Connections in Shirtsleeves!

Today was gorgeous! It got to about 68°. Marie and I decided to connect up a couple of the previous hikes on the Empire State Trail.

This was mostly a roadwalk although it has a pedestrian/bike lane on the side of the road. Very noisy. But you can see the rocks, which are ordinary Hudson Valley Precambrian gneiss.

We were connecting what we did yesterday to the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge, and as we approached the bridge, there was actually 0.6 mile of off-road trail, which was quite nice.

This is just to prove we made it to the bridge. We walked across it two years ago.

The elevation of our hike went from 13 feet above sea level to 126 feet, almost all of that in the first half mile. This is looking down that hill on our return to the car. The peaks in the distance are on the other side of the Hudson.

It was so beautiful, we went and took Selma outside for a little while. She is now 97, and really can't see anything. But she enjoyed the sunshine, and she's still sharp enough to make jokes.

Marie had a harder day than I did. She started at the dentist. I stayed here and edited some. Then we hiked, visited Selma, and played our game. We have also got our camping reservations for the NCT/Buckeye Trail Fest this fall.

Stay tuned- it may snow again on Wednesday, but summer for a day was pretty darned nice!

Miles walked in 2026: 80.6

Empire State Trail from Sojourner Truth north parking to Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge and back. 6.0 miles

See Empire State Trail Again

An Evening Walk

 It was bell choir day, and I changed things up and ate before practice and walked afterwards. This was a great idea because the days are still really hot. The evening light is always special. I liked this view of the church from the School Forest across the road.

One loop around the forest isn't very long, so I did a few more streets after that. What are these bright flowers around the tree?

They are fall crocus, which isn't really a crocus at all. It's Colchicum autumnale, but the flowers look very similar, thus the name.

I even found another color of them a couple of blocks away.

This very cool rock was at the base of the St. Simon's Bell Tower.

But the shadows were getting long, and the light was hiding.

I walked 1.5 miles in the school forest, and then another 1.5 on streets

Total miles walked in 2024: 442

See Walking Tour de Ludington

Crystal Valley Outer Loop

 I had not been out to Crystal Valley for a long time. But I'm wanting to ramp up the miles I can hike in a day, and the outer loop of their ski trails is about 7.5. Cathy went with me. She didn't want to go that far, but with multiple loops, she could cut back to the car earlier.

It was a nice day to be out. No green yet except for moss and conifers, but that's OK.

Except for the bottom loop, the rest of the area is pretty hilly. This is out on Loop 5, the most difficult. I'd never even walked that because it was still in development the last time I hiked there. My favorite piece today was a connecting trail between Loops 4 and 5 that follows the top of a ridge.

My former adventure buddy, Ellen, is really involved with the group that maintains these trails, OCCSA (Oceana Cross Country Ski Association). Here's one serious piece of work they did.

I found a few little goodies. This is a jelly fungus, probably Exidia recisa, which can be black, brown or amber colored. It's sometimes called witches butter. I've showed you this in the past. It's really common.

This one is common too, but I may have an ID on it now. I think it's coral spot, Nectria cinnabarina. That said, I am NOT a fungus expert.

There are a few glacial erratic boulders out there. This was the biggest one I saw.

There are brand new ski trail blazes! I've never seen this style before. Pretty classy.

But the very best find of all was a bunch of these scattered on the trail. These are chestnuts! Now, I want to get really excited, but I can't tell if they are American (which would be a phenomenal find), or a hybrid (but how would one have gotten out there in the forest?). I don't know how to tell the seed pods apart, or if you even can tell them apart on the outside. I looked around for the tree, but didn't spot any bark that looked right. Later, I realized the tree might have been farther uphill and the "balls" had rolled down the trail. I also looked for leaves on the ground, but I think what I found were just large beech leaves. They didn't have pronounced enough spines. Anyway, I think I'm going to try to let someone know about this. The area is within the Manistee National Forest.

So, I pushed myself to do longer mileage. The loop was 7.9 miles, but I did extra and got 9.2 miles. I feel OK, just tired, and I did bang up a toe. I'll live.

Not much else got done. I decided that was OK for today.

Total miles hiked in 2024: 151.8 of which 45.4 is North Country Trail (none of today is NCT).

See Skiing at Crystal Valley

Snowshoe Trail, No Snow

 Mostly, I worked on THE project today. But mid afternoon, Cathy and I took a walk at the Ludington Pumped Storage Project Trails and to the Mason County Campground.

