Family First

Fall is my favorite season to hike. The warmth of hiking offsets the crisp coolness of the air. The bright colored trees are mesmerizing. There are fewer mosquitoes, little humidity, more deer and wildlife. I even love the smell of fallen leaves and the sound of the crunch beneath my feet.

From the last weekend of September to the third weekend in October, I plan out my weekend hiking trips with zealous detail. I map out the exact locations to maximize the changing seasons in the best weather. I actually already have several itineraries mapped out to explore various parts of the state that should be aglow in fall foliage. 

Last year at this same time, I hiked over 50 miles of the Ice Age Trail and I’ve been thinking of little else in the early weeks of September as I’ve prepared for my autumnal outings. One weekend last year, I rented a cabin in the Northwoods and explored some of the most colorful vistas I’ve ever seen in the state.

But this past weekend, plans changed. Rather suddenly. My dad got sick and had to have surgery. Instead of hiking I spent the day in the hospital trying to make him laugh, while meeting with doctors and nurses and learning about recovery times and risks.

I couldn’t picture myself being anywhere else.

As I look over my itineraries for the next several weekends, they don’t have the same appeal and joy. My dad is going to make a full recovery and he came home from the hospital a few days ago, but he still has four weeks of recovery. How can I drive around the state hiking, when my parents need groceries and have laundry and need help getting things done?

There will be other years to do autumn hikes.

This year there is somewhere else I’d rather be.

"Hummock" is Actually a Four-Letter Word

Prior to hiking the Ice Age Trail, I had never heard of the word “hummock.” Now I read the phrase practically every week. “Hummocky” is the word most often used to describe segments of the Ice Age Trail, especially in the northern segments.

At first I thought a hummock was a type of tree so in my imagination a hummocky trail was one surrounded by a bunch of very specific types of trees. Granted this wasn’t something I put much thought into and I certainly didn’t research.

Now that I’ve experienced numerous hummocky trails I finally looked up the definition and I can tell you that it has nothing to do with trees. 

If you ask me for the definition of hummock, I’d say “another f-ing hill.” If you ask Merriam-Webster, it’s “a small knoll or mound; a rounded knoll.”  

In learning the definition of a hummock, I also tried to find out how they were created. This was like trying to learn a foreign language.

“Glacial hummocks in Wisconsin are stagnant-ice features composed of melt-out till, meltwater-stream sediment, and flow till.”

Huh?

I did learn that hummocks are generally less than 50 feet high and when mapping out a hike the small hills seem innocuous. It’s just a few baby hills, how hard can it be?

However, experience has taught me that a few miles down the trail, they can be taunting and menacing for a shorty like me. My knees begin creaking and my toes ache. Even the downhills are distressing because I know once I get to the bottom, I’m just going to have to hike upward again. 

The cumulative elevation gain at the end of a few miles can be over 1,000 feet. That’s the same elevation gain of hiking to the top of both the East and West Bluffs at Devil’s Lake State Park.

Here’s an elevation guide to the last hummocky trail I hiked.


Underdown Segment - Ice Age Trail

When I returned home from this hike my sock was red. Apparently hiking down all those “little hills” created enough friction on my toes to remove my skin.

As I’ve been focusing my hikes in Northern Wisconsin, I’ve cringed at the trail descriptions:

“…the segment continues southward through rolling, hummocky glacial topography in a mix of hardwood forest.”

“This segment traverses dramatic high-relief hummocky terrain with numerous scenic kettle lakes.”

“…experience a dramatic high-relief hummocky topography through a mix of conifers and hardwoods…”

“Glacial debris remnants in the form of hummocks separate deep kettles.”


I suspect they use the word hummocky to try to fool people like me who didn’t know what it meant. 

I guess it’s a good thing I’m not writing the trail descriptions: “Glacial debris remnants in the form of multiple f-ing hills separate deep kettles…”

Goal Setting

I am a goal setter.

