Our Trail JournalAnimals & Things
The Northwoods is NOT the OK Corral
Most people who decide they want to hike the Ice Age Trail come up with a plan. Usually the plan begins with some variation of the statement “start close to home.” Mike and I have done exactly that. Using Mike’s house as our normal(ish) base of operations, we have gone hiking mostly in southeastern Wisconsin. [...]
The Trail Friend That Wasn’t!
We are planning on hiking the Ice Age Trail. The WHOLE trail. All thousand miles! Well, part of that trail is in northwestern Wisconsin. Bear country. Wolf country. Lots-and-lots-of-wild-animals-that-may-or-may-not-want-to-eat-you country (including raccoons). Well Mike and I had our first brush with a “wild” animal this weekend while on the Monches Segment. It gave us an [...]
An unwelcome guest …
Imagine if you will, you are sleeping. In a tent. A one-person tent. It is small, slightly wider than you are. The rainfly is off since the night is clear and cool. You are awakened at … lets say, 3:00am by a sound … a crunching, chomping, and occasionally slurping sound. As you awaken you [...]
Oh, the things you see along the trail!
So hiking is a lot of things. It is exercise, communing with nature, and planetary sightseeing. So what are some of the things we get to see along the trail? Well, there are ant colonies that are big enough to scare anyone (and tempting to poke with a hiking stick!): There are plant formations like [...]
The Southern Kettle Moraine Forest
As planned, Jim and I went hiking over the Memorial Day Weekend to finish the remaining segments in the Southern Kettle Moraine Forest on the Ice Age Trail. Last year on this same weekend we started hiking the IAT in the same area. It was “a new adventure” for us! However, it kicked our [...]
Wisconsin State Bird
Originally Posted: Wednesday, June 24th 2009 Having lived in Wisconsin now for more than 20 years, I have come to appreciate the humor in this title ‘Wisconsin’s State Bird’. In fact, I have come to hate the pesky little creatures! There are spiders, bees, nats, dragon flies, moths, butterflies, lightening bugs, cetipeeds, slugs and numerous [...]
Practice Hike
Originally Posted: Thursday, 18th June 2009 Today we drove out to acclimate Kathy, Mike’s wife, with our starting and ending points. We also drove out and hiked the Clover Valley segment as a bit of a warm up. Since we had Kathy with us, it was, shall we say, an interesting hike. She handled it [...]
Sometimes Hiking Can Tick You Off
Originally Posted: Thursday, 21 May 2009 So, a few weeks back Mike and I had a grand plan. We had been buying all kinds of equipment for our hiking and camping and wanted to test it out. We booked a campsite at Bong and intended to hike and camp on Saturday. All week, the weather forecast [...]