Wandering Mindfully

If I had bothered to research this area we temporarily skipped, if I had known what it would be, I might have tried for my first ever 50 mile day instead of leaving a few days ago and coming back today.  The thought that I may have tried that feat of insanity makes me feel a little thankful that I did not know then what I know now.

The first 15 miles of today’s trail have been all packed down dirt 2-track roads.  Packed dirt that’s mostly free of gravel is bee’s knees of walking high g’s speeds.  Green tree tunnels provided periodic shade through the morning and into the heat of the day.  If all that wasn’t enough, this trail passes directly by a Mobile Station where I was able to get a cold Mountain Dew.  I even passed through an old train depot with pit toilets and a drinking fountain where I was able to take a restfully long break.

Not long after my break at the train depot, I was walking by a picnic table near a mowed path and spotted a pickup truck driving my way.  A blonde girl seated in the front waved at me. “That’s nice.” I thought to myself waving back politely, not slowing my fast pace.  It might have taken 30 seconds to register, but it did soon register that the cute girl was Brianna!  Penny had picked Brianna up from the hotel and they had been driving up and down the path in search of me.  If they had been any later to this present spot, I’d have been long gone.

Brianna, Penny and Athena all had smiles on as they popped out of the truck.  Well, I’m not sure if Athena was smiling, per say, but I did get face kisses.  Penny whipped up some chicken salad sandwiches for lunch while we all sat at the picnic table and chatted for a while.  

Having Penny, Athena and Curt back in Wisconsin is a welcome sight and a reminder of how much trail people have invested in my last 300 miles.  It’s not pressure that I feel, it’s more like being down $100 at the blackjack table and pulling the last $100 out of my pocket.  The dealer is showing a 10 and I’ve been dealt a 16.  I know what I’m supposed to do, do I have it in me to do it?

With only 6 miles left in my hiking day, I threw my pack into the back of Penny’s truck and continued walking with only my sunbrella and a liter of water.  5 of my last 6 miles were road walking due to a trail closure.  The trail closure kind of bummed me out.  The Stewart tunnel through the Monticello segment seemed like a rare trail feature that’s been closed for flooding or some other safety reason since 2019.  I am not, and likely never will be, a fan of road miles, but I knocked them out in a little under 2 hours.

Tomorrow is shaping up to be an interesting hiking day.  Terrain is going to be rough through the kettle moraine and it’s looking like a high 86+ degree day.  It sounds like Curt will be lacing up his trail runners and joining me for a bit as well – may the odds be ever in our favor.

Hiking with a support team is so very different than hiking all alone in a strange land.  A support team removes obstacles, and in doing so, changes the landscape of things you’re likely to encounter while hiking.  Imagine pushing a family on a sled down a snowy hill that’s thick with trees, that’s what thru-hiking is.  The trees make it dangerous and thrilling at the same time.  Support removes some of those trees, allowing you to pick up more speed and find a different type of thrill.

Please don’t push people down snowy hills thick with trees.  That’s called murder.

It is unlikely we will meet many more people offering us hearth and home when we neither need nor want either of those things.  That’s only half true, we may not need them, but always are we wanting more.

This morning was different in that part of my temporary support team, Curt, would be joining me for the afternoon miles.  My resolve was to tap out as many miles as possible before lunch and the magic number ended up being 18!  18 morning miles is impressive, even to me, but things came together nicely and it was easier than it sounds.  

The morning was cold and thick with protective fog to shield me from the sun through early road walking miles.  The day’s road miles were unpleasant on the feet and body, as per usual, but did reward me with a beautiful park at the end of it.  The Lions club shelter featured an artisan well that’s been flowing since 1895.  I dumped my water to the side and enjoyed fresh cold water from the depths of Wisconsin.  Artisan wells bring back childhood memories of playing in the woods and getting into trouble with friends, activities I am still passionate about to this day.

Whitewater Lake & Blackhawk trail segments run through Kettle Moraine Park and were full of many rocky climbs.  Taking my time on the unsteady terrain was not an option though, the afternoon would be the same kind of difficult, only more hot, more humid, with a friend.

