School Forest Again

 Headache, day #3. Apparently this is something called a cluster headache. It can last a long time. The whole right side of my head near my eye is sore and tender. Eye watering and nose dripping. I'm working hard at being functional in spite of it. The day went OK, except bell choir practice was hard.

I could not talk myself into hitching up the trailer and picking up the dead snowblower today, so that will have to be tomorrow's priority. I managed to walk about 1.5 miles in the School Forest before bells. You've seen about everything there is to see there.

This is the new Ludington Elementary School. They took a huge chunk of the forest to build it.

This alleyway of young white pines is pretty.

And I always love how the beech trees hold their leaves through the winter.

I edited, I worked on some other projects. Hopefully this will be done tomorrow, but probably not. For now, I have to go to bed.

Miles hiked in 2025: 10.5.

Ludington School Forest, various trails. 1.5 miles

See The Lay of the Land

Spirit of the Woods Hike- November

  Totally awesome day today! Here's the requisite group photo with 31 people (Monica took the picture). The morning was chilly, barely 30 degrees when we gathered.

Dan Dreisinga and I led a brief (everyone was freezeing) training on using Avenza and FarOut mapping apps.

Then we headed out. Basically, there were two groups- the six-mile hikers and the three-mile hikers. We did this at the Bowman Semi-Primitive Area which is one of my favorite local hikes. It's hilly, and it has glacial features including the lake!

Most of the leaves are down, but beech trees hang on longer, sometimes all winter. And the sun came out, making us shed out outer layers and cheering up the forest.

One of the most fun things for me is that Bob and Bill showed up! It was SO much fun to see them and spend time with them.

And the hike isn't all. I think I'll show you what we did after that tomorrow. Tomorrow will need to be a good solid work day since I played all day today.

Miles hiked in 2024: 520.3. NCT miles hiked in 2024: 157.5.

NCT and Bowman Lake Trail loop. Total 6 miles

See SPW Hike October

Winter, Spring, Summer - Day 404

You could pretty much pick your season today. Try winter. Some of the section I hiked was still snow covered. Thankfully, not too awful much of it.

The ice on MacNeil Pond is melting fast. Definitely spring here. Geese were swimming in the channels of open water. I flushed out a woodcock.

Just a little farther, at Eagle Lake, it was still clearly winter.

Then again, perhaps it is summer already. Most places the trail was completely clear. And the temperature! It hit 78 degrees this afternoon, and the next three days are supposed to be 80. I am not prepared for this! I went to the dollar store and bought a pair of shorts. I didn't even bring any with me in March.

I also want to tell you a little bit about this sign along a clear section. This marks a spur trail to the AuSable Institute. This is an educational organization to "inspire and educate people to serve, protect, and restore God’s earth." It began existence as the biological field station of Taylor University, and was founded by one of my professors, Dr. Harold Snyder. It now has about 50 partnering colleges. It makes me happy to have this extra connection to the trail. They also maintain a portion of the NCT.

You can pick any season you like for this picture. I just always enjoy the light color of the beech leaves that persist through the winter glowing through the woods.

And I will take this moment to thank my current host, Marilyn. She wouldn't let me take her picture, but Sara managed to sneak one the other day when she also spotted me. I've known Marilyn and her family since the late 1960s (also from my years at Taylor), and I appreciate that she offered to help me out.

Today's helper was Ellen. She spotted me and hiked part of the way with me. Then she bought one of my books!

Miles today: 6.7. Total miles so far: 4507.2.

See Sneakin' Past 4500

An Adventure with Cathy

  You know my acetylcholine gets to pumping and making me happy when I have a new adventure! Cathy and I wanted to explore one of the trails that angles off the familiar route we followed last week to the back side of Hamlin Dam. Left at the fork- known. Right at the fork-unknown.

We made ourselves all kinds of promises about not doing anything stupid since it's winter, and we only had about 90 minutes between when she finished work and dark. As it turned out, many people have been hiking that trail since we had snow last Friday, so we were easily able to find where others had walked. These trails are all "unofficial," so there are no markings.

