Day Two- Much Better!

 Day Two- yesterday- was much more pleasant. Although the sun never shone except for about 5 minutes, it was warmer (upper 40s maybe into the 50s), and the sky did not leak on us.

We enjoyed breakfast sitting outside in our little chairs. I have almost all cold-soak meals because it eliminates the need to carry a stove. But David had a stove, so I got to enjoy a hot cup of coffee. I wasn't about to turn that down!

We were on the trail at 9:10. The first part of the day was not hilly at all. The trail follows the Manistee River Bluffs, passing by many more oxbows. No sun to make the water blue, though. Most of this area is accessible by vehicles, and there are multiple campsites that are used not only by hikers but all sorts of campers. We passed through one encampment with a trailer and 3 tents with four guys standing around a campfire drinking beer for breakfast. They were friendly, but not our thing.

I've probably showed you a picture of every time I've passed it. This is the marker on the Cadillac-Traverse City Indian Trail. I've been to all the markers and wrote a newspaper column about it last year. This is where I completed my 100 miles last year. I'm not there yet this year.

One really nice trail picture with the ground covered with emerging Trout Lilies.

The final miles of the day were hilly again, and very muddy. But we got 'em done, although not very quickly. David's walking stick is a hollow tube, and he's a horn player. He celebrated our completion with a couple of good bugles!

We hiked 8 miles to the car, then grabbed some late lunch at a little restaurant. I was tired, but the whole trip was not as physically difficult as I thought it might be. My back is a little sore, so I have to work on carrying the weight, but the miles were no problem at all. We did a total of 15.5 for the two days. I know this is about what I was hiking in one day a couple of years ago, but I'm still working my way up again.

When he sends me the pictures he took, there may be one of me I'll share.

Also, the chapter had a hike today, which I'll probably tell you about tomorrow.

Miles hiked in 2025 (at the end of yesterday):160.2. Hike 100 Challenge: 68 miles

North Country Trail, campsite along the Manistee River to east end of 12 Road near Sherman, MI. 8.0 miles

I will show you one thing I had to do today... deal with a pile of wet gear. You can't ingore that or you'll have it all moldy.

See Who Wants to Be Dry?

Day One- Who Wants to Be Dry?

 Hmmm. Well, we sort of wanted to be dry, or even warm, but that didn't happen. It rained hard at first, then off and on the rest of the day and all night.

We started at Baxter Bridge and hiked west (NCT trail east). This is the section high above the Manistee River.

I was hiking with David Snoek who hiked quite a few miles with me on the NCT hike a couple of years ago.

The rain made all the views dull and gray and brown. But here is one of the many oxbows on that section of the river.

There wasn't a lot of joy in that hike. We were wet. The trail was wet, the sky was wet. We made it 7.5 miles and camped at one of the many sites that is accessible by vehicle along there. We huddled under a tarp to eat dinner. But we were cold and wet and just crawled in out tents and sleeping bags after that.

My tent:

Daves tent:

Not too exciting, right? We've had to move the dates of this little jaunt many times for various reasons, always hoping that we could catch some good weather. The joke is that we managed to pick one of the very worst weather days in the past couple of weeks to hike! But we got the miles in.

Stay tuned for day 2 tomorrow.

Miles hiked in 2025: 152.2. Hike 100 Challenge: 60.0

Baxter Bridge to campsite along Manistee River bluffs. 7.5 miles

See October at Highbanks