Category: Travel Log

Nothing in town opens until 7:00 and that’s not even for certain. The restaurant across the street was supposed to be open until 7:00 last night but they were closed. I bought an extra breakfast at Dollar General and have leftovers, but I want to see if they will be open at 7:00. So until then I am doing nothing but organizing and packing everything to be ready to go quickly.

By the time 7:00 rolls around the store does indeed turn their open sign on. This is both good and bad. It is good because I can get a hot cooked breakfast. It is bad because now I am carrying an extra breakfast and my pack looks pretty heavy.

Breakfast was an omelette with hash browns with rye toast and one coffee. I am the only person in the place the entire time, so I have a feeling this could be one of the places that goes out of business soon. Or maybe Sunday at 7:00 is just not a busy time around here.

I get back to the hotel and load up and head out at 7:45. Indeed my pack is heavy. I have bought too much food again. I am supposed to be carrying only 3 days of food but it’s probably more like 4 and 1/2.

After this load, all of my resupplies are one or two days so this should be the heaviest my pack is for the rest of the trip. It doesn’t help that I’m carrying two Dunkin’ donuts coffees instead of one. I was expecting to have to drink one of them this morning.

There is an extra 5 lbs of fear in my pack. There is a saying that goes the weight of your pack is proportional to the sum of your fears. My fears last night were there I was not going to be able to have breakfast next door, but would end up eating my Dollar General goodies.

I leave out of town on the same road I came in on, so there is nothing new to see for two miles. But at least the people are friendly and wave to me as I walk and they pass by me.

The trail all morning is 95% on double track. The remaining 5% is on special built trails. The trails in both cases are in good condition and a few muddy spots are easy to navigate on rocks or roots. My feet have been dry all morning long and it has been glorious.

The highlight of the morning is waiting long enough so that the B&B in Birchwood is done serving breakfast so that I can call them. This is where I will have my shoes mailed but I need to call them first and make sure it’s okay to mail a package to myself at their address.

I have decent signal at 11:00 so I call them get the permission, then send the email out to the shoe store with the address. The shoe store is closed today but I will call them first thing when they open tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. to make sure they get the email and send the shoes out Monday. I would hate to get to the B&B on Saturday and find at the shoes haven’t made it yet.

I will get to a primitive camp just before noon, so I make that my target for lunch. But about a mile before that point, I come to a wayside that has toilets, water, and picnic benches. So lunch comes early and more comfortably.

When I do get to the campsite, it is adequate. It has some nice log benches to sit on. But I enjoyed the pit toilet and the water fountain much better.

After the small section of trail with the campsite comes another road walk. But just before the trail emerges to the road it crosses a rail trail that looks like it’s dedicated to ATV use because it has a speed limit of 55 posted on it. I don’t know of any bicyclists that are going 55 miles per hour. From the map it just looked like it was another road, but it’s a special ATV road instead.

The road walk takes a little over an hour and when I come to the trailhead there are two cars parked there. Oh boy! I get to see hikers today! Within 30 or 40 minutes I see four ladies come towards me and pass me. They must be the owners of the cars and are heading back.

The trail now is mostly on old logging roads and is pretty easy hiking except for a lot of blowdowns that take a while to cross over. They are taking us towards the lake and then they’ll have us hike north on the east side, and then south on the west side before the trail turns west again.

The trail along the east edge of the lake is a bit muddy and has lots of roots and is just annoying to hike on. It wears me out and it’s almost time for second coffee. There should be a campsite when I hit the North end of the Lake. But I must have passed it, because before I know it I’m going west across the north end of the lake.

The map shows a parking area for the Lodge so I might be able to sit down there and have a snack with my coffee. Missing the campsite turns out to be a blessing in disguise. Because what they label as a parking lot is actually a full set of facilities. There is a bar and grill, a million picnic tables, water, bathrooms, and showers.

And as soon as I set my pack down, I spot the four ladies that I had passed several hours ago. They recognized me too. We chatted for 20 minutes or so until they left. But in the meantime I ordered a BLT and a lemonade. I was planning on eating my frozen dinner so I could get rid of the carton but it’s too hard to pass up a BLT.

I don’t leave the lodge until after 5:00 and I have seven and a half miles to go. This will put me at the campsite probably close to 7:30.

The trail in the west side is much better than it was on the east side. It gains and loses a lot of elevation but it is well-graded with not a lot of roots and rocks but does have many steps.

At the south end of the lake the trail turns west again. The trail does follow some logging roads but it is mostly in marshy areas. I am slipping and sliding around in a lot of places.

Yes, there is a trail in there somewhere. And somewhere underneath is a pile of mud ready to swallow my shoe.

And then the inevitable happens. I slipped with multiple comedic steps and end up falling on a log pretty hard. My right forearm bashed right into it, and both knees and both hands are in the mud. My arm is pretty painful but it only scraped it and is already starting to welt up. I could have easily broken it, but I think the last-second shift turned it into a glancing blow. This is going to be very sore tomorrow.

The rest of the evening has me in a foul mood. The trail continues to be muddy and it is slowing me down. I don’t end up making it to the campsite until 7:40 when it is barely light enough to hike but I need my light to scout out a site for my tent.

I get everything set up and crawl into the tent. Instead of trying to clean my legs, I just put my leggings on and I’ll deal with the mud tomorrow.

For tonight’s dinner it will be a bad spicy chicken sandwich and a barely edible hamburger. Note to self: don’t pack out frozen sandwiches anymore. But I get to top it off with a piece of key lime pie. Yes, I actually packed out a slice of key lime pie with me today.

Emotion of the day, Exhaustion

I got a slightly late start because of waiting for breakfast. And that set the pace for the rest of the day. I spent so much time trying to get the shoe shipment situated. And I wasn’t expecting to be a 30 minute ordeal.

So it seemed like a rush all day just to make the campsite I was aiming for. And I think one of the factors of me slipping in the mud is trying to go too fast when the conditions are against me.

The soles of my shoes are worn almost completely smooth. New shoes definitely would have helped in this situation. But I have five more days to hike before that can happen. Let’s hope I can survive five more days.

It was pretty darn cold last night. The weather report said 34° ,and after seeing some of the evidence of the morning, I believe them. Despite the cold I slept well with my extra layers on. It didn’t take me too long to get rolling in the morning and I was out by 6:30 for a decent start.

There was no dew or frost where I was camped in the heavenly wooded area. My foot is a little sore this morning, but that’s normal when it’s cold like this. I’m wearing my gloves, beanie and neck buff and I warm up within 10 minutes of hiking. The neck buff is the first to come off as I begin to overheat. The cool air feels great on my neck.

After about 40 minutes of hiking I come to an obstacle that I had forgotten about. My goal last night was to make the last river crossing before morning so I wouldn’t have to do it on a chilly morning. And what lies directly ahead of me is another river to ford that is about 20 yards wide.

So I take off my shoes and socks and put my flip flops on and find a stick. As I make my way across the river the water is not as cold as I expected, which is a relief. But the water is far deeper than expected and that is not a relief. The water comes up to my knees in most places and only an inch from getting my pants wet. I definitely don’t want to walk this morning with wet pants.

I make it across safely to the other side but it is wet grass and still muddy so I have to keep going. It takes me nearly a quarter of a mile to find a log to sit on to put my shoes back on. Since it is cold it takes a while to dry my feet. It’s nearly impossible to put these hiking sucks on when your feet are wet.

