A Pentwater Afternoon

 Here's Pentwater Lake, although that wasn't the focus of my activities, it's always nice.

The primary reason I went there is the last thing I did. But since I was headed that way, I got in a few fast miles at the Pentwater Pathway trails. And I do mean fast. I cut myself short on time. But the trails were dry.

I ended up with just 45 minutes to walk. I tried for the 2.6 mile loop, and I did it, but I was moving! I haven't hiked the trails there for several years, so it was fun to visit some of them again. There are more loops- it's really set up for X-Country skiing.

I made it back to town in time to participate in the Wednesday evening dinners at their Methodist Church. Tonight was spaghetti.

But my primary reason for the trip was to be a substitue ringer in their bell choir this weekend, and tonight was the practice.

Let's say that my sight-reading skills had a good workout. Only one of the pieces has a hard spot where there is an impossible page turn, so I'm doing a little fix to overcome that. We have one more practice on Sunday morning, and then we play. Whew!

Total miles hiked in 2024: 108.3 of which 18.7 is North Country Trail.

Pentwater Pathways, Pentwater, MI. Blue Loop, 2.6 miles

See More from the School Forest

Pentwater Pathway with Cathy

  Cathy didn't work today- she is semi-retired now, and we went to the Pentwater Pathway and did the loops in such a way that our miles added up to 7.7.

The terrain is similar throughout the forest where it's located, and things are still brown and gray. That means pictures tend to look mostly like this. But since it's a series of ski loops there are some decent hills.

Here's a large black oak. We stopped on Long Bridge on the way home. It was super windy locally for almost 24 hours. It's finally calmed down now, but you can see how windblown we were out there in the open. It wasn't bad at all in the woods, though.

Here's the view down the lake, toward the village of Pentwater. Similar view in the link below about kayaking.

The temperature made it into the 50s, the sky was clear, and the water blue. I love the blue and tan of the old cattails. (not snow in the background but sandbags- big problems here with high water last year)

A lone mute swan was hunting for lunch.

Nice hike, nice day.

Pentwater Pathway, Pentwater, Michigan. Various loops for a total of 7.7 miles

In other news: I came home and got cleaned up and did a few odds and ends. Since the wind was trying to remove the tarp from my trailer, it's now officially removed for the season.

See Pentwater Pathway Hike See Kayaks Loaded, Kayaks Launched

Pentwater Pathway Hike

  Pentwater Pathway is a series of loops, primarily for cross-country skiing, but they also make great hikes. The day started out frosty but warmed to a wondrous 48 degrees, with beautiful skies. I thought the way the clouds were in little puffs was quite interesting.

Since it's a ski area, as you might expect, there are some hills, but not too many. I'm actually willing to ski all of this with the exception of one particular hill. And I'm a big chicken on skis.

Found a heart in a hollow log!

The sun lit up an area of rather ordinary grasses and made it interesting.

The cast of characters was Loren and myself.

And Corky and Koa. Corky still hikes right along at age 13 (the white dog), and Koa is energy on steroids. She must have run at least three times as far as we hiked, and wasn't tired a bit.

So, how far did we go? Loren and I did a loop of 5.3 miles. Then we ate our lunches. I stayed longer and hiked more, to be sure I covered every leg of every trail. My total came in at 11 miles.

There is no other news: I just let today be a hiking day. Interestingly enough, when I went looking for a link to add about another Pentwater Pathway hike, I discovered that I hiked this 5 years and 1 day ago, when it was also unseasonably mild!

See Petwater Pathway Promenade

Promenade at Pentwater Pathway

 
Had an easy work week with cases, and found myself near Pentwater Pathway when I finished. Time for a hike!



The primary purpose of these trails is for cross-country ski loops. They are great to walk when there's not snow. A volunteer group, Oceana Cross Country Ski Association, keeps the trails cleared, and they do the grooming in winter. Here's a big job you can thank them for!



The temperature was perfect at about 47 degrees, and the sun even came out from time to time. I liked how it highlighted this dead pine.



Witch hazel in bloom... a subtle addition to fall beauty.



I walked the entire outer edge of all the loops, for a total of just over six miles.



I liked how this tree dealt with a horizontal wound some time in the past. Grow teeth!



Saw chickadees, crows and a white-breasted nuthatch. Also a gray squirrel. Other than that, it was pretty quiet.

Tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer! But I have things to do at home in the afternoon. That's OK, this was a great spontaneous hike.

