Michigan NCT Day 3: Muskellonge Lake State Park to Just East of Grand Marais

May 28, 2017

Because we lost our shuttle at the last minute, we realized it would be most efficient to keep hiking westbound. Sort of backwards. We'd drop one car at the western end of our hike, then drive to the eastern end and hike back to the one car. Then drive forward and on to our next lodging.

Today we drove to Muskellonge Lake, ready to hike west back to the spot just east of Grand Marais where we began on Friday. We had heard from trail folks that there has been a lot of erosion along the lakeshore bluffs. This is where the trail often runs, and thus the path disappears in spots wherever a chunk of the bluff erodes completely. The long-term plan is to move the trail about 100 feet (or yards?) in from the bluffs, but for now there are rudimentary detours.

The spot where we were hiking today wasn't yet cleaned up for the season, so we were warned the path might be lost/eroded away in spots. We started off from the Muskellonge Lake State Park in high spirits. We were going to do this! Well … ha! 

We did follow the path very well for the most part, but there was one spot where the trail was eroded away and there happened to be a path back to the road, which was what the map showed. To make a long story short, we headed to the road, walked back and forth a bit, then went back up into the woods and discovered we had to hike past/around the eroded spot a short distance to pick up the real path back to the road. 

All of the back-and-forth cost us about 3 miles, or an hour's hiking. In the midst of this, I must add, it started to rain.

We had another snafu a few hours later, in an area with logging activity. We haven't had a chance to ask locals about this yet, but lots of the logged areas are marked in blue, with blue paint on the trees and blue ribbons hanging from some branches. This is extremely confusing, as you often can't tell if this is NCT markings or logging. So we lost more time in one trail segment due to this.

But all is good. Tonight we are staying in a man's rental home, which is designed like a caboose. It's quite charming. 

Snowshoe and Cheese Ed

Michigan NCT Day 2: Grand Marais to Coves Campsites

May 27, 2017

Ideally, to an orderly, logical person like me, we'd section-hike the NCT in some sequence. (Although section-hiking means you can hike sections of the trail in any order.) But that's not what's happening here, due to a variety of factors. 

What that means for our hike today is that we again headed west, this time from Grand Marais about 25 miles through the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and into Beaver Basin Wilderness. 

We were told the path through Pictured Rocks was perfectly signed. Um … not quite. Blue blazes are the sign for the North Country Trail. But in Pictured Rocks, there are wooden sign posts for the trail at the intersection of the trail with major points of interest, but not one blaze otherwise. Okay, that's not too difficult to figure out.

But at the very end of our long, 26-mile day, we were looking for Coves Campsites, from which we'd take a connector trail back to our car. Coves was right after Beaver Creek Campsites, but in between were a wealth of side trails around Beaver Lake. Suffice it to say we never found the path we were looking for, and were told by several others that they found all of the signage confusing. We ended up hiking an extra 2-3 miles, which was tough.

But that's life on the trail! The scenery was gorgeous and we had an excellent day.

Snowshoe and Cheese Ed

Michigan NCT Day 1: East of Grand Marais to Grand Marais

May 26, 2017

And so our section-hike of the North Country Trail begins!

Ed and I drove up to Grand Marais today in two cars, so we could shuttle ourselves on/off the trail. There are some trail angels up here, and a shuttle service, but the U.P. is a large area, and nothing was working out. Part of the reason was that cell service is often nonexistent here, and it's next to impossible to set up or confirm any shuttle arrangements if you can't reach people. But no big deal. If we shuttle ourselves, we're in control of our schedule.

Since it took six hours to get here, and then the time zone flipped from Central to Eastern and we lost another hour, we weren't able to start hiking until about 4:30. All we had planned was an easy four-miler from a spot just east of Grand Marais into town. Most of this hike was on the road, but it was a little-traveled road so it was pleasant.

Grand Marais is quite small, but it has a beautiful beach and cove. According to signage, "Marais" means refuge (it's French, from early explorers), and that's just what the cove looked like. That night we had great whitefish tacos at a little brew pub. It was graduation day; three kids graduated from the local high school, including twins. We stayed at Hilltop Cabins.

Four miles down, about 4,596 to go!

