Hiking Dude Blog

I walked 43188 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 20 miles today.
Our Waupaca trail angels shuttled our van so we were able to slackpack through the Hartman Creek segment. It was a nice trail but there were some recent down trees across the path. It would be nice to be done with these pesky gnats, too. Papa Bear calls them Face Flies and Jon calls the Suicide Gnats because they are always buzzing around your eys and ears.
It got hot again today so we hiked without shirts, as you can see. :-). Luckily, we were finished by 1pm.
This afternoon, we were treated to a boat ride before a couple thunderstorms rolled through.
Our time in Waupaca has been terrific and I'm very thankful to our new friends!

Our latesf trail angel, Barb, dropped us off to stqrt our walk today. The weather is excellent with nice wind and cool temps.
About 6 miles of trail through beautiful moraine and then 4 miles of road has brought us to Scandinavia and Audree's bakery. My cinnamon roll was awesome! Now, we're back on the road for most of the day.

I walked 62598 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 32 miles today.
After leaving Scandinavia this morning, we just hiked without much to report. Took no other breaks and reached our endpoint around 3pm. If you checked the progress map (Check out my current location on the map.) you may have noticed our trail move very quickly and then stop a long time. We went to Stevens Point to take my niece to pizza and I forgot to turn off my Spot in the car - OOPS! Fortunately, my dad texted me to turn it off. :-)
After dinner and taking care of other things, my niece took us back to the trail. It was 8:30 and completely dark but we had a roadwalk so we continued until about 10, adding another fast 5 miles. This was our longest day so far and 5am will be here too soon, so Good Night from the middle of Wisconsin.

Up and hiking before the sun today. Last night, we roadwalked in the dark with no lights and did the same this morning. It's actually pretty fun and much cooler.
We covered many miles and the temps stayed low until about noon. Then, the clouds burned off and the temps soared along with our sweating and misery. :-)
We made it to Hatley and are waiting to see if it cools off or if possible bad weather develops. It would be good to get some more miles tonight.
This road sign was a humorous highlight to the day that was mostly just miles of road. Farms are getting more scarce and there were more cedar and birch trees today. I guess we're getting up north.

I walked 47119 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 24 miles today.
Today's walk ended in Hatley. I hoped to hike farther but the miles will wait until tomorrow and we have a plan in place for the next week of hiking!
I contacted my friend Larry that I met on the Superior Hiking Trail last fall. He lives in Wausau but is supposed to be out of town all summer. Surprisingly, he is in town this week! So, we drove to his place, got showers, dinner, and are tenting in his yard. Early, early tomorrow we shuttle the van ahead and he drops us back at the trail with food for a week in the north woods. If it all works out, we'll reach the van a week from today.
It was a great evening getting to catch up with a hiker buddy and find out what he's been doing.
It's still almost 80 degrees so I'll be up awhile but a major cool-down is forecast for the day after tomorrow.
This pic is from Westfield, of an old fish right by a mini-golf. Sorry, nothing much to see today.

Resting for the afternoon at the Dells of the Eau Claire park. It's supposed to be the last hot day so we're taking it easy. I'm trying to take a nap and then we'll cook a meal and hike on this evening.
The walk along the river was nice and we're the only ones here except a young fisherman that just drove in and parked.

I walked 43792 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 21 miles today.
After an excellent parmesan noodle with tuna dinner, we packed up and hiked on. Another road walk and short trail segment in the growing darkness ended the day.
The skies clouded over and a few drops have fallen. In the distance, there have been lightning and thunder but I'm hopeful for a dry, cool night.
At the park today, I met a young fisherman and chatted awhile. No luck today but he was persistent. Other than him, it was a human-free day.
Oh, we did encounter trail segments closed Sept-Dec for hunting. That made for more road walk detours. I hope there are no more.
PS: bad luck, the rain has just started. :-(

The Plover River section features a wonderful pair of boardwalks and some great rock steps placed by the trail volunteers. Here's a big Thank You to the IATA folks that pushed this part of the trail through this past year!
I scared up three turkey right on the trail in front of me and saw a huge read-headed woodpecker - I'm not a birder so I'm not sure of the exact name. :-(
As you can see from the sign, we're closing in on 400 miles left to go.

We couldn't pass up $5 large pizza at Little Ceasar's in Antigo for lunch. Doesn't Papa Bear look happy? Then, we rested all afternoon at the library then McD's since we already had a short destination in mind for tonight. We did stay a bit too long and will be roadwalking a bit in dark - don't worry Mom!

I walked 53389 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 26 miles today.
A funny thing happened on the way to Polar today...
Papa Bear read in the Ice Age Trail guidebook that a bar-n-grill in Polar, WI is hiker-friendly and may let you camp behind their place. With that in mind, we set our goal for today to be that grill. It would be a casual 23 miles with a long break in Antigo during the hottest part of the day, and we'd reach Polar around dark.
The roadwalk from Antigo took awhile to get going - checking for stove fuel (never did find any), grocery stop, WalMart stop, bathroom stop after too much pop at McD's. Finally, we were walking.
Heading due east, the sun setting behind us, it was a nice walk to Polar. When we got there, we thought the grill was farther ahead so we walked past the recommended route turn in the dark. After going farther than we figured was appropriate, we called the place. We could continue on and turn north or backtrack and turn north to reach them - same distance. So, we went forward.
A few minutes later, a car pulled up by us and asked if we were hiking the IAT. They invited us to their place along the route just up the way. They had seen us on the road earlier when they drove to Antigo and hoped they would find us again. TRAIL MAGIC!!!
So, after a shower, food, and conversation, I'm sending this just before bed in the home of yet more amazing trail angels.
You have opportunities to be a trail angel all the time - no trail is really needed to offer hospitality to others. It's up to you to notice and take those opportunities.