Little Signs of Spring

 A big sign of spring is trail work. Of course northern Michigan is going to have to do trail work in spades after all their ice. We have a lot of trees down on our 80-mile section, but nothing like north of us. The people who are chain saw certified will get those soon.

One thing we do have is a short section that is being selectively logged. And the trail blazes were pretty faded. I went out today and re-blazed that section so hopefully no one will get confused and follow either a skid track or the logging marks. Big diagonal slashes are logging marks. New rectangle blaze is for the trail.

The buds on the silver maple trees are getting big.They are so distinctive because they are very spherical.

I forgot to show you that Cathy and I scared up a couple of sandhill cranes last week. You can see two of them flying away between the trees.

And I stopped at Lowe's because they were saying their garden center is open. They don't have much in stock yet, but I confess that I've started looking at plants for the season.

Mini health update on the neuralgia abatement. I'm down to 2 ibuprofen a day. The sore spot and itching are still an issue, but getting less.

Editing, other computer stuff and stuff accomplished.

Not much walking even with the trail work because the blaze painting takes a lot of time, but I got in 1.5 miles

Miles hiked in 2025: 105.5 Hike 100 Challenge: 40

See Hunting for Spring

An Adventure Day

 Colette invited anyone from our random hiking group, but it turned out to be just three gals: Colette, Sue and me. Our goal was Pyramid Point at Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore. But did we get there in a straight line. No, big NO.

First we made a quick stop at the relatively new Arcadia Marsh boardwalk. We saw over a dozen sandhill cranes, a lot of sunning painted turtles, a muskrat, ducks, trumpeter swans and lots of redwing blackbirds and sparrows.

This post is going to have to be a brief sampler. I chose to share some of the sandhills from that stop.

We had to stop at the Arcadia Bluffs overlook, because who can drive past that on a nice day? This is looking south from the top of the overlook, and the marsh trail we had just walked is down in the valley between this point and the far bluff.

Then we decided to swing in to the Point Betsie Lighthouse since I'd never been there.

OK, we finally made it to the Pyramid Point Trail. Looks harmless enough, right?

It wasn't terribly hilly. Only about 100 feet total elevation change, but the final climb up to Pyramid Point was steep. From Pyramid Point you look out over Lake Michigan from 375 feet above the water. It's considered to have one of the best views of Big and Little Manitou Islands. I didn't do a very good job with pictures of that. I was too focused on the amazing color of the water. But that's Big Manitou on the right side of the picture, and Little on the left.

We had planned to hike the loop trail there after going to the lookout point. This turned out to be the big wonderful surprise of the day. The trail is through rich woodlands and we saw something like 15 species of flowers in bloom, not to mention ones already gone to seed. I'll just share the best (to me).

Jack-in-the-pulpit was everywhere. We weren't sure if we'd ever seen so many in one place. This was my favorite.

I love the yellow lady slipper orchids even more than the pink ones.

Botanically, this was the best find of the day, although there is so much greenery going on that it's hard to know what you are seeing. This is rattlesnake fern, Botrychium virginianum, one of the moonworts. It's the most common of that group, but still a very nice find. It only grows in moist, rich woodlands. It has a Coefficient of Conservatism of 5.

All that, and it's not yet 2 pm. So we went to get some lunch.

Still not satisfied, we hunted up one more little trail that none of us had ever been too. That was a feat in itself because one or the other of us had been to almost every one of the 46 hikes in the Jim DuFresne book of Hikes Along M-22. We found the Portage Point Nature Preserve Trail, which I think has to be relatively new. It was a quick hike of a little more than a mile through more typical dry woods. But it was a great ending to the day. Just to emphasize how interesting the previous trail was, we did not see a single flower blooming along this trail.

Was this the end of our adventures? Well, almost. Colette veered off in Manistee. Then Sue and I stopped to look at plants. Yes I came home with plants. More on that another day.

Now we are at the end. We think the total miles hiked is about 5.5.

Miles hiked so far in 2024: 249.2.