But everything works out and I’m on my way. If I had made it this far last night I don’t see a whole lot of camping sites better than the one I had, so I think I made the right choice in stopping when I did.

The trail comes out to a lake with a boardwalk across the edge of it and what looks to be a channel between it and another lake. The ground here is covered in heavy frost so, yes, it probably did get down to about 34° last night. Possibly a little lower.

As I walk across the boardwalk it also is covered with frost and is very slippery. It is also unusually high -about 5 ft in the air. There is no railing or edges so it is a bit scary walking across this rickety thing that is swaying underneath me while I am walking on ice crystals. The wolves don’t seem to mind because they have dropped five mounds of scat right in the middle of the boardwalk.

I’m relieved when the trail comes out to a dirt road walk. At least now I know my feet will not get wet and I won’t have to be dodging rocks and roots for a while. But of course that doesn’t last for very long.

The trails all afternoon seem to follow the same formula. A little bit of evergreens, a little bit of Aspen underbrush mush, a little bit of wet buggy roots, a little bit of logging road, a wet grassy area next to a beaver pond, a ski trail or snowmobile trail, a logged out area of trash vegetation, a hike up an esker, and then a hike down and esker. I could use all of these to describe any two-mile stretch of trail along todays hike.

The morning remained cool, but I was never cold. When I came across the edge of wood Lake and the campground area, there was a bench in the Sun that was calling my name. I ate the second half of my sandwich from yesterday and the rest of the Pringles potato chips. I can’t relax too much today because, I have 28 miles from my campsite to get to town.

Cell service has been bad all day and I haven’t been able to get any connectivity to see if I can book a room in Rib Lake or not. There are two motels and a campground, so I’m not overly worried about it. But it would be nice to get the one that’s next to the Dollar General.

I have already had my morning coffee for the day, and so by 2:30 it’s time for the second one. It has been a while since my shoes have gotten wet from marsh or boggy grass and there is a bright sunny spot on a ski trail, so I lay down and bask in the sun with my shoes off to get my socks bone dry. A little coffee and a little sun could put me to sleep but I can only afford 15 minutes here.

I keep moving on and not more than 10 minutes later I come across another Beaver dam with a soaking wet field to cross behind it. There is a boardwalk in the middle but it only covers less than a quarter of the field I have to cross.

I am trying to be careful and step on either clumps of grass or logs, but eventually both feet end up sinking into water and getting both shoes and socks wet again. I just can’t win today.

About 5 miles from town, the trail crosses the highway and begins a new section which coincides with a trail called Tim’s Hill. There are quite a few cars here and I can see people scurrying up the trail.

I am running low on water, and the campsite here is supposed to have a hand pump. But with all the confusion of multiple trails, I totally go right past the campsite and my chance for water. I am completely out, but have half of a coffee left. I will need one liter to make it to town from here.

Luckily there is a stream just a few tenths up the trail so I stopped there to fill up. It is now 4:00 so the last 5 miles plus the mile and a half road walk into town should put me into town right at 6:00 p.m. and that would be perfect timing.

I am able to get a weak cell signal now and I’m able to book the very last room available. Yesterday when I checked there were three available. Talk about cutting it close.

This section of trail is through a ski club area and so there are a million ski trails criss-crossing every which way. But the trail has been recently cut and is in good shape. More importantly, I don’t remember seeing any significant muddy areas that didn’t have a bridge or a boardwalk over them. I finally catch a break for the last 5 miles.

I pop out to the road walk right on time at 5:30 and begin walking into town. I am finally able to get good cell signal here so I go ahead and check an entire day and a half worth of email and other miscellaneous things as I mindlessly walk along the road.

One of my emails is the hotel giving me the key code for my room and the room number. They don’t have an office on site so you just use a code to get into your room. It’s a cute little four unit motel and the rooms are very rustic log cabin styling.

I don’t even bother to shower before I turn right around and head to the Dollar General after checking my food to see what I need to buy for tomorrow. I need 3 days worth of food but I have some meals left over since I wasn’t sure if this was a two-day or a 3-day journey. I want to hit the Dollar General because I know they don’t open until 8:00 a.m. and I want to be sure I can leave before then.

Next order of business is dinner, and the pizza shop in town seems to have the best comments. I am wary of Midwestern pizza, but the pictures in Google show that they are slicing them in wedges instead of squares. I think this might be worth giving them a try. And I was not disappointed. It was the best pizza I have had in the state of Wisconsin hands down.

Back at the room, the next order of business is a shower, finally. The last two days have been relatively cool, so I’m not really that disgusting, but a shower always feels great. I am not even going to bother doing laundry since I have so little that is dirty.

The last order of business is checking the schedule to make sure I haven’t made any mistakes, because I will try to get my shoes sent to the next town which I should be hitting in exactly a week. The hotel in that Town requires a two-night minimum, so I will be staying at a bed and breakfast instead.

I will call them tomorrow later in the morning to make sure it is okay to have my shoes shipped there. If they will not let me ship my shoes there then the only place is one day before the end of the trip, so I will only be able to wear my new shoes for one day.

Emotion of the day, Monotony

The trails today were like the trails have been the entire last week or so. Other than having lunch at wood Lake, this could have been any of the previous 10 days.

The whole Wood Lake area was better than usual because they had informative signs talking about the logging industry of the area. I must be getting old because I love reading those kinds of signs especially ones that identify trees in the area.

I was awake at 4:00 a.m. and just could not get back to sleep. So I got up and started packing at 5:00 just to be fully ready by the time breakfast opened at 6:00. It was the same sad affair as yesterday, so I’m glad I bought two hard-boiled eggs at Walmart to have this morning. But their Yoplait yogurt was good.

I gave Uber a try for 5 or 10 minutes with no luck. But the taxi answered immediately and had me picked up in 5 minutes. I had a good chat with the driver about Aspen trees and wolf behavior. Yes, there are wolves up here.

I was back out at the park and on the trail at 7:00. It was very overcast but not raining. It was cool enough that I wanted to wear gloves, but not so cold that I needed to wear gloves. But within 10 minutes it started missing and then raining gently. It rained and misted for nearly an hour which was about half of my road walk this morning.

By 9:00 I was down to the trail section of Grandfather falls. This trail is 1.7 mi out and then you turn around and come back. I am assuming that there are some falls at the end of the trail. Spoiler alert, there is only a sign to tell you to turn around. There are no falls on the trail.

Back on the main trail it heads through the county campground where I could have camped Wednesday night. It is a brand new facility with brand new pit toilets and a brand new hand pump for water. For $20 a night it’s reasonable, but it literally is just 40 ft from the road. Not having any electrical outlets was a deal breaker for me since my battery pack was dead.

The trail now winds along the Wisconsin River up towards the hydroelectric plant. There is a pretty high rate of flow on this river, but the flow almost stops when you get above where the outflow of the hydroelectric plant is. There are plenty of rapids and it looks like it would be fun to canoe or kayak.

It was 11:00 by the time I made it all the way up to the headwater, so I stopped and had lunch while viewing the rapids and the spillway for the dam.

There was a group of school age children in a group of about a dozen of them hiking past me. The trail goes up the east side of the river above the dam about a mile to a bridge that crosses the river to get to the west side. The trail then comes down the bank of the river almost all the way to the campground.

