Color Tour 2025- Part 1

Om and I did a color tour again this year, and we managed to make it happen on the one day in a string of about six when it isn't gray and rainy. I'll show you the second part tomorrow (with more actual color) because- gray and rain is expected.

I decided to follow the Newaygo County Tourist Bureau suggested color tour route. I'll give you my thoughts on that at the end. But you can find it at the link.

We did their loop clockwise, so early on we reached Hardy and Croton Dams. However, Hardy Dam is being repaved, so traffic is not being allowed on it. Huh. We pulled into the marina by the bridge to catch a couple of pictures. Nice colorful reflection.

Looking out toward the main part of the pond. Yes, the Dragon Trail goes through here (and then crosses the dam- one can hope they might be redoing the barely adequate pedestrian walkway, but probably not).

Well, I found an alternate way to get down to Croton Dam. Have to take yet another picture of the traditional view. This has been a landmark of the North Country Trail since forever. And we are standing on the trail while taking this picture.

The most colorful leaves there were... POISON IVY!

These dams are on the Muskegon River, and it was apparently a good day for fishing below the dam.

After that, the suggested route wandered a bit farther south, and then west. Tomorrow, I'll show you some of the great color we found there.

Here are my thoughts on the loop. I think this was designed for people who don't want to get out of their cars, or even to slow down very much. While only some of it was on state highways, it was all paved roads with significant traffic. It was a problem to be able to pull off and stop to take pictures.

I know they want to get people into the communities in the county, but I'd rather have a slightly shorter loop that includes a lot more dirt roads where it's not a big deal to stop and take pictures. I think they could still steer people into the towns.

If you do the entire loop, it's 92 miles, not counting miles you drove to get there. (We bailed out coming up the west side which was closer to home, so we didn't see the very top portion). This seems a bit long.

Nevertheless, it was a good suggested route. I don't know the Newaygo County back roads as well as Mason, Oceana, and Manistee, so I was happy to have someone else make choices this year.

The color at the southern end of this loop could use a few more days to develop, so if the rain doesn't ruin everything, this should still be pretty this coming weekend or so.

The drive took all of the afternoon. I managed to do a few things in the morning, but this was the big event.

See Color Tour 2024- Part 1

Back to the Dragon

 There were so many things that were awesome about today, it's hard to decide which to start with. I choose to first show you who I was adventuring with. This is my long-time adventure buddy Ellen. That said, we haven't managed to do anything together since 2016, although she did make the effort to come to my final day of the big hike. For a lot of years, we did something together about once a month. We don't know if we can manage that schedule, but we hope to at least not wait eight more years before getting together again. We aren't getting any younger.

You may or may not remember that we've done things including hiking, biking, kayaking, skiing (she's the one who got me started on cross-country skis) and sometimes just back road exploring. She also dragged me to the Ludington Writer's Group when I first began writing mysteries.

Today we went to check out one of the new sections of the Dragon Trail at Hardy Dam Pond. The link below is when Monica, Keira and I hiked about 13 miles of that, which was nearly all that was built at the time. The trail will be over 40 miles long, completely circling Hardy Dam Pond. When I learned that some more sections have been completed since 2021, we chose to go see some of that today.

We didn't have time to do all of one completed segment, and some of the partial segments weren't long enough. Doesn't matter. We chose to start at Newaygo State Park and hike north until we were tired and then turn around. The segments are distinguished by a color and number. We were on Segment 3- Tan.

The water could not have been more stunning. We sort of chose today for the sunshine, hoping for blue water. We got it! Where we hiked was largely along the edge of the pond.

The water is still lowered for winter, but this makes a sandy edge, and we saw quite a few people taking advantage of that.

We hiked until the trail curved down around the inlet of Rosy Run.

We went until we had hiked three miles. There was a lovely bench with a view and a real breeze off the water. That was awesome too, because the temperature was about 70 degrees by then. We are sure not used to that yet. You can see how the wind is lifting my hair.

There we ate our lunches and then headed back. The views remained spectacular.

We were really hoping to find some wildflowers. They were not in profusion, but we at least got our wish. First hepatica of the year. Round-lobed. Hepatica americana. They can be blue, pink or white.

This was the other great find of the day. I believe this is fire moss, or redshank moss, Ceratodon purpureus, pretty amazing in the sun.

The other great find was a lovely skeletonized leaf, but my pictures are all useless. Anyway, we had a wonderful day. I talked way too much, telling Ellen funny stories, but I think she forgave me.

Oh, and talk about timing. There was a huge tree we had to climb over on the way out. By the time we returned it had been cut out!

Total miles hiked in 2024: 199.6 of which 69.6 is North Country Trail.

This trail is not the NCT. However, there is supposedly a trail called The Edge that connects Hardy Dam with Croton Dam where the NCT exits the Manistee National Forest. I think it's actually a road route, or a paved multi-use path. I might have to explore this. It would be fun to connect them even if it's paved. About 6 miles.

See Dragon Trail Beginnings

Calhoun County Trailway

 I left Marianne's this morning. Always so much fun there. She thinks we hadn't done a picture of me with the NCT snowman, so we had to...