Some are long-term: I will go on a hot air balloon ride before I die.
Some are short-term: I will not buy cookies at the grocery store today.
Some of my goals are meaningful: I will mail (not just email) letters to people I love, just because.
Some are vital to my mental health: I will start writing again.
Some of my goals are more challenging than they first appear: I will get out of bed this morning.

My goals are sometimes just in my head, but typically I like to write them down as often as possible so I have the satisfaction of crossing them off my list. Goal Accomplished – check!

Whenever I achieve one of my goals and either mentally or physically check it off the list, I get a boost of pride and sense of accomplishment. I have a silent mini-celebration in my head, which adds a little pep to my step or smile of satisfaction on my face.

Way to go, Amy. You cleaned your bathroom this weekend. Woot.

Of course, I don’t always achieve my goals. Sometimes I do buy cookies when I go to the store. I have stayed in bed all day due to depression.

Notice I haven’t mentioned my weight loss goals…it’s not because I haven’t set any.

Hiking the Ice Age Trail is my biggest goal to date -- 1,121 miles on foot. This is a five-year goal and I’m on year two. I often question why I’m doing this or if I’ll ever finish.

From doorstep to doorstep, my brother lives exactly 254 miles from me in a suburb of St. Paul. If I were to hike the same distance as the Ice Age Trail, I could walk back and forth from his house 2.25 times. This seems absolutely ludicrous to me. And yet every weekend I grab my trekking poles and hiking boots and head out for the trail, checking off part of my goal one mile at a time.

I think I set this goal to give me a temporary sense of purpose. I was floundering the past few years and feeling directionless. What better way to find my way then hike one of the national scenic trails?

Now I have mini-celebrations every weekend. I’m able to have a sense of accomplishment every time I color in another segment of my map with yellow, or go to my spreadsheet and add a few more miles to the “total distance hiked” column.

In addition to my weekend goals I have distance goals like hiking 225 miles per year (I’ve already hiked more than 300 this year I say with a smile on my face and great sense of pride).

This past weekend I logged my 561st mile, which means I've hiked HALF of the trail. This was cause for a lot of singing in my car on my way home. 

Halfway there!

Of course, since then I realized the Ice Age Alliance has made a few additions/changes over the past year so the total length of the trail is now: 1122.9 miles.

Adding 1.9 miles to the overall length isn't much of a whoop-dee-do when you have over 560 miles to go, however, this means that my halfway done celebration was a little premature. doh!

I guess if I'm going to think deeply about this, the lesson learned is that it's okay when goals change and there are some things may take a little longer than anticipated.

However, if I'm not going to think too deeply about this, it simply means I'll have another excuse to celebrate a distance goal this weekend when I reach the new halfway. :-)

A Lesson about the Kettle Moraine

This winter I was whining to my dad that I didn’t think I’d ever finish hiking the Ice Age Trail. I had over 800 miles to go and the task was too daunting. It doesn’t help that I despise winter and would hibernate if I could, so everything seems unsurmountable in January.

My dad is one my biggest cheerleaders. The poor guy has to listen to me whine about everything from house repairs to aching muscles to my favorite character getting killed off in a movie. Basically, I’m lucky that I’m the youngest and only daughter. When he’s not rolling his eyes at me, he reminds me that I’m capable of accomplishing a lot more than I think I can.

He suggested instead of looking at the overall trail, I should think of what I want to accomplish this year. So I decided one of my 2016 goals was to complete the trail through the Kettle Moraine region. At the time I assumed the Kettle Moraine was some sort of feature that only existed within the Kettle Moraine State Forest (there are 6 units of the forest in southeast Wisconsin), but the more I’ve hiked in eastern Wisconsin the more I learned the Kettle Moraine extends far beyond the State Forest’s boundaries. As a matter it goes through at least seven counties from Walworth in the south to Kewaunee in the northeast. 

If you don’t really care how the Kettle Moraine came to be, feel free to skip ahead (it’s not like I’d ever know). 