My personal trail angels set lunch camp up off the side of the road and next to trees just big enough to cast some shade.  The ladies greeted me with a sandwich for my stomach and an ice cold Gatorade for my lips.  This is what makes 28 mile days possible.  Well, this and a flux capacitor, but we can talk about time travel in more depth later.

Curt has been my hiking partner for over a decade now.  We hiked Pike’s Peak together and have logged hundreds of Smokey Mountain trail miles together over the years.  There was no doubt in my mind that he would be ok on this trail with me, I mostly wanted to make sure he didn’t get burned out after too many miles on the first day.  

Curt & I’s 10 afternoon miles went by quickly.  My fear of later day heat was clouded over.  My concerns of Curt being able to keep up became laughable, his pace was fast and out in front of me the entire time.  We even got lucky enough to chance upon an empty campground with running water, allowing us to splash ourselves in the face with cold water and refill our bottles before continuing on.

The night ended with a comradery, beer and 3 servings of a Penny’s homemade spaghetti!

Feet dictate my days.  If it were up to my tree trunk size legs, I’d be doing 30+ miles everyday.  The muscles in my body have always been quick to bulk up and adapt.  As a child, my friends were always bigger than me in both weight and height, but that never stopped me from tossing them around like rag dolls.  I didn’t always win, but rarely, if ever, was I out muscled.  My body’s ability to quickly build muscles and adapt always makes me wonder what life would have been like had I been raised a coal miner or farmer.  What an intimidating band of foot soldiers my short and stocky Urbany descendants would have made back in the days of axes and swords.

These musings and recounts of genetic prowess are not meant to say I was born with weak feet.  What I’m really trying to convey is a trail truth – feet break before the muscles do.  This is a truth for long distance hiking, a scale that begins to tip after a week or so, if even that long.  There are always other factors at play, of course, but not a single one matters if you’re feet aren’t up for the task.

My feet have felt great over the past few days.  A couple blisters have popped on my right foot, pinky toe & heel.  It’s hard to say wether the new foot fiends are a result of new shoes needing to soften up or from walking through sandy horse paths that flood into every shoe hole.  Whatever the cause, they are annoying but not game changers.  This is how the IAT can bring you down though, sandy trails to invade the shoe and road walks to grind the dirt against your feet as you pound the pavement.  Gaters to help stop dirt and periodic emptying of the shoe are my preferred methods of defense.  

Today’s hike through Scuppernog, Waterville and Lapham Peak were very beautiful and took me a little longer than yesterday’s hike.  The group met me along the trail again for lunch today, this time with BLTs.  Leave it to Penny to find an easy way to whip up warm BLT trail magic from the back of her truck in the middle of nowhere.  I had two fully loaded sandwiches before taking off, Curt once again joining me for the afternoon hike.

Curt & I’s favorite part of the hiking day was the Lapham Observatory Tower.  Aside from the little shit who poured water on us from the top, it was a fun place to break.  You can see for miles in every direction from the top of the tower and the climb to get there was not nearly as challenging as it looked on paper.  

Our paths turned into paved walkways as we left Lapham and headed into the town of Delafield. Delafield’s paths took us down a river walk and past veteran war memorial stones, one for each of the great wars with placards that told brief tales.  A very enjoyable walk.  Delafield is a cute little hiker, biker and dog friendly town, they even have an outdoor outfitter store next to an ice cream shop.  

Our day ended at the ice cream shop, for mint chocolate chip reasons.

Walking through towns is a mixed bag.  My day began with miles that passed through Delfield and Hartland, paved paths with easy access to gas stations where I picked up cold drinks and devoured Snickers bars before they had a chance to melt under the hot sun. The IAT passes through older main streets of both Delafield and Hartland rather than the newer box store areas with busy traffic and strip malls.

I knew today would be our last day with Penny, Curt and Athena, which was more than enough motivation for me to drive the morning hard and tap out 17 miles before lunch. Penny had been planning one more big trail magical lunch all week and finally had a chance to pull it off today.  By the time I walked into the temporary parking lot camp site, the girls had deployed big umbrellas for shade and a grill full of cooked brots.  Athena face kisses and food love <3.

