Spirit of the Woods Hike- November

Although the morning started out chilly, it turned into a perfect crisp day for the NCTA Chapter hike. We had 22 people, but there were 7 dogs who came along this time. (1 person and 2 dogs didn't make the picture.)

We started at Upper Branch Bridge which is where the trail crosses the Pere Marquette River.

Gary leads us off into the autumn woods with rich brown oaks and yellow beech.

Two of the hikers completed their 100 Mile Challenge today. I didn't get a picture of Peg, but here is Sue.

There are still plenty of little gems to see. Northern Maidenhair fern grows along the banks of the unnamed creek there.

We were discussing whether these are quaking aspen leaves or big-tooth aspen. I've decided they are big-tooth, even though the teeth aren't huge, because the trees are tall and straight with ridged bark. Quaking will get ridged bark if it gets old enough, but I just have a feeling these are big-tooth. Anyway, I took the picture because I like how the water beads up on wet leaves. This is because the leaves have natural plant oils. (I'm a dummy- didn't check to see if the stems were flat.)

The oaks are starting to get involved in the fall color. Even though they don't get the really bright colors, I always like how rich they look. These are white oak.

We did hike a little farther than we usually go from this trailhead. To go to the next road and back is only 3 miles. We did the half-mile roadwalk (a pleasant dirt road), and partway into Bowman Semi-Primitive Area, so that the total miles would be more. I did five.

This is the only section of the NCT that is along the Pere Marquette River. There is one place where you get an unobstructed view, and I almost always take a picture of it there. But today I decided to try to find another place for a glimpse of the water. This one through the trees isn't bad.

I managed to do some computer work before the hike. In the afternoon, I mostly worked on trying to get some computer coding to work. I've determined several things that DON'T work. I guess that is progress of a sort.

Miles hiked in 2025: 423

Miles hiked on the NCT in 2025: 241.3

North Country Trail, Lake Co, MI. Upper Branch Bridge into Bowman Semii-Primitive area and back. Total 5 miles.

See SPW Hike- October

Best I'm Gonna Do

I'm not a fan of Halloween. Some people find that surprising, since for years we built a huge, scary fun house called "Scream in the Dark" which hundreds of teens attended.

The point of that was to illustrate the message that we can learn from our fears. Yes, it was scary, but there was nothing even slightly demonic in it. After scaring the kids "to death," they were given a short talk about what can be good about some fears, and how God can help us overcome the serious fears we face.

But I can't get enthused about all the spirit-ish aspects of what the holiday has increasingly become. If I could think of a really good way to celebrate All Saints Day on Nov 1, I'd do that. Does anybody have any ideas? The Methodist church here remembers those who have died in the past year, so at least that's something.

Anyway, this tree sure is frightened of something!

And since a lot of people are frightened of spiders, here's a picture for them.

Got a lot done today. Including... picking up a battery-powered pruning saw I had ordered. It is slicker 'n snot! I may have to blog about it.

Maybe I'll start featuring one Christian each year who has really influenced me. I understand that Roman Catholics have designated Saints. But Scripture says that all who believe are saints.

See Halloween-ish

Invitation to the Hike

One of my favorite pieces of light classical music is Inviation to the Dance by Weber. It's under 10 minutes long, and you can hear it on YouTube if you want.

Another of my favorite things is to receive an invitation to a hike that would not normally be available. This hike takes place on a private trail in Hamlin Township. That's about all I should say. But I was invited by one of the property owners to hike it with her as a guest.

For starters, the drive in to her home was spectacular.

One of their homeowner members has restored/built this trail. One end is anchored at Hamlin Lake. Always worth a view on a sunny day.

The trail is completely in woods, some if it gorgeous. Most of it, actually.

One section passes through some higher land where selective cutting was done, leaving this great treeline against a perfect October sky. Yes, the trail even has a moderate amount of topography.

This tree is one of my friend's waypoints. The pileated woodpeckers have turned it into a swiss cheese tree.