From what I’ve gathered (although I could be wrong), the Kettle Moraine’s origin story started when He Who Must Not be Named killed a young Muggle-born mother protecting her infant son and a lightning shaped scar appeared on the baby’s forehead…okay, so that’s the origin story of Harry Potter. You got me. 

In actuality, the Kettle Moraine was created around 15,000 years ago when two glacial lobes (think massive fingers of ice stretching south) bumped into each other. They left behind a bunch of dirt and rocks that formed an uneven, clumpy ridge (called a “moraine”). When the lobes ran into each other, chunks of ice (unbelievably huge chunks – larger than an iceberg) sometimes broke off and got buried beneath all the dirt that the massive ice fingers were pushing around. When the glaciers receded and the ice melted, large holes were formed (many, but not all, filled with water) which are called kettles or kettle lakes. 

So there you have it: The Kettle Moraine – a very long, very hilly stretch of land with over one hundred miles of the Ice Age Trail for hikers like me to climb up, then down, then up, then down, then up… 

In the past year, I’ve hiked from the southernmost point in Walworth County to the Lower Cato Falls County Park in Manitowoc County, which totals about 167 miles. I’ve hiked through all of the state forest segments and am on my way to Kewaunee.

The topography throughout the Kettle Moraine is challenging (I’m the crazy hiker on the trail muttering to myself about stupid hills), but the views are spectacular. Just take a look at some of the beauty I’ve seen…

I’ve hiked an additional 300 miles since I complained to my dad about the impossibility of me trying to complete this task. I’m a lot more confident now that I’ll actually finish (only 570 miles to go!).

I’m just taking it one hill at a time.

Overcoming Obstacles

I wish I could come up with a really clever metaphor for life, but instead I’m going to use a cliché: Life, like hiking, has unexpected obstacles and detours. Even using maps, I’ve gotten lost, misread a visual cue, or had to backtrack several miles.

Over the past 15 months, I’ve tripped over roots, slid down the side of a cliff, crossed swirling rivers using fallen logs, plucked over 30 ticks from my legs at one time, and got stuck up to my waist in a snowdrift. I’ve cursed and screamed at my surroundings in frustration. Hiking shouldn’t be this hard!

That time I was stuck in the snowdrift was on a trail that bisected a farm field near Coloma. I was exhausted, wet, and irate. After hiking 5 miles through wintery conditions I wasn’t prepared for, the road home was less than 10 feet away and I was stuck. I raised my arms to the sky, angry tears streaming down my face with my hands clenched in fists around my trekking pole, and bellowed “I am a f@%#ing GODDESS!” My primal yell bounced around the countryside as an echo, and when the sound of my voice finally faded, it was answered by the deep, resounding moo of a neighboring cow. I started laughing, pulled and pushed my way out of the drift and eventually plowed through the remaining 10 feet of snow to the road.

When overwhelmed by my surroundings, I forget that I’m stronger than I think.

Over these same 15 months of hiking my mother became seriously ill, I’ve changed jobs, battled depression and anxiety, developed a binge-eating disorder, worked through two rotator cuff injuries, avoided friends and church and writing and anything else important to me. I essentially spent months screaming and cursing at my surroundings in frustration. Life shouldn’t be this hard!

But then I remembered. I remembered the landscape has always been challenging; life was never promised to be easy. And I’m stronger than I think.

I began this 1,121-mile mission to accomplish something that not everyone can or will do. This hike was an opportunity for me to be active, get outdoors, explore the state, and alleviate stress.

(Of course, in retrospect “alleviating stress” seems kind of paradoxical.)

To date, I’ve logged more than 500 miles on the Ice Age Trail. Despite all the obstacles, it’s been worth it.

I have hiked through golden forests raining leaves,



walked through open fields filled with thousands of happy flowers,

chatted with sandhill cranes looking for company,



been awed by the delicate beauty of nature,




and experienced moments of incredible pride. I feel stronger every day.



This hike, along with my life, isn’t going to be easy. But I’m stronger than I think. I will keep moving forward.