Deciding not to carry my big backpack for long periods of time is always a gamble.  With only two hands to carry things, I find myself trying to decide whether my sunbrella or a hiking pole might serve me better.  I was able to carry one of each this afternoon since Curt was kind enough to shoulder the water bottle that would have normally been in my second hand.  Going without my poop shovel and wipes can be hard, but people walk for long distances all the time without having an emergency poop.

Curt & I took our time throughout the afternoon, enjoying the Holy Hill segment and it’s mixture of hilly forests and prairies. We enjoyed a beautiful view of the Basilica of the Holy as we marched across open land with landscape views.  The trail passes through Holy Hill lands but didn’t pass within walking distance of church building as far as we could tell.  

The day started with such promise… and then I started hiking.  My early morning goodbye to Penny, Curt and Athena was not the reason for tears in my eyes after they dropped me to the trail this morning, no, it was the mosquitoes.  Bugs that had not bothered us in weeks came at me today with a vengeance.  Today of all days, the day I was to try a 24 hour non-stop hiking challenge.

Today’s mosquitoes were smaller and better organized than the normal kind.  They grouped into squadrons and attacked me everywhere, bare skin or clothed, it made no matter.  Every time I swiped a hand across my face to clear the bugs, there’d be half a dozen of the little beasts and blood smears to boot.  Insect spray and lotion was applied early and often.  They just kept coming.

At about 10 miles into the trail, I came across a down tree that stretched further than I wanted to go around higher than I could climb.  Not wanting to slow down and be even more feasted upon, I decided to crawl under the tree.  Brilliant plan turned to decided disaster as a loop from my hiking pack hooked onto a broken tree branch and completely immobilized me.  It took several minutes and an ounce of blood before I was able to free myself and continue on.

One of the worst things you can do when the bugs are this thick is get lost.  It wasn’t even lunch time and I had already gotten turned around 3 times.  The trail passing through the Pike Lake segment had an unmapped detour followed by an intersection of multiple crisscrossing trails.  It’s almost as if the world read my post from a few days ago about having less obstacles and said, “here you go, enjoy the sled ride.” If I had to guess, I backtracked about 2 extra trail miles today.

I missed Brianna on the trail a lot today.  When she & I have difficult days on trail together, she blows up like a firecracker and breaths fires of complaint.  My role in hard times is to stay positive, or “shoot sunshine out of my butt”, as she likes to say.  Without Brianna around to be strong for, tough times like today are just painful; my butt is just a butt without sunshine.

My 24 hour challenge ended around 11:45pm, 6 hours and 15 minutes shy of the goal.  Brianna and I had a solid routine going throughout the later part of the day that allowed me to hike 3ish miles and meet her for regular breaks. The fanny pack I used to replace my backpack held a couple snacks and an emergency Body Armor drink so I’d have something to sustain me if I wandered off trail in the dark.

The night hike went much better than the bugs and turnarounds that plagued me throughout the daylight hours; mosquitoes disappeared after sundown and I didn’t get lost a single time in the dark.  Prairie paths out and away from tree cover allowed me to turn the head lamp off for long periods of time and hike by the natural light of a full moon.  My mind and my legs were both strong enough to keep hiking and I was having a blast doing it!  The quest to hike for 24 continuous hours failed when the wet ground and rocks broke my feet. One moment, I was walking and feeling like we would make it until 0630 in the morning, the next moment I was trying to figure out how to hobble .7 miles back to Brianna and the car.

This is why it’s important to allow bucket list items to be written in after they happen as well.  I never knew I wanted to hike 38.4 miles on the Ice Age Trail under the light of a full moon.  Now that I’ve done it, I understand how special and rare this opportunity was.  Thank you for helping making this happen, Brianna!

Even a failed attempt at a 24 hour hiking challenge requires a day off after.  Brianna and I took a zero mile day yesterday to rest my feet and prepare for the week ahead.  38 miles hiked over 2 days equals less than if I had just done two of my normal 25 miles days, but it could not be helped, we needed the break.  