Of course, I wanted to stop and hike some NCT miles to break up the drive home. I forgot that this particular section is a wide dirt trail, the Calhoun County Trailway, but that's OK. And it's lined with junk vegetation, alien Tatarian Honeysuckle and Garlic Mustard. But I almost didn't care because things were starting to green up! Saw a big blue dragonfly, and another smaller one. I hiked in shorts and a t-shirt!

This is roughly parallel to the Kalamazoo River.

I went as far as this big bridge. Of course the trail goes into the woods just past here, but I needed to turn around.

And what is this bridge for, you ask? It carries the trail across a large, unnamed wetland (freshwater marsh) that drains into the river.

It's a premier day, because I identified a new-to-me plant. This little thing has been bugging me for a couple of years. It's alien, of course, but it's a cress. Hoary Bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta to be exact. It is edible as a salad green, so I'll have to watch for it around here. It's working its way north, and has supposedly been found in Mason County.

It has a dainty basal rosette.

The four petals convinced me it was a cress (member of the Brassicaceae- cabbage, mustard- family). But I needed a good picture of the rosette and the stem leaves to get the actual ID.

I'm saving half of this hike to share tomorrow. The road was closed to get to where I wanted to start, so I parked beside the road, walked one direction, came back and beyond, did the part I wanted to do, and came back to the car. The second piece is what I want to show you, but I have to do some research, so I'll save it.

I got off even the state highways as early as I could, to still make it home in time for bell practice. The trucks were just annoying me. Greening fields, farms, and small towns brought me joy. I did a modified version of one of my favorite activities. I didn't have time to not use a map and just drift north and west on any old road, so I used the atlas to stay on paved roads and not get "caught" on the wrong side of a lake or accidentally go through a large town.

Found myself crossing Hardy Dam. The water was blue, so I had to try for a "drive-by-shooting" picture.

I timed it perfectly. Got home just in time for bell choir practice.

Total miles hiked in 2024: 189.6 of which 69.6 is North Country Trail.

North Country Trail, railroad culvert bridge at Historic Bridge Park to wetland bridge in Calhoun County, MI and back. 3 miles

See Historic Bridge Park to Ott See A Visit to Hardy Dam

Dragon Trail Beginnings

  Nice hike today with Monica and her daughter Keira.

The last time I went to Hardy Dam was because the 46-mile "Dragon Trail" was in the planning stages. Now there are actually some miles completed.

There are 14.6 miles, but they are not contiguous. So we did most of what is complete, and one little piece of that as an out-and-back. We did get a nice early start from my house, but it's over an hour away. Nevertheless it was still a lovely morning at the boat launch as we were getting ready to hike.

The trail is designed for mountain bike and hiking use. That means there are lots more twists and turns and small hills than you'd usually find on a hiking trail.

Most of the day was cloudy, but occasionally the sun popped out giving some good autumn color. You can see the water most of the time from the trail.

You know I love patterns. This was the best one on the water today.

We started from a park called Big Bend and walked toward the dam. We knew we were getting close here, but actually had over a mile to go because the trail wandered around an arm of water.

One more view with some nice color.

And at the end we walked across the dam and back. This is the view downstream on the Muskegon River.

We did 13.2 miles, and I can feel it, but I could easily have walked 2 or 3 more. This is really good. The weather was ideal. We think it was 39 degrees when we started, but most of the time it was high 40s or into the 50s. Lots and lots of cyclists. A moderate number of hikers.

Dragon Trail from Big Bend Park to Consumer's Beach Park and back to parking. 13.2 miles

There is no other news.

See Hardy Dam

A Visit to Hardy Dam

 
I've been trying to be really frugal about driving extra miles near home. Today I had a reason to go to White Cloud (about an hour away) to take some pictures for my upcoming newspaper column. I hadn't realized how much I miss driving around and seeing new roads and places-- you may recall that was the one part of the insurance picture job that I liked. Of course I knew I missed that part, but I was surprised at HOW happy this little trip made me feel. It was a much-needed upper. I smiled and smiled at the sunshine and discovered places.

For starters, here's another of the crazy things that intrigue me. Water towers. I like to see what cities put on them, as it's often a statement of what's important to the local culture. The high school team name is "Indians," so I think the painting reflects that rather than the origin of the city's name. There was a Chief White Cloud, but he was in Minnesota. I couldn't find anything on line about why the city received the name of White Cloud, except that it was first known as Morganville, but the name was changed before 1879. I always assumed it was from being on the White River, but actually don't know.



The Hardy Dam is just a bit south of there, on the Muskegon River. It's the largest packed earth dam east of the Mississippi. It's about a mile across, and there is a walkway as well as a road. The building is the water intake for the powerhouse which still operates. It's Consumers Energy's largest hydropower facility (according to the sign), and was built in 1931.



In 1931 they actually cared about making even utilitarian buildings interesting.



Here is the very impressive spillway.



The reason I scrambled to go down there after work was because the sun was shining, and I knew I could get some blue water pictures. Hardy Dam Pond is about 4000 acres with no development along the shores because the land belongs to Consumers Energy. The water is drawn down for winter- thus the bare edges.





And you know I like the oddball stuff too, like trees in ice. Just a crack actually, but it sure looks like a winter tree.



Or how about some cracks in the spillway pavement? Neat pattern. Fractal geometry explains why they are similar.



For a final treat, this road got narrower and narrower, and made me smile broader and broader. Of course this piece of road only lasted a mile, but the smile lingers on.

	See Views of the Day
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