Otherwise I’ll just be stuck screaming my head off at a bunch of cows.

A Deer in the Headlight (No, Really)

This past week has been a heck of a week filled with a lot of humor and reality checks, so I’m taking a break from hiking stories to share the tragic tale of Blue Barry, my 2005 Chevy Cavalier that has traveled over 155,000 miles with me to almost every corner of the state.

The story of Blue Barry's demise begins with the Northern Lights. Most people in Wisconsin have been well aware that the Northern Lights have been all aglow across the state this week. Click here to see some examples sent to my work recently.

When I was growing up I used to see the Northern Lights about once every other year at my home on the outskirts of Neenah. Everyone in the neighborhood would stand on their front lawns with mouths agape staring at the ribbons of green dancing in the night sky. I haven't seen them since I left for college (which was awhile ago).

The most incredible lights I’ve ever seen were on a cold January evening. My friends and I were walking home from a concert at the local high school. It was only a few blocks away, late at night and less than zero degrees, when Jason, Mike, Erica and I stopped dead in our tracks. The sky was a giant tie-dye shirt with ebbs and flows of pulsing colors shimmering pink, yellow, orange, and green. We were shivering, but none of us could move. I think the only words spoken were “oh my goodness” in breathless awe. This was before the era of cell phone cameras so none of us took a photo. But we didn’t have to. The memory is still vivid to me. (As life comes full circle for me, this week is also the anniversary of when Jason and Mike were killed in a tragic accident six months after we experienced the great tie-dye in the sky.)

Monday night while I was nestled in my bed, residents all over the state took phenomenal photos of the Northern Lights weaving across the night sky. The following morning, when the radio informed me that it was happening again, I quickly told my coworker (and occasional hiking companion) Danielle that we should try to see them. We agreed to meet around 10:30 p.m. at the Pheasant Branch Conservancy in Middleton.

In between my home and the Pheasant Branch Conservancy are two rather large lakes so I had to choose between heading south along the highway or north along several isolated country roads. I opted to head north.

Along the way, I hit a deer.

There are so many elements to this particular part of the story that I’m not really sure where to begin.

First, I never saw the deer coming despite my diligence. I was driving slower than usual and paying close attention to the dark road. It was only on impact that I saw the deer and it turned towards me with a look that I can only describe as surprise, pain and death.

Instead of my typical scream of expletives that fly from my mouth when I’m startled, I calmly yelled a very disapproving “Hey!”

While there was clearly damage to my car (you know, with my hood being lumpier than usual), my car still drove fine and there was no way I wanted to stop along a dark narrow-ish road where I could get hit by oncoming traffic.

I continued to the conservancy and met up with Danielle. She was impressed (and perhaps concerned) about my complete lack of freaking out or crying. The way I saw it, there was nothing I could do. It was too late at night to call anyone and my car still seemed drive-able.  We looked at the damage via flashlight and then decided to head for an open space to watch the night sky.

That’s when the shooting star happened. I had never seen a shooting star before. While it was brief, it was simply beautiful the way that shimmering light arched across the black sky.

For me, that made the trip worth it.

Danielle and I sat in the conservancy for about 45 minutes and never saw the Northern Lights. However, I did learn that Late Night Danielle is giddy and silly and afraid of the dark.  It was an entertaining evening and the perfect distraction. I laughed a lot.

My drive home got a little trickier. I wisely chose to take the brightly lit, well-traveled-through-town highway. Along the way various lights began to ding and/or flash on my dashboard. I think that's when it started to sink in that this was Blue Barry's last trip.

Here are some things you should probably know about me and my car.

I've loved my car since the first moment I saw it. I love the color, the size, the maneuverability, and the gas mileage. It fits me and my personality. However, Blue Barry sometimes gives me sass and vice versa. In less than a year of ownership, I sideswiped a pick-up truck on a rainy night and had to have the passenger side fixed (trust me, this is a story in and of itself). Since then I've reversed into large dumpsters, scraped along a concrete column in my work parking garage, had to have the dashboard replaced, removed pieces of the car that I'm not sure belong, and replaced the contraption that holds the muffler in place twice. My car is covered in hail spots, dings, dents, and rust. The tires are terrible in the winter, my rear wheels make a high-pitched squealing noise every time I have to drive in the rain, and the windshield wiper fluid has frozen every. single. winter. since I first purchased it, often making them useless. It's been a journey, but I still love this car.

