Momentus but Familiar, Days 1-5

  As I was completing the trailer packing on Nov 30, I realized that I haven't done something that would change my life for a whole year since college or marriage or grad school. The first two are a long, long time ago. Even grad school is 31 years ago now.

Every piece of trail that I've seen in the first five days of this hike, I've seen at least once already this calendar year. Some, I've seen several times. During the whole five days of backpacking, I never once felt as if I were embarking on a momentus journey. I was with familiar friends, on familiar trail.

Several of the Spirit of the Woods members came to see me off. They brought the banner and we had a very short ceremony. I quoted Psalm 18:36, "Broaden the path before me so that my ankles do not turn." We sang the chorus, "One step at a time, only one step at a time. Take that one step carefully, walk that one step prayerully. This is the way to victory, one step at a time.

My friend, Cathy, hiked with me most of the first day. We had a really cushy first break when her husband, Doug, met us with chairs to rest in!

I camped alone that first night after 15 miles. It was chilly, but the sunrise through the trees was cheerful, and Monica arrived just a few minutes later to hike with me for two days. She looks happy. I look cold, which I was, but happy too.

We had such a good time hiking together and talking. The miles went fairly quickly. This was perhaps our most interesting sighting- what was left of a woodpecker that helped sustain some other creature

We camped that night in open pines (15 miles), sharing her two-person tent for the warmth and the companionship.

A short break near Bear Creek. Although I'd started in snow on Dec 1, the days now were above freezing. Although they were chilly, it wasn't bad at all.

That afternoon, Monica handed me off to David Snoek. I would like to know what idiot with a screw loose planned 18 miles for day 3 of my hike. That is the hardest hiking day of any trip for me, but Monica kept me going. She would have liked to stay and just keep hiking!

David and I camped at Second Cole Creek in a really nice site.

It was getting more wintry by now. There was light snow in the morning, and the tents were covered in ice. The white square is the ice David scraped off his tent.

Even though we were getting farther from home, nothing felt yet like a huge adventure.

Beth Keloneva met us at Twinwood Lakes with water, and we camped near 58th St.

This was the coldest night and it took me a long time to get warm after going to bed. But I finally did warm up. Still didn't sleep very well. Perhaps I'd finally caught up on sleep from all the preparations. I slept 13 hours the first night in the tent! We hiked about 14.5 miles.

Then Beth met us again and took most of the items from our packs (like soaking wet tents, since there was freezing rain in the night), and David and I hiked on.

We hiked on out past Croton Dam, finishing the lower part of the Manistee National Forest. I continued with some road miles and then David took me to dinner. 15.5 miles for the day and a total of 77 miles so far on this hike.

The reason we accepted the offer of slackpacking from Beth was because the weather was to deteriorate in the afternoon, which it did. We hiked in nasty, wet sideways snow, but we did manage to finish before it turned to freezing rain and slush.

We got to deliver a very special sign to NCTA HQ. This used to be on the NCTA Schoolhouse. Read the numbers and add them up! The trail was only 3200 miles long then. Now it's 4600-4800.

Long post, but tried to catch up from the backpacking part. The technology was a complete bust, but most of the rest of my gear did well. This does not yet feel epic. I'll let you know when it does

Dec 1- Timber Creek to Jenks Rd. 15.0 miles
Dec 2- Jenks Rd to 11 Mile Rd. 15.0 miles
Dec 3- 11 Mile Rd to Second Cole Creek 17.0 miles
Dec 4- Second Cole Creek to Twinwood Lake. 14.5 miles
Dec 5- Second Cole Creek to Locust Ave. 15.5 miles .

See Rolin' in the Sunshine- ready to go 2021