as we walked.
As we walked, Mary's phone rang. It was her daughter, and the conversation was funny, though we could only hear one side of it. Mary shared most of it with us as we walked, so I'll paraphrase it here.
'Hi, mom! What are you doing?"
"I'm out hiking the Ice Age Trail."
Pause.
"Isn't it dark there?"
"Yes. I'm hiking with a group of people who have done this before."
"That sounds like a really BAD idea."
There was more, but the gist of it was that the daughter was checking up on her mom and really didn't like the idea that she was out hiking at night through the woods with strangers she met on the internet. Now that I say that out loud, the daughter may have had a point, but at the time we all got a good chuckle out of it. And Mary shared with us later that after further discussion (not that night) her daughter was ultimately in favor of the activity (though maybe not at night). I'd like to meet her daughter some day. It sounds like she's got good sense.
We reached our waiting car by 6:30 pm, touched the sign and wished Mary a good night. She was planning to hike with us again possibly the next day, and we had done all we planned to do for the evening.
Location 2: The Merton Segment, between the south trailhead and the intersection of Dorn Road and Richter Road
1.7 miles of trail covered
Once again, Theresa and I went out for dinner, and while we were at it, we thought, 'Hey - how about doing just a little piece of the Merton Segment?'
It wasn't practical. But it did mean we would be walking off the north end of Map 82, and if we finished all the other stuff we had planned for the weekend we could call that map done. So we did it.
We dropped off one car back at Centennial Park and drove to the intersection of Richter Road and Dorn Road, just off the map. There we put on our headlamps and started walking south. It was 8:10 pm, and it was 31 degrees.
It was only 1.4 miles to the corner of Dorn and CTH K, but it felt a lot farther. We were getting tired, Theresa's feet hurt, and there was nowhere to go but in the ditch when cars came racing through, which was frequent even at that time of night. I can't imagine what it would be like hiking this roadway during the day. At least we had headlamps and could be assured of being seen. In the daytime, it might not be as easy.
We were relieved when we finally reached the corner and headed west towards the waiting car. It was only three tenths of a mile further, and it was all downhill, but we were dragging. I'm not sure exactly what time we ended, and I didn't get any photos. I do know that there was light cloud cover brushing across the face of a barely waning full moon, and it was still 31 degrees.
We headed to our Airbnb, having checked in earlier in the day before we got started hiking. All-in-all, the day was a success. Two new Snails, and almost five miles of trail covered. Not bad for a Friday night in November after work.
Running Total: 827.0 miles of trail covered, 135.7 miles 'extra' hiking/biking. End of Day 119.
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