Spirit of the Woods Hike- April 2025

 It seems to be one of our standard chapter hikes, to start at the Udell Trailhead on M-55, hike south 3 miles, and then do the short bushwhack across to the Udell Fire Tower. Today we had 19 people and a dog. Several new-to-us hikers!

Once you cut across a short swath of woods, you are on the Fire Tower Road and can see the tower ahead of you.

The day started chilly and damp after the overnight rain, but by the time we got to the tower there was sun and blue sky. Still in the 40s, but that is nice for hiking. Just a view up the tower.

This is a nice find, even though it's not the right season to see when it's most pretty. This is violet-toothed polypore, last year's. When it gets old, it fades to cream and brown. top side:

And the underside. I should have taken a close-up of the teeth on the underside. I could see them enough when I blew the picture up to make the ID, but it's not good enough to bother to show you. I wonder if I go back later in the year if the same log will have it in full color.

Just a glacial erratic that's quite pretty.

And, you know how I'm always saying it's hard to show the hilliness of the area in photos? This one does a pretty good job because of the tree shadows streaming down the hill. But you can also see that there is not even a hint of green showing up yet.

I hiked 6 miles with a 15-pound pack. I left it at the turnoff to the bushwhack and picked it up on the way back. It was another half-mile to get to the tower and back.

Miles hiked in 2025: 104. NCT Hike 100: 38.5.

North Country Trail, Udell TH, Manistee County, MI. South 3 miles, then bushwhack to Udell Fire Tower and back. Total 6.5 miles

See SPW Hike- Nov 2023

Sun and Shadows

 I'm quite happy. As bad as the sciatica was two days ago, I never expected to be feeling so good in just a couple of days. I managed to keep doing things until 3 p.m. The problem is that sitting is really not good. Standing is better but lying down on a heating pad is best. So, at least I get to read.

Look what showed up this morning!

Do you like your shadows more organic?

Or geometric?

In the afternoon the sun went away and we got more fluffy snowflakes.

I'm starting to feel guilty about so much down time, so I hope the back contintues to feel better at the same rate.

See Noon Shadows

Plants Along the Riverwalk

 The Virginia creeper vines can be stunning some years, and this is one of them. At least in this location. These are just growing naturally, although there are a lot of pocket gardens along the Manistee Riverwalk. They are nicely contrasted with cottonwood leaves.

They don't seem to get the gorgeous blue berries every year, either. The berries aren't really poisonous, but like a lot of plants they are high in oxalates, so very many will irritate your digestive system.

This was an attempt to get a bit artsy. I tried a few other things too. Maybe you'll see one of them. The other was a complete flop. But I keep trying! I love the strong lines of the trees and shadows. I think these are also cottonwoods. I forgot to look closely enough.

I used this picture yesterday for its natural beauty. Today I cropped it to show the beach grass, Ammophila breviligulata, sometimes called marram grass (a pallindrome!). Its talent is that it stabilizes shifting beach sand by sending out long runners.

Finally for today, there were a couple of gardens planted puposely with native plants. I can't tell the kind of aster, but the goldenrod is Solidago speciosa, showy goldenrod. There are also milkweeds, black-eyed susans, and other things. It's nice to see a special effort to showcase natives.

I worked on a database and punctuated the day with weeding in the rock garden. MAYBE tomorrow will be a rock garden report.

See The Beach Scene

A New Pose

 With all the chipmunk pictures I've taken over the years, this is a completely new pose. It was running away from me and just stopped with its hips spread wide, ready to leap at a moment's notice. Which it did!

I guess the pose isn't new for me, but the background for the shadow is. There is so much algae piled up along the shore of Lincoln Lake it's solid green. It made a nice picture.

By contrast, the lake was bright blue. The weather has cooled a bit. It felt great. Just right for a walk before bell choir practice.

This is a nice park with a paved trail circling through it. I don't walk here as often as I might because it gets a lot of use, and I prefer more solitude and natural trails. There is a non-paved mountain bike route through it which I often walk, but it's really for cyclists, and I hate it when I get "caught" on their trail. Walkers disrupt their riding.

This is a part of the trail beside the lake, but the important thing to notice here is the white tree tubes. There has recently been a big project to remove alien Oriental Bittersweet and Tree-of-Heaven (Ailanthus). There are native trees being planted in their place (currently protected in the tubes), but I don't know what.

Another nice feature along the water is this large gazebo. There are native plantings around it too, but I wasn't able to get any decent pictures. The flowers are really well past prime here.

A lot of the paved trail isn't very picturesque, but this curve always looks inviting.

It smelled like fall in the park- that unmistakable scent of autumn aspen.

I spent most of the day on my "project," which although I'm pretty obsessed, isn't really a priority. Sigh. I need to divert my attention to more important things. This walk only managed to get me 2.3 miles before bell choir.

Miles walked in 2024: 470.9

See Six Miles with Cathy

Back to Crystal Valley

 I went back out to Crystal Valley today, but still didn't hike every piece of every loop. I did walk 8.3 miles though.

It's still not really spring in the woods. Found more hilly trails. This is a really good area to get a workout around here. From the parking lot to the high point is about 300 feet difference, but the trails go up and down a lot. I definitely climbed and descended more than 300 feet. My tracker said my net elevation gain was 2.67 feet. Right. All that means is that I went in a loop which is good. Returning to the car is good.

I took several pictures that didn't come out at all. I took a picture of Sweetfern in bloom. Not in focus. It smells even more spicy than the leaves.

There was sun, so I was able to get a nice shadow of some emerging leaves on a rock.

The Shadbush is trying to show off. That's one of the very earliest blooms in the woods.

