When I first started this blog, my hope is that I would steadily post my journal entries from the now 53 hikes I have made along the IAT. Clearly, that has not materialized. Life constantly interrupts. In fact, I only made two hikes along the trail in all of 2012. At this rate, it literally is going to take the rest of my life to make it to the eastern terminus. The truth is at this stage of my life I have more time than money. I can take a day to hike a portion of the trail. I just can't afford the gas money to take me the two hours east of here and back again at hike's end.
But on our return trip from downstate visiting family for Christmas, I got a hankering to get back out there and so Friday morning, I packed my Camelbak with my GPS, a hunting knife and a small lunch, grabbed my bike and put it in the trunk of my car, threw in my snowshoes just in case the snow on the trail was deeper than expected and headed east. To get where I am currently at, there really isn't any easy way to get there. First I head south on Hwy 53, then east on 64, then north on County E which heads up into the Nicolet-Chequamegon National Forest in Taylor County, then east again on Mondeaux Avenue until reaching the far side of the Mondeaux Flowage. Back in January I had hiked the trail that skirts the Flowage on a beautiful, sunny day. But yesterday, snow lightly fell as I stashed the bike at the trail's exit on Shady Drive about 4 miles away. I then doubled back to Mondeaux Drive (FR 104), threw on my snow pants, donned my Woverine boots, grabbed my walking pole, put on my Camelbak and began my 53rd hike along the IAT.
There was perhaps 2-3 inches of snow on the trail, certainly nothing meriting snowshoes so I left those behind in the car. There was absolutely no wind and with the snow lightly falling a stillness was on the wood. The only sound was the swooshing my snowpants made as they rubbed together as I followed the trail that meandered lazily around pine and scrub oak. At one point, I reached a swampy area - a pleasant change of scenery after walking perhaps a mile or so in the trees. At one point, a single board bridge was the only means to traverse one narrow section of the swamp. The birds were quiet and while there was plenty of tracks of rabbit, deer and other forest critters (including a snowshoer or two who had been through in the last day or two), it felt like I was the only one alive in the wood.
About an hour and forty-five minutes into the hike, I stopped under a large grove of white pine for my noon repast. There really wasn't any place to sit down and having worked up a sweat I was really wishing I had remembered to pack a small thermos of coffee now that I was cooling down. I really like my Camelbak save for the fact that the supply tube freezes easily making it pointless to lug 1.5 litres of water on my back just for the sake of doing it. I grabbed snow that had gathered atop small evergreens for my water. After about 15 minutes, I resumed my trek.
A little ways following where I had stopped for lunch, I crossed a forest road that didn't appear on my map. Once on the other side I began to see less pine and more oak, hemlock and the like. This segment of the IAT concludes with a long, gradual climb up the last esker in what is officially referred to as the Mondeaux Esker Segment (see pg. 141 in the
Ice Age Trail Companion Guide 2004 edition). By about 12:45, I exited the woods and walked out onto Shady Drive. Even though my bike was parked just inside the trail head, I had decided I would get a jump start on the road connector to the next segment. So I hiked the half mile or so down to Zimmerman Road and then turned around headed back to the bike.
Now the trickiest bit of the hike began - the journey back. Riding my Fuji on snow-covered roads without studs in my tires was challenging enough but trying to do so without wiping out and not tearing the inside seam of my right snowpant leg on the sprockets of my bike chain was a bit dicey. Fortunately, I made it back to the car without incident (although my right snow pant leg got torn pretty noticeably by the chain of my bike) by 2 p.m. Were this not a winter's day, it would be too early to head back having come all this way for what amounted to a 4 mile hike. But given that the afternoon was waning, I decided to play it conservatively and head for home.
When I got home around dinner-time Friday night, I was tired (I think more from my bike ride than from the hike itself.) But yesterday, as I loaded my pictures onto my Facebook page, I felt renewed in my desire to hike the trail in its entirety. It's gonna take awhile but a quiet walk in a snowy wood makes it all worth while.