I have been hiking for over 2 and 1/2 hours and I have basically just crossed the river and that’s it. The entire morning is a lot of hiking to not cover much ground. The West bank was also extremely rocky and the trail was difficult. And now the trail heads west on special purpose trail mixed with snowmobile trails and back roads. There is one small road walk of less than a mile on a gravel road.

Much of the ground here is very muddy and swampy. I end up getting my shoes wet about once every hour. Just about the time my shoes are dry they get wet again. This happens literally all day from 1:00 p.m. until 7:30 when I stopped to camp.

About half of the woods are also recently logged. There is nothing but trash trees and little Aspen’s growing. It’s not a pretty sight.

The woods themselves when it is dry are nice to hike through. There are sections of hardwoods and sections of evergreens. Lots of white pines and spruce.

At about 4:30 in the afternoon there are two streams to cross within 100 yards of each other. I go ahead and put my flip flops on to cross both of them and walk between them. They are both about 15 to 20 yards across and only 8 inches deep. When I get to the other side the trail is very overgrown and then there’s nowhere to stop and put your shoes back on. So I probably hike a quarter mile in my flip flops through the briars until I find a big tree I can sit on.

This river is not much wider than the others I had to forward, yet this one has a really nice metal grated bridge going across it. Dry feet for me.

One point in the guidebook says that there are three massive white pines next to one of the rivers. Things written in guidebooks regarding size are usually an exaggeration. But these three white pines were the largest white pines I have ever seen in both width and height.

I am trying to cover about 30 miles today to make tomorrow a short enough day to make into town. Since I got an early start at 7:00 a.m. and considering I had to get a ride from town, this is possible to do.

But the trail was a lot rockier and rougher than I expected. So the spot I am trying to get to will take until at least 7:30 or 8:00 p.m. and by then it is getting dark. I am trying to find places on the trail that look like their high enough to not be swampy. But just because the ground is high doesn’t mean it’ll be flat enough or free of obstructions to be able to camp on.

At 7:30 I’m still about a mile from where I wanted to end up but the sun has gone down and I have less than 30 minutes of light left to make camp. I find a spot that’s large enough to put a tent and very gently sloped so I go ahead and stop here. If I had gone to extra 20 minutes to get where I wanted to finish there’s no guarantee I would be able to find anything in the dark. This spot will have to do.

It is supposed to get down to 34° tonight and my sleeping bag is rated for 30 degrees. Experience tells me if I don’t wear my fleece I will be cold tonight so I go ahead and get into it as soon as I get to camp. I cook dinner first then set up the tent. By the time everything is set up dinner is cool enough to eat.

And my timing is good because it is just now 8:00 and it is too dark to hike without a headlight. And finding a campsite by headlight is nearly impossible.

Emotion of the day, Frustration

I know the national scenic trails are all about showing off what the area has to offer, but some of these trails are ridiculous. The 1.7 mi out and back of Grandfather falls was completely pointless. If it was a loop then it would have been forgiveable. The mileage of an out and back like this is not included in the overall length of the trail. That is totally absurd.

That’s right, the 28 mi that the guidebook says I hiked today was actually 3.4 mi longer because of the out and back the isn’t even counted as part of the 28. This trail is actually going to end up being longer than the 1,150 miles it claims to be.

It was also not fun having some really difficult sections of trail with rocks and other annoying sections of trail with mud and weeds. I have to cover the exact same distance tomorrow that I covered today. 28 mi by the guidebook plus 1.5 off trail into town.

If the trail is as rough as it was today, I don’t think I can make it before dark. That also frustrates me.

The campsite last night was awesome. There’s absolutely no dew in the morning, and the soft pine needles made me sleep well. In fact, I almost overslept. But I did manage to get out around 6:45 which isn’t too bad.

Lots of mosquitoes came out late last night but this morning there are none. I refilled all my water last night so I am full and ready for a full day of hiking.

And today is one of those interesting days where I’m not sure how it’s going to end out. There is a section of road walking towards the end of the day. I have three options. Option A is the hike a short 18 Mile day and camp out before the road walk. Option B is to have a medium day of about 27 miles and try and get a ride into the town of Merrill and stay in a hotel. Option C is to do the entire road walk and a 32 mile day and camp at the county campground at the end. All three options are equal probabilities at this point.

The morning hiking has many ups and downs. The first landmark is called Tower Hill where there is a communication tower and it just happens to be the highest point on the IAT at just over 1900 ft. So I expected the ups and downs but what I did not expect is this area has been recently timbered so the trail is a bit beat up and not very pleasant to look at.

When I get to the tower it’s not very impressive. There isn’t a view and you’re just looking at a radio tower and a cell tower so there are actually two towers. But there is a bench so I sit and take a little break to have a snack. There are some workers there working on the tower and they look at me like I’m from outer space. I don’t talk with them other than to say hello.

The entire day is more of the same. There are ATV trails all over the place along with other trails like snowmobile trails and eventually mountain bike trails. Only a few sections are wet with dew so my feet stay damp but not really wet.

The major problem with the trails is the sheer quantity of them. There is some sort of intersection about every two or three tenths of a mile. And with so many intersections you’re bound to miss a turn. Throughout the day, I ended up missing three turns. Each mistake involved backtracking about a quarter of a mile for the first two, but the third was a big mistake.

I must have gone down a mountain bike trail for over a mile. When I came to an intersection with four trails I was puzzled to see strange colored markers and nothing yellow. Luckily there was a mountain bike trail map at that intersection, and indeed I have been on a black mountain bike trail for over a mile.

This is not good news when you know you have a potentially 32 mi long day. The mountain bike trail map does have the Ice Age Trail on it as well, so I find two options to get back on track without having to backtrack the entire mile.

One option has me angling a little backwards but directly towards the Ice Age Trail. The other option has me angling forwards and eventually meeting back with the Ice Age Trail. The forwards option looks like it has lots of twists and turns and could potentially have a lot of climbing, but I would waste very little mileage. The backwards option will cost me miles but get me back on the trail quicker. I choose the backwards option because there is less uncertainty.

It takes nearly 30 minutes to get back onto the right Trail. I was expecting it to be more like 15. So the scale of my mistake is actually larger than I thought. No matter I am on the right Trail now and I still have the possibility of completing option C before dark.

This section has two shelters. One looks brand new and one looks only a few years old. They aren’t really set up for overnight camping the way Appalachian Trail shelters are. But they would definitely do in a pinch. They are very well built.

I am doing a two coffee day strategy today. I drink half a coffee at 9:30 then the other half at 11:30. Then my third half coffee at 2:30, and the last half at 4:30. I make it a little later in the day because I know this could potentially be a really long day. But overall the strategy is a success. At no point during the day do I feel tired or sluggish, other than at the end of steep climbs, which is normal.

By the time I get to the last camping area before the road walk it is 4:30 which seems really early in the day to stop so I’m not keen on option A. Despite all the missed turns today I’m surprised I was able to make it this early, but I was hoping to get here a little earlier.

So right now option B has me getting at the first Park at about 6:30, and the option C campsite park at about 8:30. The days are getting shorter and it is getting dark around 8:00 p.m. so option C is not looking great.

