Vince Smith Connections

Today was SO amazing!

Over and over, you've seen pictures of the Vince Smith Memorial Bridge that carries the North Country Trail over the Big Sable River. You might remember that the Forest Service and our trail chapter took out the old wooden bridge and replaced it with a fiberglass reinforced polymer bridge. That was in 2016. (The Forest Service wanted a bridge that didn't have footers in the river.)

The question of the day is, "Who was Vince Smith?" The answer, as we knew it, is that he was a key volunteer with the North Country Trail Association in the early days, before we were a chapter. We knew he spent a lot of time working on trail in the Manistee National Forest, and that the bridge had been named in his memory after he died of cancer. There was an article about him in the North Country Trail Association Newsletter (it wasn't even called the North Star yet) after he died, with a very useless, grainy picture.

The chapter had one tenuous connection. One of our charter members, Gordie Wilkes, had worked with Vince on the trail before he passed away.

Today, I got to meet his daughter Maureen (Mo), and nephew Craig, and their spouses. Here are Mo and Toby, Robin and Craig, on the end of the new bridge with the refurbished sign showing as well.

We got Mo and Craig down on the level with the sign.

Mo has sent me some newspaper articles, and this picture of Vince taken from the Ann Arbor News in 1991 is the best we've ever seen.

After visiting the bridge, we all hiked farther. Craig and Robin had their dogs Ila and Tanner with them. Here's Ila cooling off in the river. I guess I didn't get a picture of Tanner.

And we visited the "Blue Hole," a spring on the edge of the river.

Mo, Craig, the dogs and I hiked 6 miles on the trail plus the 0.3 to access the cars. Then we all went for ice cream at the Sweetfern Cafe.

This fills out a very incomplete story for me and our chapter that we've always wanted to know more about. I'll be writing an article for our chapter newsletter. And we had a great time!

Here is the original bridge the summer after our chapter formed. This is in 1999.

And here it is on one of our chapter hikes in 2015, the last year of the wooden bridge.

Miles walked in 2026: 263.8
Hike 100 Challenge: 98.7 (really close!)
Onekama Challenge: 75.6 (met the weekly goal)

North Country Trail, Lake Co., Michigan. South from 5-Mile Road, 3 miles out and back plus walk to car.

See Trail Adopter Training Day

Can You Guess Where I Went?

I'm working hard to stay on track with the goal I set for the Onekama Challenge. Today I hiked 7 miles. Can you tell where? If you are local and know the trail, you probably recognize this scene.

This remains one of my favorite local hikes. There is a loop, but today I did both directions on the North Country Trail part so that all the miles would count for Hike 100. This is Bowman Lake.

The lily pads were healthy and dragonflies were skittering around.

I found a Blue Jay feather. Nothing of interest was in bloom, but there will be in a couple weeks. We'll see if I get back there.

Tomorrow, unless something goes awry, I am meeting someone interesting for a hike, and this will complete the week-three goal for the challenge as well. So, tomorrow's post will probably include something quite new.

In other news: I edited and had a Zoom meeting in the morning.

Miles walked in 2026: 257.5
Hike 100 Challenge: 92.7
Onekama Challenge: 69.3

North Country Trail, Lake Co, Michigan, 40th St to 56th St and back. 7 miles.

See Taking MOWA to the Trail

Spirit of the Woods Hike- July 2026

Today's hike was on a section of trail that, somehow, the group has not hiked recently. It's hilly but very pretty.

Here's the group- 19 in the picture, one more showed up. Several people we hadn't seen for a while, and one person who took her very first North Country Trail hike today!

This section is mostly on the bluff high above the Manistee River. There aren't many view spots in the summer with all the leaves. And it's too hazy for the far bluff to show in the picture, but it's over there in the bright spot.

Not much blooming as far as flowers. Some tick trefoil, but my picture isn't in focus.

Several nice puddles of northern maidenhair fern- always one of my favorites. Adiantum pedatum

Parasitic plants were represented. Here is indian pipe, Monotropa uniflora. A small patch, but always interesting to find.

We also saw bear corn, Conipholis americana, and I thought I took a picture, but it's not on the SD card, so who knows what happened. Sort of looks like cream-colored pinecones growing out of the ground.