Arcadia Marsh, about 1 mile. Pyramid Point Lookout and Loop, about 2.8 miles. Portage Point, 1.25 miles. Miscellaneous at Betsie and the Bluffs ? But we are calling the total 5.5

See Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge

Cleveland/Bradley County Greenway

 Lin and I went for a walk this morning before it started raining. Cleveland, TN, is quite a large city, and they have a greenway that runs pretty much the entire length with some branches.

The trail follows Mouse Creek for a long way. It's the wrong season for really pretty pictures, but this one isn't too bad.

Every kind of trail has advantages. As much as I loved yesterday's hilly, natural walk, today we could walk fast and cover some ground. We did a total of four miles.

There were also some interesting trees and shrubs planted. I'll save some for another day, but here's another of the Mahonia bushes. This is the one which is sometimes called Oregon-grape or holly-leaved barberry. It's Berberis aquifolium, which basically means it's a barberry with holly-like leaves. duh. Maybe I'll catch on and remember this one the next time I see it. It's not the same species as was at the Dallas Arboretum, but I did see this one in Alabama once before.

I tried to get a picture of a mockingbird, but he didn't want to pose. However, this squirrel just sat up and said, "Take my picture."

The best wildlife sighting of the day was out Lin's back door. They've seen sandhill cranes fly over, but never had them land before. They stayed long enough to really watch them a while.

Joe made yummy potato leek soup for dinner, and then we got out a puzzle. I'll show you more about that tomorrow.

Cleveland/Bradley County Greenway, Cleveland, TN. Mohawk Drive to Keith St. and back. 4 miles

See Lin and Joe

Piney Ridge Hills

My agenda when I'm not on the North Country Trail this month is to hike hills. One of the best places to do this is to take some of the trails that Cathy and I often do at the State Park. These trails are not on the park maps, so they don't get heavy use by the tourists. Locals like that. These are wooded dunes, and they are quite hilly.

Cathy and I went fairly early in the morning. It was actually still chilly when we started. I like this benched place on the trail.

We were hoping to discover some trails we hadn't been on before, but I don't think we succeeded. We thought maybe we were on a different one, but came to Hamlin Lake at the same place we usually do, right across from the open dunes.

Then we followed the bluff along the lake to Inspiration Point. You can see the bench at the left of the picture. I took this shot just because it's a different angle from what I usually show- the view from the bench. It really is a nice place no matter which direction you look.

From there, we dropped down to Hamlin Dam. Here's the usual view above the dam.

We tried to find another unexplored cutoff from the main trail back to the car, but again, it was one we'd hiked before. We did find some Forget-me-nots. These are the alien ones, but it's pretty rare to find the native ones.

Best find of the day? Sandhill cranes walking around in a wetland area.

The tracker I had on said we only walked 3.5 miles, but we walked for 2 hours, and Cathy and I are not that slow! We aren't going to admit to under 4. So there.

In other news: Did I tell you I have a new phone? I'm trying to get all the stuff transferred from the old one. Today was the first test of using a tracking app to see how the battery does. It didn't drain too much, and I had it on for 2.5 hours. Then, this afternoon, the new case for it arrived. I think I like that... the phone is larger, so the case is too. I'd be a little happier if the whole thing were smaller, but a working phone is a plus!

I got the lawnmower going. It runs. The tires hold air. The blades do not engage. Sigh. Always something. I watched videos, and have the switch apart, but I need to go to the store for the next step. I couldn't talk myself into that today.

Ludington State Park, MI. Piney Ridge Road to Hamlin Dam and back. 4 miles.

See Seeing Water Makes Me Feel Cooler

Squeakin' Past 4500 - Day 403

Today I continued along the Manistee River. It was really hilly as the trail has to dip down and up at every little creek. Sometimes the trail was high above the river.

And sometimes, the trail is down more on the river's level. There are so many conifers that this is a very pretty river in any season because there is so much green.

The big news is SPRING! Well, not really because it's going to get chilly again next week, but we are experiencing several really warm days this week. I've heard peepers and chorus frogs. Yesterday I saw mourning cloak butterflies and an orange one I couldn't ID from a distance. Bill and I had been hearing sandhill cranes almost since we started hiking, and we saw some fly over, but today two of them hiked with me!

In the fungal world, scarlet cup is a sure sign of spring.

This is probably from last fall, but the neat holes of the yellow-bellied sapsucker are always intriguing.