A person who thinks themself wise might be reading over my recent miles and say, “you should have taken a day off before and after attempting the 24 hour challenge.”  I have to agree that my chances of success would have been greater, but then all the miles would be split between 3 days rather than 2.  My strength of feet effort was as much about efficiency as it was about having songs written about me in the nearby villages.  I knew we would need a day off before our final push, why not try to push it to the limit beforehand?

It didn’t take many miles of morning walking for me to understand how unlikely I was to successfully hike 24 straight hours on this particular stretch of trail.  The Milwaukee River and Greenbush segments have steep hills with slick rocks and long stretches of trail with overgrown weeds and fallen trees.  As much as I’d love to attempt the feat again, it would only be mileage efficient if I could guarantee a 50 mile day… even I am not so full of myself as to make that folly of a promise.

Today was better than Saturday’s hike.  I’m not sure if mosquitoes were less active  or if reapplying Sawyer Permethrin to my clothes during our zero mile day made all the difference.  I also managed to not get lost a single time!  These eastern trails have a lot more infrastructure support than those of the West & Central sections.  Hand pumps for easy access to clean cold water pop up every 8-10 miles and parking lots with some kind of bathroom appear even more frequently than that.

If I was hiking this last 200 miles without support, I’d likely be staying at one of the many reservable shelters just off trail.  These buildings typically have four walls and shutter style windows that can be opened or closed depending on the weather.  Most, but not all the shelters, even have a nearby pit toilet or porta-john.  This level of service is undoubtedly why they must be reserved and paid for in advance as opposed to the free first come first serve 3-sided shelters we stayed in hundreds of miles back.

Brianna met me for lunch about 17 miles into my 28 mile day.  She said it was going to be special and that we needed a proper park with picnic tables and shade to pull it off.  By the time I showed up to the park, it was just after 1pm and she was busy serving up grilled peanut butter and jam sandwiches.  Peanut butter oozed out the sides and down my beard as I bit into the gooey goodness. This type of grilled sandwich is a gift from Brianna’s youth that I had never tried until earlier this year.  I am a fan.

Lodging has been something we’ve been winging on a day-to-day basis and largely a topic I’ve avoided unless there is something worth mentioning.  We have a car, a tent and money, so our weekday options are pretty much limitless.  Last night’s stay was at a proper BnB called Kristi’s Inn.  

Kristi’s Inn has several rooms, but we were the only people there.  Kristi was sick and hadn’t been there in over a week but did have one more room that was prepped and available if we wanted it.  Such an odd experience to have paid via Venmo and to then walk into a large unlocked house, basically on the honor system.  However, having essentially rented the house to ourselves for a dirt cheap price did not give me the energy to play the pinball machine or stretch out on the couch and watch TV on the big screen in the common area.  We did as we always do, shower and sleep.

There comes a time in every adventure where the clock flips from counting up and begins to countdown.  The wonder and mystery of what might happen turns into a reflection of what was.  Have I learned something about myself through all of this or have I just proven things that I already knew to be true?  Does an adventure require meaning or is meaning found in the act of adventuring?  It is amusing to find that the questions at adventure’s end are the same life questions everyone has been asking for however many thousands of years. The journey explains itself better than I will ever be able to, but I’ll keep trying to write it down anyway.

There was a lot of road walking and a little bit of trail today.  Brianna and I thought we were going to hack the road miles down from 27 to 21, but that would have had me on a major roadway for over 10 miles.  We ended up finding a shorter route of 25 miles instead, a small victory but a victory none the less.

Storms were predicted to show up around 3pm, which was not ideal, but did keep cloud cover and a solid breeze blowing throughout the morning.  Black clouds rolled in from the north around noon, bringing a cold chill to the air that took me from sweating to wishing I had a sweatshirt in a matter of minutes.  