I've been needing to replace Blue Barry for the past few years, especially since I've invested more money into him than his worth. (Let's face it, if my dad was not a mechanic, Blue Barry would have left me years ago.)

Three weeks ago I learned that my car had a blue book value of about $200. I called my insurance agent and let him know that I didn't think I should pay premiums for collision or comprehensive insurance any more.  No matter what I did to my car from here on out the damage would be more than the value of the car. My agent was polite, but firm, and told me that he wasn't sure that was a good idea.  "After all," he said "anything can happen, what if you swerve to miss a squirrel and hit a tree, or what if you hit a deer?"

I guffawed. In retrospect, this was the exact moment I sealed my fate.  

"Trust me," I said. "I'm not worried about hitting a deer.  In my entire life, I've never even been riding in a car that has hit one. The odds are in my favor."

I cringe even now.

As my brother told me on the phone last night in amused disbelief, "Why would you say that?! Honestly, Amy, because of that, you're the one whose responsible for that deer hitting your car."

I'm choosing to believe my Aunt Sue, who very patiently took me car shopping yesterday. She said, "It was time." She reminded me that I've needed a new car for a few years and this deer gave me the push to make it happen. She also let me know it was stupid of me to declare out loud that I had never hit a deer before.

I haven't gotten Blue Barry's replacement, yet. I think this weekend is going to be the weekend I officially put him to rest. In the meantime, the most incredible friends, Jenny and Nick, have been loaning me their car (I think that takes a lot of trust given my track record).

I have to say, that one of my realizations this week has been the absolute support, love, concern and generosity I've received from my friends and family (even if they all agree that I brought this on myself when I spoke to my insurance agent earlier this month...)

A Deer in the Headlight

Nicolet National Forest

At some point between my childhood and adulthood, the National Parks Service combined the two National Forests in Wisconsin into one name. What used to be Chequamegon National Forest in the northwest and Nicolet National Forest in the northeast is now collectively known as Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. I understand that they did this to help with resources, but it still doesn’t fly with me. I grew up going to the Nicolet National Forest every summer and that’s what its name will always be. None of this Chequamegon business. If it weren’t for my job, I wouldn’t even know how to pronounce it (sha-wam-again).

Today I returned to the NICOLET National Forest after a 20+ year absence.

I started at Ed’s Lake on a trail I read about in one of my hiking books (Hiking Wisconsin - the one that lead me astray at Lone Rock). The hike started off extremely promising despite the rain. I felt isolated and completely immersed in nature. 

I never saw any wildlife, but that could be for one of two reasons (1) my glasses kept fogging up so I couldn’t see anything (a herd of deer could’ve been doing a conga line in front of me and I wouldn’t have seen it), or (2) my rain pants made loud swishing sounds as I hiked, so I’m pretty sure every woodland creature heard me coming and ran away.

Even though I didn’t see any wildlife, I did see plenty of mosquitoes. They came at me in full force. The only exposed skin was my head and they feasted on my face like gluttonous hedonists (despite multiple coats of bug spray). I swear every time I even momentarily paused to drink water, take a photo, tie my shoe, look at directions, I could hear their buzzing little voices yell, “Let’s get her! Attack!”

The directional signs were a disappointment and I got turned around. I can’t really say that I was lost, because a half mile down the trail, I knew exactly where I was and I knew the exact sign that sent me the wrong way.

Exactly where am I?

With a mile left of the hike, I was done. It wasn’t fun anymore. The mosquitoes were ruthless, my glasses were too foggy, and I had walked an extra mile longer than I intended. I was also hangry. I planned to eat at a shelter by the lake, but the bugs wouldn’t let me, so I decided to wait until I got back to my car.