I am road walking not quite full speed but very briskly. I don’t want to walk too quickly at the end of the day and overdo it. But at the same time I don’t want to waste any daylight.

I get to the park at exactly 6:30. I only have half a liter of water which is not enough to camp with but there is a hand pump at this park so I go ahead and fill both bottles and camel up at the same time. I open both Uber and Lyft at the same time and try to get a ride into town while I collect water. Neither ride service ends up being able to find a driver which is what I expected.

There are outlets here but they are not functional, and I just discovered that my battery bank is completely drained. Earlier in the day my handheld camera cut out in the middle of the recording because it had run out of battery and so I was charging it for about an hour while hiking. What I didn’t realize is then that one hour it completely drained all of the juice I had remaining.

My phone is down to 40%, which only gives me one day of usage if I conserve. Which means if I can’t charge at the next campground then I will be totally screwed for the next 2 days. The app on my phone is the only way I have to figure out how far it is from point to point, including road walks, camping, and water.

I load my pack back on to my back and get ready to head out for the last half of the road walk. But after only about 10 steps I hesitate and decide to see if I can find a taxi service. There is one so I call and they say they can have a driver there before too long. But they can’t elaborate on what too long is. I will wait 1 hour before giving up on them. That would mean road walking for an hour and daylight and an hour and darkness. Not ideal conditions but things are getting a little dicey here.

In the midst of all of this I also end up breaking my reading glasses. Now a Walmart is even higher on my priority list. After 40 minutes I start to get a little nervous. The park closes at sunset and the residents are all looking at me a little suspiciously. I think they are all assuming that I am going to try and camp here tonight.

Shortly thereafter I get a phone call from my Wisconsin number that I don’t know. I sure hope that this is the taxi service so I answer it. Indeed it is Larry from the taxi and he needs more direction on where this park is. All my fears have melted away with one phone call. His concern is getting to me before dark so he can find me. My concern is him getting me to before dark so I don’t get harrassed by the residents.

I had not made any reservations since I wasn’t sure I could even get into town. But now that I have a phone call I go ahead and book a room. There are three hotels in town, none of them I have points to get for free. So I choose the one that is on the same side of the highway as the Walmart. Cobblestone suites it is.

I checked the weather and all sorts of things in this 40 minutes before I got the phone call. It is supposed to rain beginning at midnight through noon tomorrow. My foot has been sore most of the afternoon, and seeing that there is rain in the forecast and I have a ton of chores to do, I decide to book the room for two nights and take a day off tomorrow. I am still 5 days ahead of schedule so I actually need to start slowing down and this day of rest will help a lot.

He arrived shortly after 7:30, with about 30 minutes of daylight to spare. The sun is just starting to touch the horizon. It is a 15-minute ride into town and he drops me off while there is still a little bit of daylight. I get all the quarters I will need for laundry but I won’t do it until tomorrow. For tonight it is only shower and dinner, and not even any blogging. Five soft pillows have my name written on them.

While the trail guide says today should have been a 28 mile day, my Garmin tells me it was 32 and a half miles. Those missed turns really cost me a lot of mileage. If I had to have hiked the full option C, it would have been a 39 mile day.

That would have definitely forced me to take a zero at the campground, which seems like one of the worst campgrounds on the trail according to the comments in the guide. I am really happy that I was able to get into town after all.

This map will give you a sense of how far I have come across Wisconsin so far. I started on the east side then made my way south. Then headed Westward and took the east side of the little loop in the middle. Now I am about done with moving more northward and it’s all about going Westward towards Minnesota.

Emotion of the day, Frustration

The morning today was fantastic. I was hiking quickly, I had plenty of energy, and the trail was manageable. It’s after my lunch stop at about 1:00 p.m. where things took a turn for the worse.

Missing a turn is common. I have probably missed half a dozen on this trail so far. But to miss three, especially on a day which could be well over 30 miles is disheartening.

The blazing was very inconsistent today. Nearly half the blazes were not the standard 2×6-in yellow box. They were using yellow painted arrows and all sorts of interesting things.

And after backtracking on the first two missed turns, it was a case of walking on a road and the trail jutting out 90° from the road not at an intersection. It’s not uncommon for trails to do this, but there needs to be a post or something visible along the path you’re currently on.

They don’t use posts in this section at all. Yet some other sections use posts even when there’s perfectly good trees they could use.

They also don’t use the double blaze properly. On one of the incorrect turns there was a double blaze pointing me to the left even though I saw a trail leading to the right. This one I discovered within a quarter of mile so it wasn’t too bad. But what looks like happened was there was an original blaze on a piece of bark that was peeling away and they put a new blaze on exposed wood making a double blaze when they really didn’t mean to. Well I fixed that double blaze for them by tearing off the bark with the blaze that had no point in being there. Perhaps this will save the next hiker the same headache.

Not knowing if I would be able to get into the town of Maryland or not was also frustrating. I didn’t expect to get Lyft or Uber service, but those first 40 minutes not knowing if the taxi would really come or not was very unnerving. I was not looking forward to the possibility of road walking in the dark for an hour.

It wasn’t cold last night but it got cold just before daylight. I didn’t have cell service so I couldn’t check the forecast to see what the temperature was but I’m pretty sure it was in the ’40s.

The cold weather makes me get up more slowly than normal. And today similar to yesterday. I was up and moving at about 6:45 which isn’t too bad. I wasn’t really rushing.

The first place I hiked through is Susan Lake area. As soon as I get to the gate I see a sign that says that the entire facility is rented out for a private group with no trespassing signs. The guidebook says that we have access even if it says exactly that. So I might try to run through like I own the place.

Everyone there is still sleeping. No one is camped out but they all seem to be in some sort of a large building up on the hill.

Someone commented in the guidebook that there’s a good campsite overlooking the lake. I find the spot and it is really close to the group building so it would not have been a good place to try and camp last night.

I keep on moving until I get lake access. This is where I will fill up water for the day. The lake water is warm but it filters clear and has no taste.

The entire morning is a mix of dirt roads and purpose trails for the first hour. But then it turns to road walking for about 2 hours. The first road that takes about an hour has maybe two cars that pass me. The second road about the same distance has only one car pass me. These kinds of road walks I don’t mind. They are both heavily wooded and heavily shaded.

It’s still a bit chilly so I hike with my gloves on. The rest of the entire day is a mixed bag of double track dirt roads, small ATV roads, pathways that look like they’re probably snowmobile trails, and some dedicated single track.

I started out wearing my dry socks because I knew about all the road walking early on and I decided I would only stop and switch it became wet grass. Luckily the snowmobile paths have very low grass and they’re already in the sun so my shoes are just barely getting damp.

But I know I have a river crossing coming soon. Some comments in the guidebook say to use the stones, one says cross on a log upstream, and the rest say just wait through it.

When I finally get to it I kind of laugh out loud. It’s barely a stream and more like a creek. I see the rock crossing and the log crossing upstream. Both of them look easy, but the rock crossing is right in front of me so I just walk right across. This is almost not even worth putting in the guide book as a river crossing.

After about another hour, the grass starts getting pretty wet, so I stop and switch to my wet socks. My timing was perfect because within 10 minutes my shoes and socks are soaking wet. I end up having to wear these for about 4 hours until later on when my shoes are dry enough to switch socks.