I could see Brianna parked next to a cornfield about .7 miles ahead, but the wheels on her Equinox didn’t even wiggle to pretend a movement as the wind gusted in my face and the rain began.  A dark cloud swirled down at me menacingly as I began to run the last half mile to safety.  My large hiker legs are powerful, though not made for running.  I must have looked like a little person hopping through a rubber tire obstacle course.  Garth Brooks “The Thunder Rolls” was playing when I jumped into the car.  Brianna was smiling and laughing as she said, “I would have recorded you running through the storm, but that would have stopped the music from playing.”  Thanks, Babe.

Our early storm raged on for about 3 hours.  The time away from trail let us kick off the shoes and close our eyes for a bit, a nice break during a long road stretch.  Storms left the evening mostly cool, so making up the miles was relatively easy.  Hiking to sunset got our day past the 25 mile mark AND rewarded me with a beautiful view :-).

Hit over 1,000 miles today! I can finally sing the full proclaimers song and mean it!

Losing gear on the trail is never a good feeling.  You never want to leave trash for others to have to pick up and everything you’re carrying is something you need.  I didn’t lose any gear for the first 5 or 6 weeks of this hike.  Since Brianna’s injury, I have managed to lose almost all of my sun gear.  My Glacier gloves got left on the shelf of a bathroom, my Duluth wet towel untied itself and fell of my pack at some point in the last few days, AND today of all hot and sunny days, I left my sunglasses at a park across the street from an ice cream shop.  Yes, I got my ice cream, but not before the world took its latest pound of flesh.

When Brianna picked me up off the road at sunset last night, we drove down the same roads I would be walking the next day to get a feel for how much walking room I might have, what the hills would look like.  How exciting it was to drive by an ice cream shop just 4 miles down the road! Brianna promised to drive me back later in the day since it wouldn’t be opening until 0800 and I would be starting the trail nearer to 0600.

How did I lose my Oakley’s at an ice cream shop before it opened?  The ice cream shop has a nice little park across the street with a porta-pottie, picnic tables and a bench.  4 miles into my day seemed like a good time to stop for a quick break, so I did.  My sun glasses fell off my head and behind a bench as I was getting up to use the bathroom.  Instead of enduring the pain of bending over to fetch them, I went to use the bathroom instead, more than sure I’d remember to get them upon my return.  There is a phenomenon called the ‘doorway effect’ that says the human brain loses short term memory after walking through a doorway.  I did not remember my sunglasses were gone until after I had packed back up and walked several miles down the road.

Brianna was true to her word and picked me up around 10am for a drive back to the ice cream shop.  I wasn’t too concerned about forgetting my sunglasses, I knew we would be back and they were scratched all to hell.  Imagine my surprise when they were gone, just 2.5 hours after I had left them.  No one at the ice cream shop had seen my sun glasses.  They weren’t in the trash cans.  My sun glasses are gone.

The ice cream shop, Pine River Dairy, was a cool little stop.  My only recommendation to anyone who goes there is to get 5 or 6 scoops of ice cream.  They only charge .25¢ per scoop and the scoops are understandably small.  They also have over 250 types of cheese for sale… how people know enough about cheese to navigate that kind of selection blows my mind.  I felt silly buying string pepper jack cheese, but I did anyway, because local Wisconsin cheese is great stuff.

Our hike into Manitowoc and Three Rivers was quite the change in scenery.  Manitowoc had beautiful beaches on Lake Michigan, with no people.  Brianna and I had lunch on a picnic table right next to the lake and enjoyed the relative silence.  Three Rivers had beautiful beaches with hundreds of people.  I’m not sure why one is more popular than the other, I only went so far as to dip my feet in the water before deciding I would not be dunking my whole self in.

We are spending the night in our tent at Point Beach State Park, just north up the road from where we stopped for the day.  It’s a huge campground that took us 4 wrong turns down one way streets before finding our site.  Tomorrow starts with a walk on the beach!

“Walk on the beach for 2.1 miles” was the sign that greeted Brianna and I first thing this morning.  Brianna wasn’t ready to hike a full day, was ready to jump on for a couple mile beach walk.  The IAT bought me this box of chocolates in the form of a beach after a fight we’ve been having that I thought might never end. This walk on the sands of Lake Michigan is a top 10 feature of the entire trail.

