8, with Day Pack

  I looked at the weather for the rest of the week and decided today was the day for a hike to stretch my endurance. I have to be up to 10 miles with a real pack by June.

Where should I go? I'm generally tired of the closest section of NCT to me. However, I chose it, and managed to find something new to do.

Went to Timber Creek and hiked north. One thing I knew for sure, there is more elevation change there than it seems like, if you go beyond 8th St, so it's a pretty good workout. A little sun makes even the brown woods look good. Mostly, it was cloudy.

This is a really common type of moss here. Maybe I've now identified it. Red-stemmed feathermoss, or Schreber's big red stem moss, Pleurozium schreberi. Wikipedia makes it sound like it's only found in the far north, but the Forest Service website puts it almost everywhere in the NE US.

This is another I see a lot of, and it's getting all sexy for spring showing off its sporophytes. Juniper Haircap Moss, Polytrichum juniperus. It has another funky stage in the reproductive cycle. I'll have to start watching for that.

This was fun. It's some polypore fungus of the shelf/bracket type, but I can't tell which one. From the top, it looks like horse hooves, or shelves. The log was fallen, so the "top" of the fungus is from the lower right.

So, how do I know it's a polypore? The underside has many (poly) pores!

I walked 4 miles out, and started back just a few yards so I could find somewhere nice to sit and eat my lunch. Not only was this stump the right height, it had artistic character!

My little project of interest was to try to track the elevation change better on this section. Previously, all I'd done is subtract the low point from the high. That is 1122-791 feet = 331 feet. But that doesn't take into account the ups and downs along the way. Today, I tried to mark in Avenza the tops of all the ridges. I had previously counted 8, but today I marked 7. I guess one has to make choices as to what are just undulations, and what are really ridges.

Anyway, where I turned around is 92 feet lower than the high point. Then the trail drops from the high point to 921 which is 201 feet lower than the high point. Then it wanders up and down over small ridges till it's back to the 791 feet at Timber Creek.

I think I can safely say I climbed and descended a total of about 600 feet. Maybe next time, I'll track it in FarOut which will do an elevation profile. Thing is, it's not too accurate because it doesn't sample often enough.

I'll close with one of my most often pictured scenes from this section, but I always think it' cool. The light is always oddly filtered through this red pine plantation so that it almost always looks red and hazy.

I did a little bit of work, but the hike took the biggest chunk of the day.

Miles hiked in 2025: 73.9. NCT Hike 100: 22.5

North Country Trail, Lake County, Michigan, US 10 (Timber Creek) north to Forest Road 6419 and back. 8 miles

See Familiar- Endurance Edition