We came to this cut in the hill. You can see trail going fairly straight on the next hill. There were also trails going right and left in the valley. We chose left, going pretty much north. We were nominally attempting to connect to a trail we know goes along the south edge of Hamlin Lake. But, we were willing to go where the adventure took us, up to a cautious limit.

We had agreed on a turn-around time. At exactly that time... we reached Hamlin Lake!

What fun! This is a view I've never seen before. OK, I've been close to here at Inspiration Point, but not EXACTLY here.

The sand dunes across the way look quite alien!

Directly below us, the wind is churning the soft ice into pancake ice, although the "plates" haven't separated yet.

What should we do? Go back the way we came or take the trail that climbed up a ridge heading west? West would take us back to connect with the trail we took last week. I thought we might even have found the extension of the trail that goes past Inspiration Point. The sun was getting lower. We had about 45 minutes of light left. You know I took the "new" route, heading west. It soon turned away from the lake, so we knew it wasn't going to Inspiration Point.

But what scenery! The wooded dunes are high and steep-sided. This is one of the prettiest routes in the whole park! My pictures today don't do it justice. This shot shows one valley, and also that the low light is starting to make the trees glow. We still don't know where this trail is going to dump us, but it has turned south, which is good. As long as we make it back to the road the car is parked on, who cares?

The trail wandered and wandered along the top of a ridge. This big beech tree is growing on the side of the hill, but the hill is so steep it looks like it's practically buried.

We'd been going south for quite a while and still wondering where we'd come out. We had to cross either the usual trail, or the one we'd headed north on. Sure enough. We came to the top of the hill on the north side of the cut in the second picture above. That trail wasn't visible when we were down in the cut.

Just another ten minutes and we were back at the car with exactly enough time to hustle out to "First Curve," a parking area along Lake Michigan, to catch the sunset.

This was SO awesome. And we can explore those other junctions another day. I definitely want to do this route in other seasons. We probably walked between 4 and 4.5 miles. We move right along, the only place we dallied was when we got to the view of Hamlin Lake.

In other news: I wrote a chapter this morning and did a few odds and ends.

Ludington State Park, Mason County, MI. Piney Ridge Road to Hamlin Lake and back, about 4.5 miles

See One Day, Two Hikes

Shapes of Trees III

 
I'm having a tired day. Didn't sleep much last night, came home from work cold and with a headache. No big deal, just not able to get myself into gear to do as much as I wanted. Managed a couple of things, so at least I can say I did something in a forward direction.

These are some nice tree shapes from the walk the other day. Here's a big old beech tree.



And, this has been hiding in plain sight all along. Never noticed it on that walk before. A white birch all alone, so you can really see its natural shape as well.


It's going to be VERY early to bed. This is not a post-project crash. I think it's just the aftereffects of not sleeping well.

	See Shapes of Trees II
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Bright and Smiling

 
The day was bright and I am smiling. Spent almost all of the time I was awake working on book formatting. That accomplishment report is over at the author blog. But I took a nice walk in the middle to stretch my muscles.

There's a little pond at the corner of First Street and Gordon Road. Sun on water sure looks good even if the water is small.





Found one plant trying to get with the springtime program. This is Vinca, myrtle, periwinkle.... whatever you call it.



Just a closeup of some bark on a Scots pine.



I caught this sight out of the corner of an eye and then worked to save it with the camera. The sunlight was making some of the twigs glow if you looked at it just right. They look like ice! I always like something a tiny bit different.


And then, there are always the beech leaves that hang on throughout the winter. I love how they are so pale and papery. I just find them attractive.


Fairly productive for a Saturday. I think I'm taking the party to bed really soon.

	See Another Gorgeous Day
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Very Early Spring Color Wheel

 
I'm searching hard for color. Not surprisingly, these are pretty much the same things that have color early in the season every year. Even so, they are welcome.

RED
Red osier dogwood- I think I pictured this very same patch last year, but it's so vibrant!



ORANGE
A beech leaf looking like a dragonish boat in some miniature world.