I learned this trail is also groomed in the winter for cross-country skiing, so that would totally be worth it and a reason to come back when the bugs were gone. The area is absolutely beautiful and now that I know the route I wouldn’t be as likely to get lost.

Here are a few other photos from the hike:

Ed's Lake

From Ed’s Lake I headed to Boot Lake Campground.

Notice how the sign still says only "Nicolet" National Forest :-)

I wanted to revisit my childhood and went to the site where I used to camp with my aunt, uncle and cousin every summer. The memories flooded back to me as I walked around the grounds. I remembered my uncle teaching me to fish (and I remember the time a hook got caught in his hand and my cousin and I had to go with him to the ER). I remembered my cousin and I having special “writing spots”. Hers was called Kersten’s Kove and mine was Amy’s Avalanche. (Alliteration was apparently everything to me when I was 9.) I walked the trail that my cousin and I used to recklessly ride our bikes down. In my imagination I could still hear our screams of laughter.

 

My cousin and I spent weeks swimming at the beach.

My uncle taught me to fish on this lake.

I used to bike down this trail at full speed, screaming and laughing in joy.

One summer my cousin insisted we write stories. I hated writing and thought it sounded like schoolwork (yuck!). But she’s two years older than me and I wanted to be like her so I put my pen to the paper. I wanted to impress her.  By the end of the week, something in me had changed. There was something intangibly special about the things I wrote. It suddenly wasn’t a chore; it was a gift. I’ve been writing ever since.

 

Walking down memory lane.

As hard as it was to leave memory lane, I had a few more stops I wanted to make. I headed across the street to the Jones Springs Management Area.  

I had low expectations, since I was still really irritated with Ed’s Lake. I didn’t want another hike with foggy glasses and multiple mosquito bites, and decided to make it a quick hike around Fanny Lake. It was one of those pleasantly surprising hikes that makes me love being outdoors.

If you like hike-in camping, I’d absolutely recommend this location. The sites are isolated and on a beautifully calm lake, perfect for kayaking (I mean, when it's not pouring rain).  

There are miles of trails (with clear and obvious directional signs), and I’m happy to report there weren’t nearly as many mosquitoes here.

Just a pretty picture from my hike.

It was so beautiful , I decided to make my hike a little longer and headed down the Yellow Trail. Unfortunately, I came across a washed out bridge and had to head back.

My last stop was to Chute Lake County Park to their scenic overlook.  

It’s on the very southern end of Nicolet National Forest, and on my way home so I figured why not? It was a very short hike (less than a mile), and had some pretty views that I’m sure would be stunning in the fall or on a sunny day. 

I don't think the path is maintained all that often due to the obstacle course I encountered trying to use the trail.

Overall, it was a nice, little stop to make before the long trek home on two lane highways behind slow-moving drivers. Sigh. At least the drive allowed plenty of time for reflection on my day and memories of my childhood summers.

STATS

Maple and Birch Trails

Trailhead: Ed’s Lake, County Highway W, west of Wabeno. Look for a large sign along the northeast side of the highway.

Distance: 4.62 miles

Elevation Gain: 159 feet

Time: 2 hours

Type of Trail: Combined trails to form 1 Loop

Temperature: 57 degrees, light rain

Fanny Lake Trail (also part of Yellow Trail)

Trailhead: Jones Springs Management Area, Fanny Lake Road, Townsend, WI 54175

Distance: 1.68 miles

Elevation Gain: minimal

Time: 45 minutes

Type of Trail: Sort of lollipop with extra extension cut short by flooded trail.

Temperature: 59 degrees and raining

Chute Pond Overlook Trail

Trailhead: Chute Pond County Park, 12436 Chute Dam Lane, Mountain, WI 54149

Distance: 0.59 miles

Elevation Gain: 77 feet

Time: 16 minutes

Type of Trail: Lollipop

Temperature: 63 degrees, light rain