Originally printed January 1, 2017
Ring out the old, ring in the new!
I wasn’t expecting to make a hike in December – way too much singing for me to to that. But, the opportunity presented itself, and Jane was willing to make the trek to Kewaunee County as long as it was on Saturday, so there would be some shops and stores open for her to visit while I was tromping through the Great White North. So we bundled up and made the trip.
Right now, I’m between trail segments, so the challenge is a 25.2 connecting route. I figured out a way to divide it into three bite-sized chunks. An advantage of this chunk was that there was a tavern at the end with a parking lot. This would be much safer than having Jane sit on the shoulder of a two lane county highway. Also, I actually had the address of this place before making the trip, so I could enter it into our GPS. That saved a little time because we wouldn’t have to go to the end point, mark it in the GPS, and then drive to the starting point to drop me off. So, we left Milwaukee at a relatively sane hour of the morning and made it to the starting point just before 10:00.
Clothing considerations were the big consideration for me on this hike. Certainly, I wanted to be warm and protected from the wind. But I didn’t want to overheat, perspire heavily and then get chilled. There was a balance I was trying to achieve. I chose some fleece-lined cargo pants from the Duluth Trading Company, wool socks with my hiking shoes, a wool long-sleeve shirt, fleece mittens, a scarf for my neck, a hat that converted to a ski mask, and a bright orange ski jacket. Just in case, I carried a set of heavier hiking boots and a spare wool hat with a fleece lining. Happily, I was very comfortable the entire length of my hike, roughly 9.6 miles.
Jane dropped me off at the starting point, and I got started . While the temperature was in the low 30s, there was a very stiff wind out of the west-northwest the entire length of the hike that made it seem a lot colder. At times, the wind was strong enough that I had to widen my base a bit to avoid losing my balance. When the opportunity would present itself, I would get out of the wind to take a short break for water or a snack. Periodically, some light snow would fall. but it didn’t amount to anything.
For the entire hike, I was walking through farm country. I was struck by how quiet it was. Outside of a farm dog barking, some crows, and, or course, vehicles along the way, I heard nothing. While I saw some deer tracks in the snow, there were no other signs of critters in the area. The only real variety was in the sky, which seemed to be constantly changing. Sometimes it would be very ominous and gray. At other times , the sky seemed dappled in grays and whites like a painting. And, there were times when a little blue would break through all that gray, and the sun would poke out its head. It definitely was an “In the Bleak Midwinter” kind of day.
Three hours into the hike, Jane drove past and stopped to see how I was doing. Shortly after, I met her in the parking lot at the end of my hike. We poked our heads into Sheila’s in the hope of finding some pub food. A burger sounded real good to me at that time. We didn’t see any sign of a kitchen. What we did see was a group of people who seemed to know each other and were working on some heavy duty partying. Had it been just me, I might have stayed. But, this was certainly not Jane’s kind of place, so we quickly left and made our way home.
My Days on the Ice Age Trail 