The trails of also become a little steeper and slow me down a bit. My energy is decent because I’m trying a new coffee strategy today. I make coffee at 9:00 a.m. and only drink half of it. I then drink the other half at 11:00 or 11:30. Then I make coffee again at 1:30 or 2:00 but only drink half. And then drink the other half at 3:30 or 4:00.

I think the strategy works because I have good energy all day and don’t really get tired until after 6:00. I will try this again tomorrow to see if I get the same results.

Late in the afternoon, there is a second river crossing. For this one, no one mentions a way to get across without wading. I reached it about 4:00 p.m. and it is indeed a wide enough river that there’s no other options. It’s about 30 or 40 yards across but less than a foot deep. I could use my flip flops but the banks are muddy so I decide just to use bare feet.

I grab a stick that someone has left on the bank to steady myself and make my way across the river. By the fourth step I regret not wearing my flip-flops. The rocks on the bottom are very jagged and pointed and very painful under your feet. There is grass in the middle that I step on and it does soften the rocks below. I was expecting smooth the river rocks but this is more like lava rock.

As I approach the other side I can see there’s a stream leading into the river. As I approach the bank the water turns ice cold and very painful on your feet. Now I have to deal with sharp rocks and frozen feet.

I make it up onto the shore and just keep walking up the grassy hill because I can see there is an opening. I’m glad I did because there are big concrete blocks to sit on to dry your feet and put your shoes back on. It would have been a royal pain to try and do that in the grass by the bank.

I take a little break, check my maps, drink my coffee, have a little snack. The cold water rejuvenates you but it’s now 4:00 and time for my last half of coffee.

The trail wanders out through a neighborhood onto a small street for about a half a mile. The trail crosses a highway and I can see a bar and grill about a 10th of a mile north. I remember reading a comment in The guidebook about the bar and grill north of the trail being closed. There are two cars in the parking lot but it doesn’t look active like it should at 4:30, so I keep crossing the highway and moving on down the trail.

About a mile from the highway as I am checking my map, I don’t see that same comment about the bar and grill. I have a little bit of internet access so I check Google maps and it says the bar was indeed open.

Now I regret not going to check to see if it was open while I was still there. And there’s no point in backtracking a mile just to go now so I guess it’s one that got away. But a cheeseburger does sound pretty good right now. At least better than mashed potatoes.

The trail now starts doing weird things like going straight up steep banks and then down the other side. This is not the kind of trail I wanted at 5:00 p.m. in the evening. It does start to sap my energy a little bit.

There are two campsites that I will reach about 6:30. There’s a tower on top of the hill that I would reach at 7:30. And two more campsites that I would reach at 8:30. I would doubt I will find camping at the top of the hill so that one is out. And I don’t really feel like hiking all the way until dark so the second set of campsites is out. It looks like the first two campsites are going to be my best bet.

I get to the second campsite right on time and poke around to see where would be a good place to pitch my tent. The official campsite is not bad but it’s a little dirty. But up closer to the trail there are thick blankets of pine needles and flat areas that look even better. I find one the size of my tent and this will be my home for tonight.

I set the tent up and then roll a cut section of log 20 yards from my tent so I can cook dinner. Mashed potatoes and tuna fish, yum.

Emotion of the day, I’m not sure

The morning was nice. The road walks were not hazardous. The early grass trails were not wet. The first river crossing was not existent, and the second one was exactly what I expected.

The afternoon trails were a little annoying. And missing the opportunity for a good dinner was a let down.

But at least the campsite is good, and it wasn’t a too difficult day today. The weather was nice and cool.

So what kind of emotion do you tag to a day that’s just like any other day? It was just the normal routine of hiking. So I guess the emotion would have to be – routine.

It was really cold last night. The forecast said 42 but it felt even colder. I had to wear my beanie and mittens to bed. And this was the first night I was inside the sleeping bag as soon as I laid down.

The cold morning had me getting up a little bit later. I am in no rush today and it would be nice to have the sun a little higher to warm things up once I get walking.

Hunting season started yesterday and I can hear shooting in the distance. I would also like there to be daylight before I’m wandering around in the woods.

I did not get rolling till after 6: 45. My first job for the morning is to head to the lake and fill up with water. There is a steep trail down to the water and there is steam coming off the water into the air. As I am filling up the water bladder, I can tell the water is actually on the warmish side. This is definitely not a stream.

But the water tastes good so I camel up and fill up both bottles. I really only needed to fill up one of the bottles, as I never touched any of the water in the bigger bottle. With the cool weather yesterday I didn’t need as much water as I thought.

The trail all morning is a mix of dedicated single-track trail, narrow ATV trails, grassy skiing trails, or muddy double track forest roads. There is enough tree cover over the grassy areas that it is not soaking wet so my shoes stay almost dry for the first 3 hours of the morning. But the skiing trails eventually get out in the open and the grass is soaking wet. Within 10 minutes My shoes are soaked and it’s after 11:00.

I’m feeling sluggish this morning, so I go ahead and make a coffee but only drink half of it. It definitely helps, but drinking the whole thing probably would help even more.

I stopped for lunch at a campsite on a lake that has a nice bench overlooking the lake. There was a section hiker there when I got there and we chatted a few minutes and then she moved on.

Lunch today is the French bread toasted with butter and garlic that I bought at the bakery in Antigo. They are pretty good, but they are bulky. I wish I could get these again but that was a one-time purchase. They are kind of like bagel chips but much bigger.

I also take the opportunity to take my shoes and socks off and let my shoes and insoles dry and put my dry socks on. It is now 1:00 so I feel safe that the grass should be dry now.

The next highlight of the day is a county park at Jack’s Lake. The trail enters the park and circles a really nice lake in an area with lots of evergreens. The trail then approaches the campground where I stop and refill my water bottles and take a little break. If I was going to be here longer I probably would have charged my phone too.

There is a small road to exit the park and enter the ski area. Next to the parking lot of the ski area is a warming hut. It’s a building with picnic tables inside and a stove/fire place. You’re not allowed to camp here but it would be an awesome break in the winter time.

The trail then heads down more ski trails and snow shoe trails. But in this area the bugs are insane. I have to use both bug spray and my head net and I’m still going a little crazy.

A few miles later another shelter shows up that is similar to the first one, but this is a wood fireplace instead of a gas one. This one also does not have electricity whereas the first one did. The mosquitoes are still bad in a few of them follow me into the hut so I still don’t get any relief from them. I might as well keep going.

I have finished all my coffee and the mosquitoes are still driving me crazy but I still have almost 2 hours of hiking to get to where I intend to stop. The afternoon just drags on. I don’t want to make a second coffee but if this happens again tomorrow I will.

The area I’m headed for is another park area on a different lake. Some of the comments in the guide says there’s a good camping spot by the lake. But when I’m still half a mile away, I see a good spot. There’s lots of pine trees and it looks like there’s plenty of flat areas. I make my way over there and there are indeed many good places to pitch the tent. So I find one as far away from the road as I can get and set everything up.

By now the mosquitoes are gone so I’m able to make my mashed potatoes away from the tent and eat in peace. I still have the honey bun that I bought at the bakery and so that becomes dessert. It’s just too big and messy to try and eat for breakfast. It’s quite good but I bet it was closer to amazing when it was fresh. It’s almost 2 days old by now.

