Originally printed August 12, 2017.
I’ve had better days.
That’s my takeaway after hiking the 6.5 mile Monticello Segment of the Ice Age Trail yesterday.
You may recall that my final remarks regarding Day 40 on the trail concerned the hope of getting a good night’s sleep. Well, what happened was that I got a fitful night’s sleep that didn’t refresh me at all. I’m sure that parts of the reason for this had to do with being in strange surroundings and the anticipation of the next day’s hike. Certainly, being near porta-pottys lit by a light mounted on a tall post didn’t help. It was as if I had my own private night light! But, the biggest factor is my CPAP. Because of sleep apnea, I’ve been using a CPAP for several years. To get it to work in a car, I hook it up to a power inverter. The inverter is connected to my car’s electrical system. Rather than run the battery down, I turn on the car and let it idle. With a Prius hybrid, the engine doesn’t run all the time. Instead, the engine will cut out and the car will then run on the hybrid battery. That’s how hybrids deliver good gas mileage when stuck in stop and go traffic. For me trying to sleep, the advantage is that I get to sleep in air conditioned comfort in the summer. The only problem is that the engine cutting back in causes the car to shudder just enough that I sense it and wake up. I need to either learn to sleep through these occurences or sleep without the benefit of the CPAP. Obviously, I would prefer the former. That night I probably got four or five hours’ sleep in snatches.
I woke up for the morning just before 6:00. After quickly taking down the Habitent, I drove up the hill and parked near the snack shop. My plan was to scarf down three hard boiled eggs I brought for breakfast, repack the car more carefully, and be on my way. Apparently, I didn’t cook these eggs long enough, because they were more like soft boiled eggs, a real mess when you’re planning to eat with your hands only! Of the three eggs, I probably ate the equivalent of one. Breakfast was a colossal failure.
Thankfully, I reached the pickup point on time. Dorothy was going to be my trail angel again. While we drove to the drop off point, she told me a little about herself. She and her husband were recent retirees from UW, where they worked in the university’s data center. I chuckled because UW was one of my customers when I worked at IBM. We both remarked about it being a small world. Very soon we reached the dropoff point. After a quick good-bye, she headed back to her home in Verona, and I got started. The skies were overcast and the temps were in the low 60s.
The Monticello Segment is very similar to the Albany Segment I hiked the day before, so I had a pretty good idea what to expect. For most of its length, it shares with the Badger State Trail. It is a multi-use trail trail, fairly wide and paved with dirt and fine stones. Trees on either side of the trail provide a partial canopy. The first third of a mile was pretty soupy from the previous day’s downpour, but the trail was more dry for the balance of my hike. Periodically, there would be a break in the canopy of trees, and I would view some beautiful vistas of farm country. Everything was very green, especially when considering that these were supposed to be the dog days of August. Instead, it looked like Ireland. And , there was the Stewart Tunnel, which I encountered fairly early in my hike.
My guidebook had this to say about this tunnel. “Completed in 1887, the 1,260-foot-long train tunnel is named after James Stewart of Pennsylvania , the contractor for the railroad construction. In 1886, he was killed nearby when he was thrown from his buggy while driving the proposed rail route. Blasted through limestone, the tunnel’s opening is 14 by 22 feet…Like a cave, it maintains a steady temperature. In summer it offers a cool retreat with temperatures staying between 50 and 60 degrees.” The guidebook advised that I bring a flashlight. There were points in the tunnel where I could see no light from either end, so the flashlight came in handy. As you might expect, there was quite a bit of graffiti on the tunnel’s walls. Although I could hear water trickling down the tunnel’s sides, I was surprised at how dry the walls were to my touch.
About an hour into the hike, it started to rain. Actually, it was more of a light mist. I texted Jane that I was trying to determine whether the mist was a welcome relief or a pain in the backside. A little later, the mist got heavier, and my mind was made up. I broke out the poncho for the first time in about a year. Of course, it stopped raining almost immediately, but I left it on.
Part of the calculus for leaving the poncho on were the mosquitoes. The sheer volume of them were unbelievable! They must have been following closely behind me, because whenever I stopped, I was immediately enveloped in a cloud of them. Insect repellent didn’t seem to do any good – most likely, I was sweating the repellent right off my face. I carry netting to protect my face from mosquitoes and flies, but I can’t explain why I didn’t break it out. Instead, I gutted it out an kept moving. I didn’t take too many pictures on this hike!
My last goof occurred about a mile from the end of my hike. For most of this hike, the Ice Age Trail ran concurrent with the Badger State Trail. Running almost parallel to my trail was the Sugar River Trail. About a mile before the Segment’s end, the two trails cross – it looks like a very narrow X on my map – and I was supposed to cut over to the Sugar River Trail for that last mile. However, I missed the “signed crossover”, as my guidebook put it. In this case, it wasn’t a big error. I was out of my way for between 50 and 75 yards. But, I’ve made a mistake like that before, and it cost me several miles to get back to the correct trail. From what I’ve read, the trails in the northwestern part of the State aren’t always marked clearly. I need to be more aware and more careful.
There will be better days.
My Days on the Ice Age Trail 