I was hoping for some wildflowers, but it's a very dry woods, so I didn't have big expectations. All I found was one small clump of common violets at the edge of a clearing.

A tattered Red Admiral butterfly was hanging around while I ate my lunch. I did also see a dragonfly.

It's really interesting that where the trees are getting sunlight they are starting to pop! This was a fencerow on the way home. I love this time of year.

Since I had to repeat some sections of some loops to get to "new" trail, I did stop at the chestnut balls and look around more carefully for the tree. Hmmm. I did not find anything that has the right bark. That said, I think chestnut bark can be rather variable, but I'm still mystified. I found more of the balls uphill in the woods, so I think my idea that they rolled downhill into the trail is true. And I found one ball that was broken open about a quarter mile from the others. I suspect a squirrel.

I've been trying to meet my 100 miles of campsites quota since I got home. I'm about at 40 miles. Will I make it before I give up for the day?

Total miles hiked in 2024: 208.9 of which 70.6 is North Country Trail.

Crystal Valley Ski loops, Oceana County, MI. Various loops, 8.3 miles

See Crystal Valley Outer Loop

Stop Eight- Annette and Randy, Natchez Trace

 Now I've made it to state number ten. Staying with friends Annette and Randy for a few days. I arrived just after dark and we will have some adventures although they have had a lot of snow for Alabama, and quite a few things are closed. But we'll find things to do.

Most of the day was driving, with one stop to take a hike. And look where I found to walk without going very far out of the way. The Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail!

Yes, this is a National Scenic Trail, like the North Country Trail. However, this one is only in bits and pieces. It pretty much parallels the Natchez Trace Parkway, a scenic/historic drive. In the early 2000s, Omer and I drove the length of it with the interpretive tape to play in your car. I think he let me out so I could walk a couple hundred feet of the trail in a place where it was beside the road. So I can't say this is my first time to set foot on it. But it was certainly the first actual hike.

I did a section near Tupelo, MS. Yes, it's snow covered. Not super slick, but it did slow me down a little. The gently rolling hills meant I had to be a little careful when going downhill. It's natural surface under the snow.

Just late afternoon sun through tall grasses.

I walked to a scenic overlook.

I liked several pictures of the fence.

This was interesting. The sun was hitting a reflective street sign and the light was scattering on the wet road surface.

I'm beat, but what a great day!

Natchez Trace Trail, south from Visitor Center near Tupelo and back. 4.2 miles

See Last Night on the Coast

Unusual Apparitions

  What is that strange apparition marching across the front of this desk?

Even stranger, why is only one of these lights apparently on? (No the bulbs aren't burned out.)

There was a strange appearance in the sky today which caused a row of my bottles to cast that shadow across the desk.

And the glowing light? That one was a little weird. As the sun began to go down (a little later than this picture), the light coming through a window was only hitting one of the globes of the dining room light, resulting in the appearance that only one of the lights was on. It was NICE to look outside and realize there was sun!

In other news: I finally have the house and my mind ordered enough to start working on two huge projects. They are each difficult, but I'm going to try to spend a small amount of time on each one every day.

The first is to deal with all the applications by long distance NCT hikers that have come in while I've been away. People are understandably annoyed, and I need to get cracking on this project. I made a tiny dent today in terms of getting organized to work on it.

The other one is to keep working on cataloging the pictures from the hike. All of the pictures from all my other hikes of the past 32 years are coded, numbered, labeled, etc. To date the hike with the most pictures was the Arrowhead hike in 2009 with over 1000 pictures taken mainly by 3 people. This hike has thousands, plural, of photos with a lot of photographers. I want to include the pictures sent to me by others, because those are just about the only pictures of me, since I don't take many selfies. I made some small forays into that project while I was still on the trail, but only a bare beginning. I have no idea how long this will take (at least months because I can only stand to work on it for so long at a time- tedious), but today I tried to pull together the information I did get recorded while I was hiking into a framework.

See Nothing But Blue Skies

What a Great Day!

  I worked hard in the morning, and then headed out for an afternoon on the trail. The North Country Trail, of course. Can a shadow look happy? I think this one does.

Almost immediately there was this lovely treat growing right beside the trail. Flowering dogwood, Cornus florida. The brach is arranged so gracefully.

The flowers aren't all the way open yet. I haven't ever caught pictures of it at quite this stage.

My next call to adventure was this interesting map. I haven't yet explored this world. OK... it's just a cut birch tree. But doesn't it look like a map of some ancient land with a sheltered bay and two small pointed hills?

There were four creeks I crossed. This is Bear Creek.

And Tank Creek. I actually camped over beyond the upper left corner in 2016 when I did a short backpacking trip here.

Speaking of backpacking, I met one fellow, Loren, who is hiking the whole Lower Peninsula. It's so very, very cool to find that there are more than a handful of people who are doing longer hikes on the NCT now.

I walked until I reached the mileage I wanted, and took a short rest on this log. And look! The sloth hiking team has been there. (You know, the ones who say, "We will get there when we get there.")

Mostly just came directly home, but I did take one little mile of new back road. Talk about a dream day! The temperature was just warm enough for no long sleeves, but not too hot. Things are really getting green. The sunshine made the water blue. Pretty darn wonderful!

I walked 10 miles, collecting info for the data book. Just 5 more Newaygo County miles to go (so 10 to hike them out and back). Total North Country Trail miles for 2021 is at 276.

In other news: I edited in the morning. I'm a little tired tonight- I didn't get to sleep until about 2 am, so I'll probably fall asleep early.

North Country Trail, Newaygo County, MI. Oak Savannah to north of Tank Creek and back. 10 miles total

See So Wrong About the Dogwood See another sloth face