The temperature isn’t nearly as cold tonight as it was last night. I’m in my usual shorts and t-shirt and when I get into the sleeping bag I’m actually too warm. This is more how most of the other nights have been so I should be pretty comfortable. But I know exactly where my beanie and mittens are just in case.

Emotion of the day, Tired

I was tired most of the day today. I didn’t sleep that well last night but that shouldn’t make that big of a difference since I rarely sleep well any night while I’m camping. I did only make one coffee and maybe I should have made two. It was a relatively long day from 6:45 to 6:30 and yet I only went 25 miles.

Ski trails are up and down hills so the hiking is slower, not to mention dodging mud puddles and tip toeing around wet grass when possible.

I hope I sleep well tonight because I have another 25 or 26 mile a day tomorrow. The thought of going over 30 right now just doesn’t seem realistic unless I overdose on coffee. But that’s an escalating battle that I will never win.

It’s just impossible for me to sleep past 5:00 in the morning. Breakfast doesn’t start till 7:00 so there’s no reason to get up before 6:30. So why am I awake at 5:00? I might as well get up and do a little bit more planning.

Walmart opens at 6:00 so I can go check on replacing my fuel canister and see if they have any reasonable shoes. The fuel canister I bought in Green Bay I don’t think matches the threads on my stove perfectly. It’s very hard to screw on without releasing a lot of gas and it sometimes comes off with less than a 10th of a turn and that scares me. Even though I have plenty of fuel I think it’s worth buying a different brand at Walmart and seeing if that screws on and off any better.

I hit the Walmart at 6:10 and there’s only one other customer in the entire store. On the shoe front, they have what I expected – their own off brands. The only shoes they have with an aggressive tread seem very stiff and heavy and look like they would cause me blisters within 5 miles. It’s not worth the $28 experiment, but the stove fuel is definitely worth a $6 experiment.

Back at the hotel I tried the new canister and it fits much, much better, Even though I now added an extra 100 g in fuel I don’t need, at least I don’t think I will blow myself up or have the stove fail when I need it to cook something I can’t cold soak. With what I have now I could probably just cold soak everything, but I do plan on getting more backpacker meals at the next Super Walmart if I end up going into the town of Merrill.

I take the stove outside on the old canister and just open the valve all the way to vent out all the gas. These things are dangerous to throw away if they have even the least amount of residual fuel in them. I was surprised at how long it took to vent a half a canister. It must have been 20 to 25 minutes at least. But I finally got it completely vented and felt okay about throwing the canister away.

Breakfast is what you expect at a Holiday Inn Express. Pre-made cheese omelets, a pancake machine, yogurt, and their signature cinnamon buns. There are bagels and toast and muffin like things but I usually steer clear of those unless everything else is horrible. Their juice machine had an orange guava passion fruit thing that’s pretty good, so I have one of those and one cup of coffee.

There is a Dunham Sports store a quarter mile away, but they don’t open until 10:00. I also doubt they will have suitable shoes for me, but at least they would be better than Walmart shoes.

I go ahead and start packing everything up, and to my delight, all my food does fit comfortably in my food bag except for the big bag of potato chips. I will have to carry that in the outside pocket.

I am already to go at 9:00 and make a judgment call that it’s not worth hanging out for another hour just for the slim chance of finding new shoes. I will take my chances that I will be able to have the shoes I bought in Green Bay shipped to a campground that I think I will be at next Tuesday or possibly even Monday. Anything else is too soon because it’s Labor Day weekend and nothing would happen until Tuesday anyway. I should be in the town of Merrill by Thursday, but two days it’s just not enough to get the shoes there in time.

So I strike out at 9:00 along the busy highway. There is no sidewalk or shoulder near the stores where I’m at, so I’m walking through the parking lot. I am beginning to think that taking this highway out of town may have been a mistake.

But as soon as the stores end, a big wide beautiful shoulder appears four feet paved and eight feet of gravel. Despite the large number of cars on the road this is actually exactly what I’m looking for – something big and wide and not sloped. I have about 8 mi to hike on this highway and even though the shoulder does narrow slightly to two feet of paved and six feet of gravel it is still more than enough to feel safe and hike comfortably.

The weather is very cool – about 52° with a strong wind about 15 miles per hour and scattered clouds. When the sun is behind the clouds it’s quite cold, but it doesn’t last long before the sun comes out and makes everything warm and toasty. It’s too windy to use the umbrella, so I put on sunscreen and just walk in and out of the sun and shadows.

The hike on the road goes much quicker and effortlessly than I expected and I am in the town of Polar by 11:45. This is perfect timing because the only thing in the town of Polar is a bar and grill and they open at noon. So I sit down in a shady spot to cool off and catch up on email and other tasks until they open.

I am the only one in the bar at noon when I go in and I’m still the only one at 12:30 when I leave. A burger and fries for $11 is about the most economical and reasonable meal I’ve had on this trip. I fill my water bottles and take off on more road walking, but this time they are all tiny back roads. For the next 6 miles of road walking I think I only see four cars.

Near the end of the road walk is an interesting house. There is a trail angel named Terry who has a million signs and all sorts of decorations outside his house. One of the signs says ring the bell, so I ring the bell. I am alarmed at how loud it is. No one must be home cuz no one ever comes out, but I spend a few minutes reading all the signs and just looking at all the decorations and taking in the sights.

After 5 minutes or so I resume my hike down the road for another mile until it turns into trail. And in this case trail means snowmobile trail. The trail begins following ATV and snowmobile trails for many miles, but I have no idea how many of next 30 miles are going to be just like this.

I know the next official campsite is too far, but I’m sure I’ll find something suitable along the way. My plan is to just keep hiking until about 7:00 or 7:30 and then look for some place to pitch my tent. I know there is a ski resort near that point where I won’t be able to camp for a mile or two. But I should find something before or after that.

Along the trail are notes for sites called frost pockets. To me they just look like sink holes or kettles. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking at. All I can see is a depression in the ground filled with trees and undergrowth so you really can’t tell something special is there or not. It’s not called a kettle so it must be different. 

The trail keeps switching between snowmobile trails, ATV trails, double track, or single track. Some of it is a little muddy and some of it is a little overgrown. It changes elevation sometimes gently and sometimes more abruptly. It’s a wide array of trail but it all looks pretty much the same and is easy hiking.

When I get to the end of the ski area it opens up into a large downhill area and a few buildings. I hear the water is off and I know there is a lake a few miles away so I don’t bother checking out the buildings. It is just a few minutes before 7:00 and I want to get to the next section so that I can begin to look for a campsite.

When I get to the exit of the ski area and cross the road, the next section is not marked as private property. Hooray! The only problem is the terrain is a little more steep, a little more rocky, and a little more thickly wooded with undergrowth. It may be difficult to find a site here.

But somewhere between the road and the lake I do find a suitable spot that is just big enough for my tent and clear of rocks. I have the tent set up quickly then go about eating my frozen and leftover burritos that I carried out from town.

Then I get the inside of the tent set up as usual and begin blogging. Welcome to the daily grind.

Emotion of the Day, Exhilaration

Having the weather be this cool all day long was really refreshing. Only where my hip felt touched my back was I sweating. My upper back stayed dry all day. And at the end of the day I don’t feel all sticky and clammy. My shirt and pants were dry by the time I finished dinner. Such a stark contrast to the heat wave a week ago.