Snowshoe and Cheese Ed

Day 34 / 7: Royal Trails to Clearwater Recreation Area

May 21, 2017

I had to catch a 2:55 p.m. flight today out of Orlando. No problem; I just had 10 miles to hike from Royal Trails to Clearwater Recreation Area. 

I got to Royal Trails, which is a sprawling subdivision, around 6:30 a.m. It was so nice and cool at this time of day, especially after starting so late most mornings. The first 1.2 miles of the hike were on paved roads in the subdivision, but then the path pushed me onto trails. Ahhh!

The first portion of the trail quickly led to sand, which isn't the greatest for hiking. But a fair portion of the sand was reasonably compact, so it wasn't too tough.

In one area the trail dipped into this jungle/swamp-like section, which was a bit difficult to walk through. Thank goodness Florida is having a dry spring. There was not a drop of water here, although the area was very damp, and there was not a single bug. I'm sure this section is horribly buggy when it's wet.

After this spot, I was on another sandy trail studded with animal prints. All of a sudden I saw a few that were very distinctive -- bear prints! Yikes! My last day on the trail in March, I saw two cubs. Would this happen again? 

Not quite. Not more than five or 10 minutes after seeing the prints, I rounded a corner and saw a black bear. Luckily, it immediately ran away. But I had to go right past the spot where it had rushed into the woods, so I began talking and singing. I kept up the nonsensical chatter for about 10 minutes before I relaxed enough to quit.

Near the end of my trek, the path went through a large cattle field owned by the Boy Scouts. You had to hike blaze-to-blaze here, as there was no set path. The blazes were pretty far apart, and sometimes I couldn't spot the next one. But it was clear that you had to cut across the field, so if you just kept walking you'd soon spot it. 

My friend/Trail Angel Tammy picked me up in the Clearwater Rec parking area. I'd met her last March when I started here, and she graciously shuttled me two days. Today she shuttled me back to Royal Trails. From there, she and a friend and Tammy's grandson were going blueberry-picking.

I made it back to my hotel with just enough time to shower, then caught my flight home.

Now I'll be waiting until November or December to pick up where I left off in March, at St. Marks up in the eastern panhandle. But I won't be idle. I'll be hiking my first portion of the North Country Trail in late May/early June, and then thru-hiking the (short) New England National Scenic Trail this September. 

Stay tuned!

Snowshoe

Day 33 / 6: Soldiers Creek Park to Royal Trails

May 20, 2017

I think long-distance hiking is trying to teach me a lesson: patience. Every day, something seems to go wrong. But every time something goes awry, I'm less shaken or annoyed by it than I would have been a year or two or three ago. In the grand scheme of life, if my rental car gets locked in a county park or I accidentally hike 26 miles instead of 24, is that really such a big deal?

So guess what happened to me today? My schedule called for hiking from Soldiers Creek Park to Royal Trails, a total of 24.3 miles. The weather was pretty intense again today -- highs in the low 90s with lots of sun. I couldn't find a shuttle or cab that could bring me from one end of the trail to the other, so I had a dilemma. But then the answer seemed easy. The first half of the hike was along a recreational trail and roads, while the last half was trails. I'd park at the trailhead where the second half of the hike began, then hike out and back. That way I'd hike the same mileage, and hike every trail mile (the important stuff). 

But I did the math the previous night, when I was tired. I thought that my out-and-back hike on the Florida Trail was 3 miles short of the road walk I was skipping, so I decided to hike 3 more miles on side trails so I'd get the exact same mileage. Perfect!

And so I began my day. There was a huge search-and-rescue training going on at the trailhead at Lower Wekiva, so it was hard to find a parking spot. About 3 hours into my hike, I ran into Lou, Betty and Yvonne, hikers from the Florida Hiking Syndicate Facebook page. It was so nice to have hiking buddies! We hiked together for about an hour. They were ending at the Cassia trailhead, while I was continuing on to Royal Trails, then turning around the repeating the hike with some extra loops to get in the required mileage.

After hiking on the blue loop and nearing my detour on the white loop, the timing seemed to be off. I figured I'd finish after 7 p.m., which seemed quite late, despite my slower pace in the heat.