We did see a beautiful patch of one of the Clavaria fungi. Basically a coral fungus. The names have changed like crazy. I used to call this one Crowned clavaria because the ends of the stalks are divided into little "crowns," and its name then was Clavaria coronata. It seems to have changed more than once, and is now Artomyces pyxidatus.

Most everyone walked 6 miles total, and a few did shorter distances as they were able. Five of us went farther and did 7 NCT miles plus the little bit extra to get to the cars.

Miles walked in 2026: 203.5
Hike 100 challenge 2026: 69.75

North Country Trail, Manistee County, from Coates Highway south 3.5 miles and back plus roadwalk to cars. 7.4 miles.

Not a lot else happened today. We started early and got most of the hike done before the air heated up. My temperature/humidity internal sensors started giving off warning signals about a mile before I finished, but it wasn't too bad.

Here's a news flash! Despite the fact that we live on a major highway, Google can not seem to understand where we live. I had tried 7 times to get them to change it, including sending a picture of my driveway and mailbox on request, but they basically said that I don't know where I live.

I tried again a few days ago. Try #8. I got notice that my correction has been accepted! Amazing! Now we'll find out if that is real.

Some of the proof of my claim that they wouldn't change it. And at the bottom, this week, it was accepted. This has irked me to no end, and has resulted in several lost packages, so I'll be very happy if it's fixed.

See Spirit of the Woods- June 2026

Only Took 20+ Years

This is a monumental day for the Spirit of the Woods Chapter of the NCTA. Let me tell you why.

Approximately 20 years ago (I have to look up the exact year) our chapter started to prepare to put two register boxes out along our section of the trail. The chapter south of us has them. The chapter north of us has them. Chapters all along the entire 4800 miles of trail have them. But, until today, we did not.

I won't go into all the reasons why, but it all began with a political decision by someone higher up the food chain in the Forest Service who decided we couldn't do this. We've been negotiating ever since. Seriously, the volunteer who made the boxes has even died! Van, if you are watching, I hope you are happy to see your beautiful cedar boxes finally appear along the trail.

Pete and Bill are installing the box on the post. And Pete added the baffle to try to keep critters out (mice love to chew up the books and make nests).

This was actually the third thing we accomplished on this trail work day. The second part was getting the "Private Property" signs up on the section of the trail I talked about in the link below. The family officially has signed paperwork allowing the trail passage, and these great signs provided by the National Park Service hopefully help people to understand that they should stay on the trail and respect our privilege to pass through.

And before that... we spent a bit over 2 hours working with some Forest Service staff to remove invasive species. We are now approved to do so without their direct supervision. Dan is weilding our new and violent brush cutter. It can take out things almost up to 3" in diameter. Here, he's working on a Tatarian Honeysuckle.

We cut stuff and painted the cut stumps with herbicide. You've seen me doing a lot of this at my house.

There were 7 of us working for those two hours. Even so, it's slow going. One has to find all the trees and shrubs, big or small, cut them off really near the ground, treat the cut ends, move the branches off the trail. We tried to get everything within 10 feet of the trail. But walking back, we found even more that we missed. This is just one pile of cut brush.

I left home at 7 am, and got home just in time to shower and make it to a meeting in Ludington at 3 pm.

Nothing else happened today. This was plenty, and I'm going to go lie down very soon.

I tried to estimate the total walking and separate it from the walking on the actual NCT. We had to carry the posts and the digger a fair distance for the 2nd and 3rd projects. Dan left us after the second part and went off a different place to mow a section of trail. It takes a lot of work to keep a trail in nice shape.

Total miles walked 4.6, with 3.0 of them being NCT in various places.

Miles walked in 2026: 186.6
NCT Hike 100 Challenge: 63

See Slightly Out of Focus

Loda Lake- Spirit of the Woods Hike- June

It was a multi-purpose hike day for National Trails Day- the first Saturday in June!

The Spirit of the Woods Chapter of the NCTA started with a 3.2-mile hike, some of which was on the NCT, and some was on a spur.

The spur took us to Loda Lake.

Some of you will know that Loda Lake is a wildflower sanctuary- the only one in the entire National Forest system in the country.

We were treated to a tour by the Forest Service Botanist, Carolyn Henne. This isn't a great picture, but it does show us looking at plants beside the trail while she talks about them.

I always learn things when I'm there because the plants are always in slightly different stages of their life cycles.

One of the best pictures of the day is poison sumac. You can see the bundles of leaves and the unripe berries forming on separate stems.