The highway road walk ended up being perfectly fine with no issues. It’s nice to be on a section of actual trail that will last for more than a day. And the trail itself is not too bad.

I had fun eating lunch at the bar and grill too. The waitress was very curious about long distance hiking and the hiking culture. She only sees a hiker every few weeks. If her bar were on the Appalachian Trail she would be seeing 30 to 50 a day.

I was only planning on hiking 20 miles today. But the cool weather and the easy terrain just made them melt away. I think I ended up with about 26 or 27 for the day. That’s not bad considering I didn’t start until 9:00 a.m.

It was just a fun day to be hiking today.

I had to break my 6:20 streak so I purposely refrained from packing anything until after 6:20. But apparently my idea of sleeping in is leaving at 7:00. It’s just really hard to lay in a smelly tent in the woods and do nothing.

The morning is nice and cool and the sun is shining brightly. There is not a cloud in the sky. You at the forecast is for the high to be only 73°, which sounds divine.

I have a few miles of this Trail in the hunting grounds left to hike this morning. Although this end of the trail is actually private land. Once I break out onto the road it’s going to be roads all the way into town, except for one tiny section that is less than a mile.

The trail is somewhat unremarkable. It has a few hills, it has mostly hardwood trees, it has a tiny bit of meadows, and it has a few rocks strewn about.

After three or four miles of walking on roads with very few cars I come to the tiny trail section that was the stretch goal for last night. It is in a chunk of woods that have been recently forested. So that all is left is some straggly trees, a bunch of stumps, and weedy vines everywhere.

When I get to the designated camping area I signed the register but don’t bother to take the side trail to the actual camping spot. If I had busted my ass and hiked here until 9:00 in the dark last night I think I would have been pretty pissed off. The other camping sites have been pretty decent but this one looks lousy. So far on this trip I have been pleased with my campsite selections.

Soon it is back to road walking. But not until I sit on a stump and make powdered coffee. I am dragging a little bit this morning and would rather have the energy to finish the eight or nine miles of roads into town with a little pep in my step.

Coffee does work wonders for hiking. Within 10 or 15 minutes my pace is pretty brisk. The roads passed by a few dairies and a lot of corn and alfalfa fields. But here they are growing something that I have no clue what it is. They are making mounded rows about 4 ft wide with a deep ditches between them and then putting fence posts along them to suspend black shade cloth. I saw the same crop a few days ago but I’m getting a better view of it now as they are just putting up the covering. If there was someone around I would have stopped and asked them what they were growing. I didn’t think to take any pictures.

The roads slowly turn rural residential. Someone is trimming their apple tree and just dropping the apples on the yard. If I hadn’t just had coffee probably would have asked them if I could have had the apples. Finding apples has been a good pick me up in the afternoons.

I hit the edge of town at about 11:00. Hotel check-in is not until 3:00 p.m. but I can probably get an early check in but not this early. I have already spied a Chinese buffet on Google maps and it is my first target. It is only two blocks from the hotel.

I shift my hiking direction to take me to the main Street going through town so that I can see the businesses. In just a few blocks up the street I spot a bakery. If I can get some fresh baguettes that would be wonderful. The ones from Walmart just aren’t cutting it. They are intended to be taken home and baked so they can brown. When they are only partially cooked they just don’t have the same magic. But I am horrified to discover that they don’t have baguettes. The closest thing they have are sliced French bread with garlic butter toasted on them. Why not try something new.

Not many of the other businesses catch my eye. There are far fewer restaurants than I expected. But as I near the hotel it becomes suburban mall territory. Every fast food chain you can think of is represented. But I make a beeline for the Chinese buffet and get there at about 12:30. Perfect timing. I stopped snacking after I drank the coffee so that I would purposely be hungry for this.

Inside it is exactly what you would expect. One giant row of Chinese dishes and one row of the exact same chintzy desserts that all Chinese buffets have. I am here for the meat and vegetables. Three plates and I am done. On the Pacific Crest Trail I ate six plates. But that was after doing about a thousand more miles than I have done on this trip so far. Speaking of which, I passed the 700 mile mark at some point today.

After the big meal I want nothing more than to nap. It’s still a bit early to check into the hotel but I spot a gigantic tree next to it casting wonderful shade on the grass. I had straight there and veg for about 30 minutes reading emails and catching up on things. It was just what the doctor ordered.

I head into the hotel about 1:30 to see if they’ll let me check in early. They usually do and they do this time as well. I get change and soap for the laundry because that is chore number two. Chore number one is shower, of course.

While I am doing laundry I come back and clean other things in the room that smell to high heaven. The foam sleeping pad and the inflatable sleeping pad that I use both smell pretty bad. I sandwich my dirty clothes between the two layers every night. And it only occurred to me a few days ago that maybe that’s where a lot of the smell is coming from. They both get a thorough cleaning and drying.

I should watch the tent too but I’m just going to dry it out this time. Every time I come back to the room the first thing I notice is that it smells like hiker feet. There is still more cleaning to do.

And speaking of cleaning, my shoes now are officially dirty and they are officially smelly. 700 miles is about the right amount of distance to get on a pair of shoes. These have very little wear on the uppers, but I noticed the souls are starting to wear flat. This is why I have been slipping on the mud. I have a new pair of shoes waiting to be sent to me but now I have to figure out where they can send them that is far enough ahead of me that I won’t get there too early or the package be late and not be able to pick them up.

Today is opening day for the Florida Gators football team. I put on the game while I’m doing other chores and watch the Miami hurricanes destroy the poor Gators. I should have put the game on mute so I didn’t have to hear it.

The rest of the chores are planning out the next few hundred miles, shopping for groceries at Walmart, and grabbing a burrito at the taco joint next door. This Walmart did not carry backpackers pantry dehydrated meals. But I checked the website of the next one I will hit and the do. So for the next several evenings dinner will be mashed potatoes again.

Back at the hotel it’s more chores and blogging and watching some other team play football. I do turn the sound off this time. I have the next 6 to 8 Days planned but I still don’t know where to send the shoes yet. The West side of the trail has far fewer options than the East side did.

I will plan to leave the hotel no earlier than 8:00 tomorrow. That is going to have to be my version of sleeping in. They don’t start breakfast until 7:00 a.m. on weekends anyway.

Emotion of the day, Relaxed

Even though sleeping in really only equated to 40 minutes, that small amount of time set the pace for the day. I was in no rush to do anything or to go anywhere. And the only annoying part of the day was the small section of trail in the logged area.

I took a break under a tree when I got to town. I took a break under a tree after eating lunch. Most of my chores I could do laying in bed. It sounds like a day off if I wasn’t so busy. But I like keeping busy.

Apparently I also like napping under shade trees.

This morning I tried to wake at a slower pace and head out a little later than usual. I’m not far away from the town of hatley where the Dollar General is. They don’t open till 8:00 so there’s no point in getting there before then. But guess what time it was when I hit the trail? It was exactly 6:20 there is something either magical or cursed about that time.

It was supposed to rain pretty strongly during the evening but it was only a gentle rain for 30 minutes or so with very little wind. The tent would have been dry in the morning if not for the wet leaves dripping on it all night long. Nothing in the tent got wet but everything is clammy.