	See Pentwater Pathway, Sept 2013
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Spirit of the Woods Hike- September

 

Great hike today with seven of us meeting at Pentwater Pathway. One awesome thing was that we attracted several new people who came because this trail system is easy to get to. Because it's a ski trail system there are multiple loops. This made it possible for us to hike together for a while, then one group split off- those who wanted a shorter hike. They returned after doing about a three mile loop.



Four of us continued on and did the six mile loop.

Have you seen these caterpillars on milkweed plants? They are milkweed tiger tussock moth caterpillars (Euchaetes egle) and often eat milkweed late in the season.



I came home and slept all afternoon since I had almost no sleep after work before the hike. I think I'm headed to bed early too!

	See Spirit of the Woods- July 2012 See Pentwater Pathway with Ellen
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Pentwater Pathway with Ellen

Ellen will deny this, but she's a much better skier than I am. But I'm willing to do the easy trails, so we met this morning at Pentwater Pathway for some skiing. It's a beautiful set of loops within the Pere Marquette State Forest. Ellen is really active with the Oceana County Cross-Country Ski Association, and they groom the trails. That's really great for the skiers, but it meant that Maggie couldn't go on this adventure. Sad for her.

First we skied the easy yellow loop, but that took less than an hour, not quite as much time as we wanted to ski. But Ellen had a plan. She knew how to drive around to the back side of the area where we could access a large loop that is rated intermediate, but there's a nice long section that's very easy. So we skied that to a junction and then back to the car. Perfect!



It was surprising that there were no fresh wildlife tracks at all. The weather is warm enough that I would have thought the critters would be out roaming for meals, but we didn't see anything. On the way home, I saw some ducks, but they were too far away to snap their portraits, so you'll have to settle for Ellen and me again.

Come back tomorrow and find out what the game will be this time!

Apple and Wintergreen

 



Yesterday I gave a program about spring wildflowers, and then went for a hike at Pentwater Pathways. If you follow the outermost loop it's 6 miles, and Maggie and I took that route. Next week is supposed to be wet and colder, but I'm grabbing all the good I can out of this week!


It was too early for any new green things to be poking through, but this gem stays green all winter under the snow. This is wintergreen, Gaultheria procumbens. This little cutie, and some related species, are the source for natural oil of wintergreen. Today, most is produced synthetically, but traditionally it was obtained by crushing the leaves, and boiling them, then distilling the steam. It is actually very toxic. Wikipedia says that one fluid ounce is equal to 171 aspirin. It doesn't take much to flavor gum, mouthwash, and candy!

That said, there is so little oil in a single plant that you can eat the berries, or chew the leaves for the wintergreen flavor, or steep them for tea. In fact, it is sometimes called Teaberry.


Meanwhile, although this is not as good as "Grilled Cheese on Snow," Maggie said, "What was that?"


There it is..."Apple on Leaves." I thought it was plastic until I kicked it and discovered that it had a grocery tag! And there you have it... the fruits of yesterday's forest.

Today I hung laundry outside for the first time this spring! Supposed to be nice one, maybe two more days. Horray for blue skies! I wore shorts all day today.

See Grilled Cheese on Snow

Ski Outing

 

Some days I think I'm losing my mind. I went to the wrong ski trail for the club outing today! After waiting 20 minutes for the leader I left her a note and headed out on the easy trail.

I'll skip to the end, just because it's such a joke! She went to the right place (duh!), and was the only one there. So if we had managed to show up at the same location there would only have been the two of us. But that's ok. We each had a nice ski outing. Actually, she was better off without me because I'm not really a very good skier.



This is called Pentwater Pathways, and they have a nice new trail mapboard! I did the green loop (the easy one) twice. That was plenty, at a total of just under 4 miles. Remember that pulled muscle? Well, it's 95% ok, but it gets tired, and I'm afraid if I twist it wrong that I'll hurt it again, so I didn't even venture on the medium difficulty trail. I'm kind of a chicken on skis. I only started skiing about 6 years ago. My adventure buddy, Ellen, is the one who got me started, and she insists I stop calling myself a novice, but... this is one sport where I'm kind of wimpy.



But the trail was beautiful, and having a groomed pathway makes it a lot easier to ski safely. Of course, with the grooming, I couldn't take Maggie. Dogs are not welcome on trails that have been cared for that well!



On the way back, I saw these little bufflehead ducks. They were a little too far away to get really clear pictures, but they are such cute little guys that I thought I'd show you anyway.



One of them even agreed to show off for you a little bit. I also saw a tufted titmouse, and blue jays, but couldn't manage to get a picture of either one.