Day 191: Baraboo Segment, Connecting Route, Sauk County
Day 191: Sunday, June 12th, 2022
Total Miles hiked for the day: 11.6; Net Miles 0.0
Rain, rain, and more rain. The original plan for today was to head back out to Taylor county but that just wasn't happening. The rain that mostly held off for us yesterday in Taylor County was today falling merrily, quenching the earth and the thirsty plants and streams. We couldn't stand losing the day, though, so we turned our focus south, to the other extreme of where we still had left to hike. With better weather and seventeen and a half miles left in Sauk County, we turned today into - The Quest for Huck.
There is a hiker who is busy doing a thru-hike that goes by the name "Huck". He maintains a YouTube Channel where he posts videos that he creates while he is hiking. I've heard that Huck is a professional hiker, which means, what? Vagrant? And yet there is no question that he embraces hiking as a means of reconnecting with the earth on a daily basis, finding joy in every rock, leaf, water drop, bird, beast and breath of fresh air.
We've been tracking Huck's adventures as he is doing his hike on the Ice Age Trail. We knew that he was hiking somewhere in the Devil's Lake area, and we had half a hope of finding him somewhere along the connecting route we still needed to walk, or maybe in Baraboo. We very much wanted to meet him and give him a Snail patch, so the first thing we did was go down and drive the entire connecting route and around the Devil's Lake segment, hoping we could catch sight of him. We came up empty on that drive, so as a last-ditch hope we drove up to Baraboo to crisscross hike the Baraboo Segment thinking we might possibly find him there.
Location 1: The Baraboo Segment, from Manchester Rd to Berkley Blvd
3.1 Miles of trail covered
The Baraboo Segment is four miles long, and is the only segment that lies along the Western bifurcation. A large portion of that segment follows a bike path that stays close to the north shore of the Baraboo River, and it is that aspect that makes this urban segment such a wonderful place to visit. When we came here last July (was it really just 11 months ago??) we biked the 3.1 miles that ran along that path and the short bit that went through the city streets. Even then we felt that we would come back to walk the segment someday just to take a little more time to enjoy the scenery.
Today was that day. It was a warm and sunny 68 degrees in Baraboo when Theresa dropped me off at the southern trailhead, represented by a yellow arrow and a mammoth marker.
Theresa drove north to park in the parking lot on Berkley Boulevard where it is no longer possible to ride a bike and head back the other way. Rather than break the segment up in pieces we decided to walk the entire length in one go, knowing that it was the best chance we had of one of us running into Huck.
As I made my way west and north, I took a ton of photos. First comment, there were plenty of blazes.
Second comment, the water in the Baraboo River was fast-flowing and muddy brown.
Third comment: In 1982, someone familiar with the early history of the region took the time to erect this plaque. The words on the sign do an amazing job of laying out facts without adding any emotion or judgement. The most relevant word on the entire sign is "was".
Here 'was' the village of Chief Caramauenee.
Here 'was' the second largest collection of effigy mounds and conical mounds in the state.
Here 'was' a sacred site of the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) Nation that is now just a memory and a set of sad facts set in stone on the side of the very road whose bulldozed foundation led to the destruction of those self-same sacred mounds.
If you can read this story without becoming embarrassed and ashamed for our colonial history and culture-crushing expansion into this county that once belonged to a thriving nation of indigenous Peoples, then we can't be friends.
So now, instead of a Heritage Site and sacred burial grounds to be found along the river's edge and hillside there is the City of Baraboo and its most famous resident business, the Ringling Brothers Circus. Baraboo is the home of Circus World, where people can come and visit the Circus any day of the week during the open season.
The mounds are gone, the damage done. I am able to compartmentalize my feelings of loss and balance it with the beauty and joy that have been brought to the area. As I walked along the river I saw many people in kayaks and canoes out enjoying the weather, and certainly there were people having fun at the circus.
Walking along the road, IAT hikers get a chance to view some of the buildings and read about the history of the circus, learning about a time when traveling circuses were in their heyday.
It is one of only two places on the trail where you can see an alligator. (The other being the Table Bluff Segment.)
The parade of buildings is like the passing of the circus train. If you don't know what that is, you're not old enough. Back in the day, when the circus traveled from town to town (much like today's 'Fairs'), everything from Aardvarks to Zebras, and from tent poles to tapestries was loaded onto train cars and moved by rail. Children who learned when the Circus Train was coming through town would line the tracks to watch it go by while employees of the show would toss candies and boater's hats to the waiting crowd. The cars were all outlandishly decorated in bright colors, and were a rolling advertisement for the circus.
Seeing the location where the animals stayed while they were not on the road, especially in the wintertime, was interesting, though it also reminds me that the life of a circus animal was not all that wonderful. I'm going to stop going down that path or I risk getting all morose again.
Of course, the circus takes up only a brief portion of the walk, and then you head back to the river. You have to be a little careful as you're getting off the road and back on the bike path. It would be easy to miss your turn.
Sometimes I forget just how important water was to the life of a town. It was the river that brought people here in the first place, and not just for transportation.
There are art projects along the river.
And not all the birds are made of metal.
At one point near the bridge on Broadway Street there was a cottonwood tree that was creating an absolute mess. Everything here that looked like garbage on the grass was just the result of prolific seed creation on the part of the tree. This, in fact, was how cottonwoods got their name.
And at the same location there was a fever of activity where the bridge supported a large number of birds' nests. I honestly don't know if these were swifts or swallows, but they were fun to watch.
The path spent a little more time along the water's edge, but eventually broke away to make a crossing of 2nd Street.
The signage here was a bit vague. If you look carefully at the post below you'll see an arrow beneath the blaze, sun-faded and worn out and partially covered by the high voltage sign. You're supposed to turn left here, and if you're traveling south to north, this turn would be easy to miss. Doing so sends you up a steep hill with no easy way to correct course other than turning around.