The Prairie Smoke is looking great. They have planted a variety of native plants in a sort of showcase garden.

Also blooming in that garden was a lot of Hairy Beardtongue, Penstemon hirsutus. I believe the butterfly is a Pipestone Swallowtail.

Best personal find of the day was some round-leaved sundew, a carniverous plant. There were also pitcher plants on site.

After that tour, we all went to Pete and Julie's cottage where they fixed burgers and brats, and we all chipped in with a potluck. This was followed by our annual meeting.

I saw lots more plants, but these are the best pictures. Long day, but all great.

Miles walked in 2026: 180.3
NCT Hike 100 Challenge 2026: 59.8

NCT in Newaygo County 1.8 miles. Birch Grove Trail 1.4 miles, Loda Lake 1.7 miles

See Practically Perfect in Every Way

Plants Along the Trail

I met up with some members of the trail chapter this morning to meet and train a new volunteer in a low-key way. That all went well. Walked a portion of my section of trail as part of this. It's quite clean- we flipped some sticks out of the way and trimmed a few berry bushes. That's about it.

There were some plants in bloom. I was not aware that there was Bunchberry (Ground Dogwood), Cornus canadensis, in my section of trail. But here it is! Nice find.

There is always a ton of Starflower, Trientalis borealis, in the dry woods. I do think this is the best picture I've ever gotten of it though. Usually, the bright white flower just gets all blown out.

Some of you will think this is the best find. It's a pink lady's slipper orchid, Cypripedium acaule, but it's a very dark pink one. Kind of unusual.

But I'm really partial to this shrub. I know that it grows in the bottomland hardwood swamp along the railroad berm in my section. But I never get tired of finding it. It's not technically rare, but one doesn't find it too often. The leaves are large enough at this point that it was easy to spot.

It's done blooming, and it has already set seed.

The name comes from the flexibility of the wood. It's extremely bendable. See link below for more pictures of the whole bud/flower/seed cycle.

The mosquitoes were impressive. Dan and I chose to leave the deep woods and walked out along an old two-track that I'd never gotten around to exploring. Not too interesting, but now I can say I've done it.

And since I drove right past one, and near a second, garden center, I stopped and looked at plants. Yes, a couple more came home with me. You'll see them in due time.

Not all miles today counted for NCT. Miles walked in 2026: 171.2
NCT Hike 100 Challenge: 58

North Country Trail, Lake County 1.8 odd miles, and another 1.5 old road/dirt road/snowmobile trail. Total 3.2 miles.

See Leatherwood

Taking MOWA to the Trail

The Michigan Outdoor Writers Association (MOWA) is having their annual conference this weekend... just over in Baldwin! But with Confidence Camp, I'm too busy to attend. But I did offer to lead a hike. Four of us did the 3.5 mile loop at Bowman Lake. I was delighted that a few people signed up!

You know Bowman Lake is one of my favorite places in our local area.

We all had a chuckle about this. Somehow a Skunk Cabbage got itself planted in this three-trunked tree.

A happy and clean painted turtle sun-bathing on a log.

And, ta-da! The sassafras are just starting to flower and get leaves.

They took me out to lunch afterwards. A very nice morning!

Confidence Camp all afternoon. Hoping to finish the last major item this evening.

Miles walked in 2026: 162.2
Hike 100 Challenge 2026: 53.3

Bowman Lake area, Lake County, Michigan. North Country Trail 1.75 miles, Bowman Lake Trail 1.75 miles.

See Bowman Semi-Primitive Area

Spirit of the Woods Hike- May 2026

The group photo hasn't been posted yet for me to grab, but there were about 15 people and 5 dogs who hiked today. We traveled farther than usual, going north to where the Manistee River crosses US 131. The trail goes beneath the bridge.

The hike actually went the other direction, going north (trail west) along the high bluff beside the river.

We finally had another really nice day! We were all ready for this.

And some of the wildflowers were opening. Wood anemone.

Trout lily.

And some Carolina spring beauty.

Finally, just some cute little orange mushrooms on the green moss.

What with travel time, going out to eat, and the hike itself, this is really all I did today.

Miles hiked in 2026: 158.4
Hike 100 Challenge: 51.6

North Country Trail, Wexford County, MI. US 131 Roadside rest north 3 miles and back. 6.0 miles

See SPW Hike- April 2026