YELLOW
A dried up polypore fungus. More creamy than yellow, but still interesting



GREEN
I know, moss is so trite. But it's looking very green and little else is yet.



BLUE
Yes, the blue sky is even more trite. But it was also a treat, since the forecast for the day was cloudy skies. One of the best parts of the leafless seasons is interesting branches against the blue. (And I dried clothes outside again!)



PURPLE
Black raspberry canes always look so purple in the spring!



And now for a story, for free.

While I was taking this walk, I stopped briefly beside a small wetland to look for any life that might be popping up. Something came up behind me and began snuffling at my legs. I turned to find a reddish golden retriever there at my side.

I petted her and she took my hand in her mouth and tugged as if to lead me somewhere. She was being very gentle, but had a tooth between the tendons on the back of my hand so it hurt anyway. I extricated my hand and told her she was a good dog. She did not try to follow me, and when I came back down the road she was no where to be seen.

Because she was a reddish color, like Irene's former Sandy Fe, it almost seemed like a visit from Sandy's spirit. I don't really believe in that stuff, but it felt odd anyway.

And I grew up on TV classics like Rin-Tin-Tin and Lassie. There was a small piece of my consciousness that felt guilty for not letting the dog lead me where she wanted to take me. Perhaps some child had fallen down a well and must be rescued, or Timmy was in trouble, or...

	See Late Winter Rainbows II See Winter Rainbow I
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Hike 100 Challenge- 100.6 Miles- Done!

 
What a day today! 68 degrees and sunny. Counting connectors and a side trip I hoofed it 13.1 hilly miles in 5 hours and 29 minutes, counting rest stops and lunch. Pooped but happy. 12.3 miles were on the main NCT trail and count for the challenge. Four tenths were the connector to parking, and another 0.4 were to an overlook and back. Since the mileage for the last outing was corrected, my previous total was 88.3, so I needed 11.7 to finish.

I started at Sawdust Hole (an old sawmill location), now a Forest Service campground. This is the view of the Manistee River down below in the floodplain. If I had hiked south I would have descended to that level, but I was headed north.



The trail is more or less level for quite a way, along the base of ridges and hills. One interesting thing is that this is one of the very few places on the NCT where the trail goes through Tribal land. This section is owned by the Little River Band of the Ottawa Indians. The sign is one that the NCTA provides at private property crossings, with customization as needed. If you are a hiker and are reading this, please follow the rules because if we get kicked off this little half-mile, it's going to be extremely difficult to re-route the trail.



Soon the trail began to climb to the top of the bluffs along the Manistee. This sign has been posted at the first high point since before we had a Chapter to maintain trail. I hadn't been back there for a long time. Actually, I hadn't hiked this section in a long time.



But today I took the short hike out to the knoll (on the return trip- note low sun). Had to pay attention to how to get back to the trail because it's not really marked and has no treadway. Here's the view. Not much to see with the camera, but the eye appreciates the open expanse beyond the trees. It would be nice to camp back there. This whole section is dry (can't really get to the river between Sawdust Hole and Red Bridge-extra mile down Coates Highway), so you'd need to pack water in.



After another long down and another long up there is a nice view of the river looking back. Slight haze and sun made the water just a bright spot between the banks.



More long ups and downs. Most of these are benched into steep hillsides, making the walk really pretty, even when there aren't leaves on the trees. Maybe especially when there aren't leaves on trees.



I reached Coates Road in 2 hours, 55 minutes. I'd been making notes along the way, but decided I'd better pay attention to hiking fast on the return trip, since it gets dark so early now.

The leaves are almost all down, but as some of the last of them fell they alternately caught the sunlight or shade and it made even brown leaves look like glitter. I watched them dance as I ate my lunch.

Here are some of the closeups I like. A few golden oak leaves.



Beech leaves make me happy in any season of the year. I love their texture, and in this case the alternating colors.



Finally, I just liked the symmetry/geometry of the shapes in this one.



So now I just have to submit my miles and I can get my patch. Not tonight. A long sleep is looking good!

North Country Trail, Sawdust Hole to Coates Highway and back.

	See Hike 100- previous entry
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