I found this "lane" along a row of Norway Spruce pleasant, although there was too much contrast for the camera to take a good picture.

The other end of the trail ends at the road, and then we walked back to her house.

I've included this picture of a past-prime geranium from her porch because it is Marie's favorite color!

Worked on projects, went for this hike. Yada, yada.

Miles hiked in 2025: 418

Private trail in Hamlin Township. 1.8 miles

See Color in My Kingdom

Color in My Kingdom

I still have some really nice autumn photos from the past few days, but I think today I'll just show you what's going on in my corner of the universe.

Here's the female mulberry tree. The male one didn't look too healthy this year. I'm hoping it's not going to die. These two trees have given me several fantastic photos- see link at end for two of them

This is the paper birch I planted about 30 years ago. It's probably too close to the house, but oh, well. It almost died, and then came back, so part of the trunk is ugly. I have to keep trimming it away from the roof. It sheds leaves all over my front flower bed. That creates a big mess to clean up in the spring, but I think it has also improved the soil there tremendously. It's always golden in the fall.

The Sedum elecombeanum that I like so much in the rock garden with its yellow-green leaves all summer and bright yellow flowers in June- turns red-orange in the fall!

There is a big patch of Winged Sumac just out into the field a little ways. I missed the peak of its color, but here is proof that maybe a week ago it was bright.

Here is a picture from last year that shows how beautiful that clump can be.



And my parting shot is one of those "huh?" moments. I posted last year that the maple tree I planted as a sapling about 6 inches tall in 1991 got autumn color for the first time ever. It's the darker orange tree behind the yellow mulberry. That was taken October 31, so almost exactly a year ago.



Here's what it looks like this year. It has very little interest in changing color for me. You can see a few hints of orange/salmon on the edges of some leaves. But it's a nice tree, and I planted it, and it lived. So I like it.

I slept in this morning because I did not sleep well last night. Still got a fair amount done and took my 3-mile road walk.

Miles hiked in 2025: 416.2

See Pink, Blue, and Red

Caught Some Critters

Ludington School Forest has lots of squirrels. In fact, I'll bet if I checked back, most of the squirrel pictures I have taken are from there. Gray squirrels, anyway. And gray squirrels include black and white squirrels which are color morphs. They are all pretty jumpy, and hard to catch a picture of while you are walking fast through crunchy leaves. No chance to sneak up on one.

Today I caught a gray one...

...and a black one.

Oddly enough, the trees are not turning colors very much in the School Forest. This is the same tree (from a different angle) I showed you weeks ago, the one that turns red early every year. There is some yellow and a lot of the leaves have come down, but not much color.

I stole this idea from someone else. I didn't work very hard at it... like to find more leaves of the same kind. Long after I took the first picture, I found an orange maple leaf that was even bigger. If I had held on to the leaves until the end of the walk, I could have had 5 in that stack. But what I wanted to do was hike 3 miles in the hour before bell choir, so I needed to keep moving.

Did I succeed? Not quite. I ended up with 56 minutes to hike and made it 2.8 miles. So, I probably could have done those other two tenths in the four minutes. (A 20-minute mile is one-tenth in two minutes, so I am not fudging the pace.)

Got a lot done today on projects and editing in the morning. Finished the mowing in the afternoon, then bought screws, walked, and went to bell choir. That filled the day!

Fall just keeps being glorious! I will have more pictures for another day.

Miles hiked in 2025: 413.2

Ludington School Forest, miscellaneous trails, 2.8 miles

See Pepper and Salt

Exploring Old Grade

Today was pretty busy, but it was all good. In the afternoon, I stopped at the "Old Grade Campground" (Manistee National Forest). It's only the second time I've been there.

Can you guess how it got its name?

Yup! It was a railroad grade. But you know I can't be content with only knowing that. I had to know what railroad. This is not far north of the village of Peacock where two separate railroads crossed each other. However, it is on the north side of the Little Manistee River. So I couldn't quite figure what railroad this was.