We did our best to wake up early and make it to the beach before sunrise and kinda sorta made it.  The sun was halfway up the horizon when we pulled in to Neshotah Park on Lake Michigan.  Most people reading this have seen the sun rise over the water and can appreciate the light show of deep oranges and hot pinks turned red.  We enjoyed what was left of the sun rise before heading over to the two mile beach walk we were so looking forward to.

Sand is not the easiest terrain to walk.  We were fortunate to have a low tide during our walk, which allowed us to walk on the harder packed part of the beach near the water rather than the loose sand above it.  Waves were washing up snails and seashells as we walked, we even saw a baby snapping turtle no bigger than my thumb.  Brianna turned back for the car about a mile in, it was good to walk together again, even if for only a few miles.

I started the day knowing that fast morning miles would make for a better day.  Uncle Tim and Aunt Susan flew into town and are staying with a good friend, Trisha, that used work with Tim in Colorado, and me as well for a time.  Whether we were to gather for a long lunch hang or do an evening hang out, I needed to get as many miles in as possible.  As it turns out, we were able to do both hang outs!  We met for lunch at a diner in the town of Denmark.  Trisha invited us to crash at her place for the evening, so I finished my final 8 miles for the day and drove into Green Bay for the night.

It didn’t matter that we haven’t seen Trisha in over 10 years, she treated us as old friends reunited.  Our year in Colorado was too short with memories that are mostly blurry.  I do remember spending a lot of time with her and family camping, barbecuing and meeting at random bars.  Having everyone together again 10 years later feels right.  Getting to see Uncle Tim and Aunt Susan at the end of my trip reminds me that they treat me better than I deserve.  Fortunately, Brianna is here and more than deserved the love and special treatment! 

😀

Hiking to exhaustion everyday sounds difficult because it is difficult.  I do so enjoy being purposefully tired.  Earned days off feel amazing.  Short days that leave me with gas still in the tank feel hollow.  Food tastes better when you are truly hungry. Water is sweet as wine when your throat is dry cracking from thirst.  When the Bible refers to the miracle of turning water into wine, I wonder if that wasn’t just Jesus depriving his followers of food and water for long periods of time.  Perhaps the real lesson is less about God having his son use parlor tricks to impress people and more about appreciating the necessary little things. A pretty big leap that doesn’t really work with the books, I know

The physical work of hiking for 12-15 hours a day is so different than my employed work life back home.  My job in IT often leaves me mentally exhausted with no satisfaction of the physical.  Hiking satisfies my physical need for work and leaves a little left over for the mental.  It’s hard to say if one is better than the other, mental exhaustion brings a level of satisfaction with it as well; using wits rather than brawn to bring change into the world.  I’m glad to have a farm to return to with much work to be done when this adventure ends.

Less than 75 miles of IAT trail remained when I started hiking this morning.  x3 25 mile days is easy enough, right? Brianna found a way to cut 3 road miles off today, too… so today was even better mileage than we had hoped!

The morning was overcast and cool after the violent storms raged through the area all last night.  I had been looking forward to the second Tisch Mills segment, starting the day off with trails is usually a nice way to ease into a mostly road walking day.  What I found in Tisch Mills made me thankful for the road walking that followed.  Storm water flooded the overgrown trail in every spot.  Long grass full of stinging plants, poison ivy and thorn bushes stung and racked my legs.  If I stopped to look before I stepped, a cloud bugs descended eagerly upon me.  Not my favorite segment.

Rain had been forecast to last all day today, though we only got a couple afternoon hours of it.  I attempted to use my sunbrella as an umbrella but quickly found out that mosquitoes will use the cover for shelter as they feed on my face, so I put it away and just accepted the damp day for what it was.

Today ended up being a great day for hiking with the Keewaunee River segment as my end of the day trail; a 2-track of hardened dirt that allowed for big afternoon miles.  Keewaunee is a flat walk with tunnels and bridge walks that more than made up for what happened at Tisch Mills.

40 miles remain.