Ten on the Dragon

As part of my continuing conditioning, I wanted to get in a ten mile hike this week. Collette and Sue met up with Cathy and me and we did 10 miles on the Dragon Trail which goes around Hardy Dam Pond.

We hiked from Newaygo SP to Brower Park. I thought this was going to get me all new miles on the trail but it did overlap with what Ellen and I did last year (link at end). No matter. The whole loop is now open and is over 40 miles. I've done just under 20 of them.

The day started out overcast, so we didn't have blue water, but some errant ray of sunshine must have been lighting these trees at the bottom of the bank below us.

By the end of the day we did get some of that blue water!

This trail wanders through Newaygo and Mecosta Counties. So this was our joke of the day. We call this a Mecosta Moose.

OK, it's obviously a horse. But how often do you come across a horse tethered in the woods with no human nearby? And it's wearing a harness. Around the next bend, we came across a wagon, also just sitting in the woods, empty. Still no human. The horse is obviously well cared for, and was not distressed, but the whole thing just made us chuckle. And scratch our heads.

Got a cool pattern picture in Rosy Run where we ate our lunch.

The big news of the day was wildflowers. I even got a new one! So you know it's a stellar day in my book. There were so many, I'll do a separate post about them tomorrow. Also, I think I've IDed a cool fungus that I also saw on the big hike.

Afterwards, Cathy and I came home by way of.. (do you recognize the location?)

... Country Dairy for some ice cream. A fantastic day, and my body is accepting the 10 miles pretty well.

Miles hiked in 2025: 190.8

Dragon Trail, Newaygo, MI. Newaygo SP to Brower Park. 10 miles

See Back to the Dragon

Back to the Dragon

 There were so many things that were awesome about today, it's hard to decide which to start with. I choose to first show you who I was adventuring with. This is my long-time adventure buddy Ellen. That said, we haven't managed to do anything together since 2016, although she did make the effort to come to my final day of the big hike. For a lot of years, we did something together about once a month. We don't know if we can manage that schedule, but we hope to at least not wait eight more years before getting together again. We aren't getting any younger.

You may or may not remember that we've done things including hiking, biking, kayaking, skiing (she's the one who got me started on cross-country skis) and sometimes just back road exploring. She also dragged me to the Ludington Writer's Group when I first began writing mysteries.

Today we went to check out one of the new sections of the Dragon Trail at Hardy Dam Pond. The link below is when Monica, Keira and I hiked about 13 miles of that, which was nearly all that was built at the time. The trail will be over 40 miles long, completely circling Hardy Dam Pond. When I learned that some more sections have been completed since 2021, we chose to go see some of that today.

We didn't have time to do all of one completed segment, and some of the partial segments weren't long enough. Doesn't matter. We chose to start at Newaygo State Park and hike north until we were tired and then turn around. The segments are distinguished by a color and number. We were on Segment 3- Tan.

The water could not have been more stunning. We sort of chose today for the sunshine, hoping for blue water. We got it! Where we hiked was largely along the edge of the pond.

The water is still lowered for winter, but this makes a sandy edge, and we saw quite a few people taking advantage of that.

We hiked until the trail curved down around the inlet of Rosy Run.

We went until we had hiked three miles. There was a lovely bench with a view and a real breeze off the water. That was awesome too, because the temperature was about 70 degrees by then. We are sure not used to that yet. You can see how the wind is lifting my hair.

There we ate our lunches and then headed back. The views remained spectacular.

We were really hoping to find some wildflowers. They were not in profusion, but we at least got our wish. First hepatica of the year. Round-lobed. Hepatica americana. They can be blue, pink or white.

This was the other great find of the day. I believe this is fire moss, or redshank moss, Ceratodon purpureus, pretty amazing in the sun.

The other great find was a lovely skeletonized leaf, but my pictures are all useless. Anyway, we had a wonderful day. I talked way too much, telling Ellen funny stories, but I think she forgave me.

Oh, and talk about timing. There was a huge tree we had to climb over on the way out. By the time we returned it had been cut out!

Total miles hiked in 2024: 199.6 of which 69.6 is North Country Trail.

This trail is not the NCT. However, there is supposedly a trail called The Edge that connects Hardy Dam with Croton Dam where the NCT exits the Manistee National Forest. I think it's actually a road route, or a paved multi-use path. I might have to explore this. It would be fun to connect them even if it's paved. About 6 miles.

See Dragon Trail Beginnings

Dragon Trail Beginnings

  Nice hike today with Monica and her daughter Keira.

The last time I went to Hardy Dam was because the 46-mile "Dragon Trail" was in the planning stages. Now there are actually some miles completed.

There are 14.6 miles, but they are not contiguous. So we did most of what is complete, and one little piece of that as an out-and-back. We did get a nice early start from my house, but it's over an hour away. Nevertheless it was still a lovely morning at the boat launch as we were getting ready to hike.

The trail is designed for mountain bike and hiking use. That means there are lots more twists and turns and small hills than you'd usually find on a hiking trail.

Most of the day was cloudy, but occasionally the sun popped out giving some good autumn color. You can see the water most of the time from the trail.

You know I love patterns. This was the best one on the water today.

We started from a park called Big Bend and walked toward the dam. We knew we were getting close here, but actually had over a mile to go because the trail wandered around an arm of water.

One more view with some nice color.

And at the end we walked across the dam and back. This is the view downstream on the Muskegon River.

We did 13.2 miles, and I can feel it, but I could easily have walked 2 or 3 more. This is really good. The weather was ideal. We think it was 39 degrees when we started, but most of the time it was high 40s or into the 50s. Lots and lots of cyclists. A moderate number of hikers.

Dragon Trail from Big Bend Park to Consumer's Beach Park and back to parking. 13.2 miles

There is no other news.

See Hardy Dam