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.