It turns out I guess I haven't been out there for nine years! Well, I got discouraged because they turned the area into a huge disc golf venue with four courses. I'm not against disc golf, but it totally obliterated the trail. A few years ago, a friend of mine re-established it as a snowshoe trail.

It's really a wonderful trail. There is a LOT of topography in a short distance. I didn't take many pictures because everything is brown. There's no snow, and there are no leaves. After hiking so much in the last two years, much of it in the winter months, I'm particularly tired of brown.

Anyway, here is one of my favorite features of the area- one of the biggest glacial erratics we have around here.

We did a loop by going back to the car on the access road. Total of 3.2 miles. On the road we passed some interesting white birch.

Total miles hiked in 2024: 85.6 of which 7.7 is North Country Trail.

Ludington Pumped Storage Project and Mason County Campground. Connecting trail and additional roads. 3.2 miles

See Pepper and Salt

Quiverheart

 An amazing day. Nikki planned a big event, the kind of thing she puts together in conjunction with her LIVER-ee. She leads hikes and various adventures. She played on my "celebrity" status, and organized a "hike with Joan" event at one of the newest nature preserves in the Arc of Appalachia system. People paid to walk with me. This sort of blows my mind. In fact, it's so new that the map isn't even on the web site yet, but it will be in just a few days.

This first picture is just for attention. Bill, me, Nikki, and Kim Baker. She and her husband Dave donated the land for the preserve, and they are now the caretakers. They maintain the trails, and are working hard to eradicate invasive plants. The Arc of Appalachia guides the decisions for plant preservation, etc.

I spent a lot of time talking to Kim.

Here's the requisite group picture. Kim and Dave did interpretation for us (they are not in the group pic).

The first feature you come to is Quiverheart Falls. I can't tell you much detail about the geology of this area, but there are a whole lot of narrow, steep ravines whose creeks feed into Ohio Brush Creek (where Nikki's livery is). This is one of them. It's 200 feet deep, almost invisible from the road which is up on the Allegheny Plateau. Bundle Run flows down it, and this is the largest falls. I chose a long shot because I think you get a better sense of the scale with the rock wall beside it.

This picture gives some idea of the depth, and this isn't even from the bottom.

Just like all the eroded edges along the Allegheny Plateau, erosion creates clefts in the limestone, and then big blocks calve off. I took this picture because it's so much the same situation as Rock City in New York state, where the trail goes right down one of those cracks.

One feature is this great hanging shelf cave, very typical of southern Ohio and Kentucky.

Along most of the walk, Bundle Run was just a stream in the bottom of the brown (because it's winter) valley. However, below the cave, the rocks are moss-covered. There is also another waterfall that ripples down slightly angled rocks, much like Laughing Whitefish Falls in the UP, but smaller. This may be a feeder creek to the run. The trail map will not be available until the web site goes live in a few days. Supposedly Tuesday, but things happen, right? Anyway, I can't place the trails in the landscape accurately without that. I didn't have enough signal to track it.

This is a really special place. This whole area, the region that hits the edge of the Appalachian Mountains has really diverse biology and habitats. Over the years, I've had the chance to visit several other preserves in the area and hear about their unique features. Even in winter, there were some great plants to see. You know I was zoomed in on those.

One really fun one is walking fern, Asplenium rhizophyllum. One of the ways it propogates is the long tips of the leaves will root and thus the fern "walks" across a rock face. I've seen this several places in the south, but was shocked to discover that it also grows in Michigan, even in the UP. The critical feature seems to be not temperature, but substrate such as limestone. The ones I've seen in Kentucky were much larger.

This is an orchid, Puttyroot, Aplectrum hyemale. I've never seen it in bloom. Very, very cool.

I also learned a couple of new-to-me invasives, and found one plant that neither Kim, I, or any of the apps can identify. I'm sure it's nothing totally weird, but I'll have to keep investigating.

After the walk (3.5 really muddy miles- this morning's weather was good but the recent rains made the Ohio clay just a slime pit), we went just around the corner for lunch. Some of us ordered pizza. It was really, really good.

I am going to have to come back in the growing season. They have a number of plants I've never seen, and especially some rare ones. Kim and I hit it off, so I might. And Nikki is here, and the NCT/Buckeye Trail is not far away. You can locate them with a seach for Quiverheart Nature Preserve, and the map will be available soon at Arc of Appalachia

Fantastic day!