I re-calculated the mileage and discovered I'd erred. It's too convoluted to explain, but suffice it to say I over-hiked today by two or three miles. But, as Beerman says, all good!

Snowshoe

Day 32 / 5: Chuluota Wilderness Area to Soldiers Creek Park

May 19, 2017

I love hiking because every day is so different and wonderful in its own way, even if it's difficult.

So today I started out from the Chuluota Wilderness Area parking lot. I first dropped my car at Soldiers Creek Park, my ending point, where a taxi driver picked me up. He said it was fine to leave my car there.

During our shuttle back to my starting point, I quizzed the driver on those spiders I saw yesterday. He said they are banana spiders, not poisonous, although they do bite. He said they weave ginormous webs (saw those!) and that they're active now but disappear by fall.

I started off today at 8:30 a.m. Still late, compared to my Ice Age Trail forays. But here it's different. At least in May. If you start really early, the temps are lower but the humidity is higher. So it's almost better to start later. 

Anyway, I thought the first 2 miles were on Curryville Road, then the trail cut in when Curryville hit a T intersection. Wrong; the trail cut in part-way up to the intersection. But I missed it, because I wasn't looking for it. Luckily when I hit the T intersection, there was a spur trail onto the FT just up the road. So I got back on pretty quickly.

The morning was warm and humid, yet cloudy with a little wind. So it wasn't horrible for hiking, yet the humidity definitely slowed me down. The one scary time came when I nearly walked right into a banana spider and its web. It would have been right at mouth level! Thank goodness I saw it in the nick of time.

At 2 p.m. I finished the trails and popped out onto the roads. The rest of the day (until 6:30 p.m.) was on roads around Oviedo and Winter Park, and most of those roads were a bike path. Unfortunately the signage here was sparse, and I got off the trail a few times.

I used my sun umbrella here, and switched to a long-sleeved shirt to protect my arms from more sunburn. The highlight was stopping at a gas station/mini mart and purchasing a small ice cream cup AND a cup of ice for my water bladder. Cold water helps so much on hot days! 

This trip I also made up a few gallons of Chrystal Lite lemonade. That has worked well for me; I drink it in between the water. 

So I got back to Soldiers Creek Park at 6:30 p.m., excited that my lodging for the night was just 8 minutes away, and that I had ended at 6:30. But then I saw I was locked in! The county park had closed, and both exits were barricaded. I called the police, who notified the sheriff. A deputy came out and said they did not have keys to the locks, and the park officials would not let them (or the fire department) have keys for emergencies. I said, "I'd think you could just demand keys!" and he said, "Yeah, you'd think!" Luckily he found a bike path wide enough for me to drive on and I escaped the locked parking lot after 30 minutes.

Hiking is always an adventure.

Snowshoe

Day 31 / 4: Tosohatchee State Preserve to Chuluota Wilderness Area

May 18, 2017

Another late start today: 9:30 a.m. But while it was still hot out, I was again blessed with wind and low humidity. 

I was worried about ticks and chiggers in the Tosohatchee State Preserve, but due to this year's dry "rainy season" there were no bugs. 

The first part was on sandy footing, so that was hard. But then the trail went into the woods and was delightful. For a while, anyway. Then I started walking into spider webs. Those are pretty common on any hikes, but these were made of some super-sticky webbing that was pretty gross. Even worse, a lot of the webs had spiders in them. The spiders were yellow and black and maybe red, and vertical. That is, they weren't fat, but tall and lean. 

I began swinging my sticks in between any trees that were close together on either side of the path, as those were the areas most likely to have webs. It was mentally taxing, as you had to keep your eyes peeled every second. 

Then suddenly the webs were gone and the trail was beautiful again. Until they resumed! This time there were more webs, and I saw one spider that was probably five inches long. ICK! 

But again, they disappeared when the trail opened up. The last 6 or so miles were very enjoyable. The terrain was prairie-like, then through a proscribed-burn area where the palmettos were regenerating, then through a very serpentine path, and so on. The terrain kept changing and everything was gorgeous. It also helped when the sun and heat went down.

It was a long day, due to the late start; I didn't finish until 7:30 p.m. But I'm so thankful to be able to explore such a beautiful part of our nation.

Snowshoe