As close as I can figure with the newest map updates, I have a total of 314 miles yet to hike. However, I want to save up to 60 of these nearest home (my Spirit of the Woods Chapter section) till last. I might hike about 20 of those and only save 40. And I have the 106 miles in the western UP that I probably can't do until June. That leaves 148-168 that I can do on this particular outing. If I could average 10-mile days (I know that's fewer than I was doing, but my knees are pretty sore) that's all very do-able. Hopefully, the warm weather is rotting the snow north of here. Of course, there will have to be a few days off. I've hiked 11 days in a row now, and I'm starting to feel it, but I'm not stopping until the rains come this weekend.

This is all to lead up to... drum roll... 4500 MILES. This is pretty astounding, but I find it even more astounding that I'm still not done with this trail.

Miles today: 9.8. Total miles so far: 4500.5.

See Manistee River

Not Quite as Gray

  Today wasn't quite as gray as yesterday. The sun put some effort into burning through, and it bored a flimsy hole in the gray a couple of times.

I walked a route that had a tiny bit different part. I started on the side of the road that gave me a view of the cemetery pond. You haven't seen many pictures of it recently because the shrubs have grown in so thickly you can hardly see it from the road, except in winter. (The rampant poison ivy keeps me away in summer.)

The "new" part of the walk was on Cedar Lane. (I've driven this road plenty of times but not for a while, because it is a dead end.) I expected the usual "joke" about it being named for something that was no longer in existence. However, there is a long line of planted white cedar along the first quarter mile of the road. Lots of Norway spruce and red pine and autumn olive too.

This road takes you down to the level of Hackert Lake. This was the best picture I could get between all the houses. I wish you could walk around the lake, but several stretches are private. This route made a fairly nice walk even though I had to just backtrack to get home, because it has a decent amount of topography for a walk near home.

Saw a lot of sandhill crane tracks. It looked like a herd of them had stomped through this area. It's probably true. This is only about a half mile from where I know they nest.

But I saved the best for last, even though it happened first. This morning's sunrise was picture worthy!

In other news: I wrote a chapter in the morning, and worked on two other projects in addition to the walk. If I could be this disciplined all the time, I'd actually get a lot done.

See Gray But OK

Another Walk with Cathy

 
Cathy and I managed to get in a 4-mile road walk today. I carried 33 pounds. The humidity is really up there, but we did it at a 3 mph pace. It didn't feel great, but I did it.

Some nifty sightings along the way. Cathy saw the one sandhill crane far out in the field, but when I opened the picture, there are two!



I thought this was a northern harrier, it was so light colored, but it appears to just be a red-tail hawk.



We saw two of these caterpillars. Both were trying to cross the road. Not a good way to make it to adulthood! Bugguide tells me it's the Dusky Hooded Owlet, Cucullia intermedia, which feeds on wild lettuce plants (which like to grow on roadsides) and will become a fairly boring gray moth.



And for the big finale, there is a Monarch chrysalis hanging right on the corner of her house. Love the way some of the spots look like jewels. This one is smaller than some I've seen, only an inch long, although I looked up the normal size, and it's about right.

In other news: Couldn't sleep again last night. This is getting boring, and it means I'm really tired already now. Worked on hike food. Oh, and 1.8 inches of rain overnight. Drove home from the concert in big rain, and this was the result. I think we've had enough for a while, but my forecast app still looks gray.

	See New Adventure Buddy?
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Methodist Trails

 
That's as in trails on the Methodist Church property. I doubt that the trails themselves are denominational.

Anyway, I had been told there were some trails behind the church that were open to the public. I made time before handbell practice to go check them out.

I wandered around until I hit one of them, then followed a loop and two spurs for a total of 1.7 miles. Just a nice stroll.



Not much happening in the green department yet, but the sun was shining and the trails were dry. Blue sky and evergreen branches never disappoint.



What you can't see in that picture is the large flock of sandhill cranes way up high. I tried to catch a picture, and did get a few of them. You can just see the spots with wings if I zoom in.



I saw and heard the cranes at the very beginning of my walk. Just at the end I found more of the smooth puffballs that I learned last year. they are all collapsed and have released their spores.

	See Smooth Puffball
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