There is still a slight mist in the air that forces me to use the umbrella. The one mile of trail to begin the morning is dropping water from all the leaves. And then the next 4 miles are going to be road walking on my least favorite road that I was walking on last night.

The mist is strong enough the umbrella keeps both me and my pack dry. I have my rain jacket draped over the back of the pack to keep the back half dry since the umbrella won’t reach back that far.

There is enough traffic that I have to stop and walk down the bank when a car comes by. There’s just not enough shoulder to safely deal with the traffic. And with the grass on the shoulder being completely wet I don’t want to walk through it I just want to get off the road. So the three or four miles into town take a little bit longer than usual.

I make it to the Dollar General 10 minutes before 8:00. The Frito-Lay delivery driver and another customer are already waiting up front for them to open. There is no overhang on a Dollar General building to keep you dry so I have to figure out which side offers the most protection from the mist.

I might as well make it a productive 10 minutes, so I start eating things that are almost done so I can throw the packaging away. The can of Pringles is the first to go. The Gatorade electrolytes is the second thing to go.

When the store opens, I buy my supplies. A bottle of water, two coffee drinks, cheese and crackers, a can of SpaghettiOs. One coffee drink in the SpaghettiOs or breakfast. The rest is going with me for the rest of the next two days.

The town of Hadley is very small. As I hike through it the Dollar General is the only store of consequence to a hiker. There is a small post office in the center of town but I don’t think I need to mail anything back. On the far side of town are the things like gas stations that a town would need but it is too far for a hiker to bother with. The Dollar General is all I need.

The trail leaves town on a rail trail. It is still misting but the trees protect me and keep me dry. And every time I think I don’t need the umbrella and put it up a strong gust of wind will come by and shake all the water out of the trees. It’s just easier to keep carrying it and avoid getting wet.

After only a mile or two, the trail leaves the rail trail and becomes a dedicated trail. I will be on mostly dedicated trail for at least the next 10 miles. It’s a nice section of Trail. It’s not very steep it’s not very rocky and it’s not a meadow walk. But it is a little overgrown so I’m still getting wet.

When lunch time comes, I am walking in an easement on private property. I find a good stump to sit on and break out the Michelina’s I bought at yesterday’s Dollar General. The hamburger macaroni is not all that great. The chicken fettuccine alfredo was much better. I think I will stick with that flavor from now on.

The next stretch of trail is on a dirt road. Normally roads, even dirt ones, would be colored green and be connectors. But this road is part of the official Trail. From looking at the map and seeing how straight the trail was, I assumed it was just walking the edge of a field. It makes no difference. In the several miles I walked it there was not a single car anyway.

The next sign I come to tells me this is the Thornapple Creek section. This is one of the two sections that the folks at the IAT headquarters let me know would be closing on September 1st due to hunting. Good thing is only August 30th so I am able to hike through this section instead of having to road walk around it.

It is basically a giant private hunting area. It is also very swampy. The trail is very muddy and I’m finding my shoes are very slippery on the mud. I lose my balance at one point and have to step directly into a mud puddle to keep from falling. My entire left foot up to my calf is covered in mud. Oddly that foot isn’t really any wetter since it’s been mostly wet all day anyway.

The signage regarding the hunting closure was very confusing, so I’m glad that it wasn’t actually closed for me. If I was here two days later I probably would have had to backtrack at least some of what I hiked.

The trail exits into another mile or so of road to get to the next section. There are two nice benches when I get to the next trail so I stop and have a snack and try and dry out some of my wet things.

The bonus to this particular stopping location is that there are blackberry bushes filled with bright blackberries within arms reach of the benches. So I am drying my shoes and socks off sitting in my bare feet eating blackberries. I feel like a mobility impaired bear. I probably sat there for close to 30 minutes drying and eating.

This section of Trail leads to the Eau Claire River. It takes a while to get to the river but once it does it is a stunning site. There are large evergreen trees of all types lining the river making for a surrealistic hiking trail. And the river itself has lots of rocks and rapids in it. I don’t ever see any kayakers on it so it might actually be too many rapids for that kind of sport.

The trail crosses the river on a footbridge and now I am in the county park which was one of my original camping spots. But it is still early afternoon way too early to stop and camp. I am skirting the edge of the campground facilities the whole time and never really see anything but the river. I do probably see 50 day hikers in the park, though.

When I exit the park it is back to road walking. I have another long straight 4-mile road to walk. But to my surprise it is a dirt road and I do not see a single car for the entire length that I am walking it. It is one of the best road walks yet.

The next section of trail is on public hunting lands and is about 5 miles long. There is a stream in the middle of it so my plan is to go to at least this point and then see if there is a decent camping spot within the property. If I don’t find a decent campsite then I will have another 5 Mile road walk to an official disbursed camping area. It would be 8:30 or possibly later by the time I hit that official campsite, so I am hoping to find something in the hunting grounds.

When I get to the stream, it is an awesome stream. It is clear cool water, and there are so many rocks around that it is really easy to collect. There are also plenty of trees and hanging the bag to let gravity filter the water for me is a very easy task. I go ahead and camel up as I am filling up with 3 liters of water. This is probably my last water for tonight and all of tomorrow until I get to town.

The map shows this as swampland but it’s really just a stream and more of a bog than a swamp. There is a tremendous amount of rock work and puncheon boards to keep hikers feet dry. And I can tell that much of it is brand new. You can still smell the freshly cut wood on some of the boards. Very few of them even have muddy footprints on them.

The trail crosses another swampy area on a really long boardwalk. There will definitely be no camping on this mile of trail. But as the boardwalk ends in the trail ascends some of the higher terrain it is looking ideal for camping. I find a good site and notice a private property marker just a few feet behind the side I pick. I got lucky tonight.

The tent is still a little wet so I go ahead and set it up and let it dry while I cook dinner. I try a new technique with rehydrating the mashed potatoes by pinching the corners of the bag to try and force any dry bits from accumulating while I stir. It works much better and I only get one tiny little lump of dry potatoes. Tonight’s flavor was baby reds and I added some Irish butter and parsley to it. Some pepperoni and buttered bread accompanies my meal.

By the time dinner is done, the tent is about 90% dry which is good enough to start throwing everything inside and getting ready. At least the inside seems completely dry. Now let’s hope for good cell signal so that I can check mail and do the blogging.

Emotion of the day, Happiness

Not everything went perfectly today. I had a lot of overgrown and wet trail to hike. Between that and the rain my pants and shoes were soaking wet for at least half of the day. I also had to hike several more miles on a really busy road in the rain with everyone trying to get to work. And I slipped on mud and dunked a shoe in muddy water. These are not normally happy things.

But I got to the Dollar General and got everything that I needed for the next 2 days. I had SpaghettiOs for breakfast. Note to self don’t get SpaghettiOs with meatballs anymore. I had a coffee drink for both morning and afternoon so my energy level was high all day long.

And today was more trail than road. The really nice trail along the river would easily make anyone happy. The trail with all the mud didn’t even bother me. The later trail with all the rock and woodwork was very nice hiking.

The temperatures were cool all day, even when the sun did come out. When I sat on the benches drying out my shoes it actually felt good to dry myself out as well. That’s how the sun should be, a warming sensation – not a misery machine.

Other than the first hour of the day on the busy road I was in a good mood all day long. You don’t always get happy days like today, so I’m glad to have had this one.