Quiverheart Nature Preserve, Peebles, OH, Quiverheart Falls and Whispering Fern Trails. 3.5 hilly miles

See Stop 10

Kisatchie National Forest- Caney Lakes

 A perfect location for a little hike today.

In the morning, we got Loretta's Christmas stuff put away in her storage unit, and we drove to see some places around town.

In the afternoon we drove to a nearby trail in Kisatchie National Forest. It has several units sprinkled around the state, but this one was close. I hiked the Lost Man Trail and part of the Sugarcane Trail. Loretta did a little less.

There are Upper and Lower Caney Lake. The trail begins by walking between the two and crossing the overflow stream. Even though this is a strictly functional waterway, the bridge makes it more attractive.

Upper Caney Lake was in the sun, and lovely.

This is the "deep" south, so it's great to see some different trees. This is baldcypress, Taxodium distichum. Their natural range extends as far north as southern Illinois, but there are occasional planted ones even in Michigan that have survived. It's the tree in the background with the flared base. The cool thing about this tree is that it will grow "knees" when it's growing in water or saturated soil. This allows air to reach the roots. The knees are the cone-like structures poking through the ground.

There was a lot of conglomerate rock. Some of it was in a dark red matrix, which has to be iron rich. I didn't find a lot of information about conglomerate rock in Louisiana. But there was enough of it that if I had time to check some local sources, I'm sure there are people who could tell me more.

American Holly, Ilex opaca, does grow in the north, but it's happier in the south. It looks just like holly is "supposed" to look.

Now, here's a tree you probably won't see in the north. This is longleaf pine, an iconic tree of the south.

The bark is pretty distinctive, and the needles are usually in threes.

I finished almost at sunset. This was across Lower Caney Lake. The trail was a lot of fun. There was just enough topography to make it interesting. I'm pretty sure the Lost Man Trail was designed for bicycles with lots of dips and twists. These are annoying on a long-distance trail where you are trying to get from point A to B. But for a day hike, they give you a lot of trail for the available space.

I'm not complaining at all about the other hikes I've been able to take on this trip. Any off-road walk is a win. But this one- on natural surface with topography and deeper woods- was fantastic! Loretta walked two miles. She'd previously seen most of what she did today.

Caney Lakes in Kisatchie National Forest. Lost Man Trail and part of the Sugarcane Trail. 3.5 miles.

See Fun, and Games

Only 10.3 Miles?

  I thought my total was going to be more like 11 or 12 miles, so I'm a little disappointed in that, but 10.3 isn't shabby. Loren and I started at the North Country Trail Udell Trailhead on M-55 and went north. There was the April Fool snow on the ground. After a mile in the woods, the trail comes out on Cedar Creek Road (which isn't very road-like on the west end so it makes a nice easy piece of trail).

The best feature of this section of trail is Pine Creek.

The sun came out, and with a sandy bed the creek looked golden.

A fallen tree with roots washed bare seemed artistic.

A lovely bed of Norhern Ground Cedar accented with Reindeer Moss.

We returned to Udell and ate lunch. Loren had enough, but I went in the other direction. By now, almost all the snow was melted away. The air was crisp and the temperature stayed in the 30s, but it was nice for walking.

This section is much hillier. These are called the Udell Hills, and that's where the trailhead gets its name. My plan was to go outbound on the NCT until the place where it is closest to the Shanty Boy trail that is part of the Big M system. Here's where I bushwhacked across. I'm standing on the NCT looking north. I think the far line of hills is on the north side of the Manistee River. But all I had to do was drop down the hill- you can see the edge practically at my feet- (carefully) to reach Shanty Boy at the bottom.

Easily found the other trail and headed back to the junction with the NCT that I had passed earlier. One very very cool thing is that this is a piece of local trail I've never seen before. The outer loop at Big M is about 25 miles long. It's primarily for mountain bikes, although hiking is allowed. I need to get out there and do an overnight to see all of that loop! Anyway, Here is part of the Shanty Boy Trail

One interesting feature was a big glacial erratic boulder. These are not very common here. We mostly jut have sand, and this one is huge for our area.

Anyway, my afternoon hike would make a nice loop for a group as long as they didn't mind the steep descent from the NCT to Shanty Boy. Fun stuff! My total for the day, 10.3 miles.

North Country Trail miles for 2021 is at 155.

In other news: I'm doing a little work on a web site, but the hiking took most of the day.

See MNF Challenge Hike #11