But if you make the turn, you'll find yourself entering Lower Ochsner Park. There are restrooms available in the park if you find yourself in need.
It was here that I learned about the history of the SS Tuscania.
And where I got back to the river's edge.
And where I finally - finally - crossed paths with Theresa. She was walking slowly, enjoying the river, sitting and doing nothing for as long as she wanted, any time she wanted. She was having fun.
And who can blame her, with these little cuties to watch?
At the north end of the park there is an old stone staircase that leads to the upper portion of the park near the zoo. At the top of this stairs the hiker is left basically unaided, because there are no blazes pointing you north across 8th Avenue, and coming the other way one would be hard-pressed to find the top of the stairs leading down to the river. This was also one of the things that slowed Theresa down. She walked back and forth and all over that park trying to find the stairs and the trail.
The rest of the roadway is boring, being just a couple of turns past the school districts. These get you to the only actual 'trail' portion of the trail in town. I walked up to touch the first blaze at 2:21 pm, putting an end to my trail, but not an end to my hiking.
Like so many other times when we are crisscross hiking, I enjoy going down to the other end, then walking back to meet up with Theresa and walk with her to the end. Today was so pretty that I didn't even go to the end. Instead I parked just a little bit ahead of her and came back to join her and take pictures.
Shortly after this shot was taken, while I was moving the car, Theresa ran into Susan and Chuck Lanius, who were fascinated by her story and amazed at how far she had walked. Of course, they got patches.
Here you can get a better appreciation for the scale of that metal bird sculpture.
I went on this way, driving just ahead of her and going back to walk with her a little ways, then doing it again and again until we reached the end of the segment. Whatever extra mileage I put on like this is never counted, because I do it only for the pleasure of walking with Theresa. She reached the end of her hike sometime shortly after 3:15.
We never did find Huck.
Location 2: The Connecting Route north of Parfrey's Glen, between the Sauk Point Segment trailhead and the intersection of Hwy 33 and County Road U.
8.5 Miles of trail covered
So now the only logical thing to do was to head back down the the end of the connecting route on map 61 near Parfrey's Glen and start working our way north. This was now our furthest point from home, and every mile we brought it closer was one more mile we wouldn't have to drive in the future.
The changes in elevation near and around Devil's Lake are non-trivial, and it made a difference in which way we walked. Bluff Road, leading up to Tower Road, is a 500-foot climb, and I wasn't about to ask Theresa to make that journey, so she dropped me off at Parfrey's Glen and then drove to the top of the hill to begin her walk down while I walked up. She started her walk at about 4:15 pm, snapping this photo just to get a timestamp for me.
Back in Parfrey's Glen I touched the sign and I was on my way.
There is an area just off the road that looks like the remnants of an old parking lot. It's not marked in any way, and it makes me wonder if it would be possible to park there overnight. It's highly visible to passers-by but it's not on park land.
Boulder stacking along the road.
A barn belonging to someone who bought property on this hillside. I can't imagine dealing with this hill in the wintertime, going up or down.
There's really no way to take a photo looking down a steep hill that tells the story of just how steep it is. No matter what's in the picture it always looks like the path is level, and things are just - slanted a little, in a way that's hard to define. Trust me when I tell you this shot is of a very steep hill.
After I reached the top and got the car I came back down to get Theresa and found her quite near the end. I was sweating from my climb, but she was just on a meander.
Our first leg done, and the monster of a hill climb behind us, we reversed our direction and started working north again from Tower Road.
I have already done too much talking on this blog post, so I'll be more brief about what followed. To begin with, the hike was completely dominated by the presence of grasshoppers. Millions of them. If they had been larger I would have thought we were experiencing the fifth plague of Egypt. But they were small, and kinda cute. As long as you weren't stepping on them, which was a little difficult to avoid.
We saw interesting decorations as we went.
This is how Theresa looked on O'Neil Road when I told her we had walked our way off of map 61.
And this is how she looked when I told her we still had about five miles left to go to get to County Road U.
The view on Durwards Glen Road is quite lovely.
And features at least one very interesting lawn ornament.
I spotted this cool old oak tree with branches so low it looks like a live oak rather than a red oak.
Once we crossed the Baraboo River on X and came out onto Highway 33 we had only 1.6 miles left to reach our goal for the day. Unfortunately, it was 1.6 miles of very busy, dangerous highway. Even so, there was a pretty good shoulder to walk on.
And the view wasn't bad, either.
We ended our day at 8:00 pm, having walked all the way to the Historical Marker on Hwy 33.
Along the way I decided to post some of my random thoughts that come to me while I am walking the roads and have no one to talk to but myself. Here was the post:
10 Random road walking thoughts:
1. Blackbirds seem more perturbed if you're using a black umbrella
2. If the Earth is rotating at a thousand miles an hour, shouldn't it be easier hiking east to west?
3. Why do so many towns have a cemetery right next to the welcome sign?
4. Treadmills are more boring, but they're closer to the bathroom.
5. The average country road is in worse shape than I thought.
6. I really appreciate trees for the shade.
7. If it weren't for bridges this walk would be a lot wetter.
8. You only see the really great spots for van camping after you no longer need them.
9. Sunscreen is my friend.
10. Nature is magnificent no matter if the path you're walking is paved, gravel, or dirt. If you haven't learned to appreciate nature at a distance, you weren't paying close enough attention when you were right next to it.
The tally:
- Two new Snails
- Completed map 61
- Converted 11.6 miles of biking to the 'hiked' category
- 153.2 miles to go
Running Total: 1213.7 miles of trail covered (983.8 hiked), 277.1 miles 'extra' hiking/biking. End of Day 191.
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