Turns out, it's a logging line of the Manistee and Luther RR. Their main line went from Eastlake to Hoxeyville (never quite making it to either Manistee or Luther!). On the map, the red lines are Manistee and Luther. The topmost of the dark green arrows points to where I was today. And that means the railroad had a bridge across the river there. I wonder if one can find any remnants.

The lower dark green arrow points to Peacock where the light green Michigan E & W line crossed the Chicago and West Michigan line in magenta.

I was hoping to write about the loop trail at Old Grade for one of my columns. I have to think about whether I should do that. Some of the trail is in bad shape. I made it through with electronic help. The good portion could be done as an out and back. Anyway, I had fun. Here's where the trail begins.

When you get around on the other side of the loop, the trail briefly follows a small, unnamed creek that flows beneath hemlocks to the Little Manistee River .

Here are a couple of closeups. Red maple leaf- not just red in color, but it's a red maple.

And some needles from a white cedar which fell artistically on its horizontal trunk. I suspect squirrels bit these off and dropped them.

This all happened after I met with some people about some trail stuff, and I also did laundry. I worked on computer stuff a bit this morning, and my day was completely filled!

Miles hiked in 2025: 410.4

Old Grade loop trail and in and out from entrance 2.3 miles.

See Not Quite, But Quite All Right

More From Yesterday

There are more awesome things to share from yesterday, and today was quite ordinary, so I'll just go with the pretty things. Starting with the sunrise.

On the way home from the hike, Sue and I drove around Lake Gitchegumee, south of Buckley, and enjoyed the fall view.

But wait! What is out there? It's two adult trumpeter swans with three juveniles! There were four more as well, but they were hanging out with a bunch of Canada geese.

We managed to take some roads that were less traveled coming home and enjoyed an extended color tour. One stop for a quick picture at the overlook for Hodepyl Dam Pond. The reflection of the sky in the water was the best.

Today was a combination rest day and some puttering. I tried to make it more of a rest day, or at least tried to do things that weren't so much of the everyday pressing work. Mowed part of the yard. Last time before winter, I'm pretty sure. About half to go.

I did a little bit of work in my gardens- just moving a few things that I wanted to get fixed this fall.

See SPW at Highbanks Rollway

Spirit of the Woods Hike- October- Highbanks Rollway

The Spirit of the Woods Chapter of the NCTA holds its October hike at Highbanks Rollway, which is in the Grand Traverse Chapter miles. But we try to hit peak color because it's a beautiful hike above the Manistee River.

It was scheduled for last weekend, but got re-scheduled because of the weather forecast. Today was a little past peak color up there, but it was a lovely day, and not shabby.

Things did start out a bit iffy with fog so thick you could only see gray from the overlook. But that soon lifted to become only a layer of fog in the valley

This is quite a hilly section. In the 5.5 miles there is about 800 feet of elevation change with the biggest single climb being 250 feet.

The best color was on the way back to the trailhead. By then the sun was out. It had warmed from near freezing into the high forties. This is the riverbend at the actual rollway.

Possibly the best was the sun on bright yellow aspen on the other side of the river.

And another.

We had 21 people in our group. Here we are. Bob took the pic.

The location was extremely busy! Lots of families out for walks with the kiddos which is great to see. Most of the people weren't going too far from the trailhead, but that's OK. I'm just glad to see people enjoying the outdoors.

This isn't particularly special, but Plantain-Leaved Pussytoes presented itself nicely for a picture. Antennaria plantaginifolia.

Sue S from the chapter rode with me (it's a long drive and carpooling is good). We did some more leaf-peeping on the way home. Maybe those will be tomorrow's post.

Now... since I didn't get home till after 10 pm last night and had to get back up a 6 am today- I'm going to go lie down with a book.

Miles hiked in 2025: 408.01
Miles hiked on the NCT in 2025: 236.3

North Country Trail, Wexford County, MI. Highbanks Rollway to 29 1/2 Road and back. 5.5 miles

See Same Hike- 2024 See Wet Spring hike on the same miles