Originally printed September 9, 2017.
Last Thursday, everything was set up nicely for a good day of hiking. A generous trail angel let me get a good night’s sleep before so I could drive to the Madison area for an absolutely civilized late morning start. The weather was excellent – cool and partly cloudy. A challenging trail awaited me with a lot of variety in geography, flora, and fauna. What I wasn’t planning on were “equipment problems.”
Just before 11:00, I arrived at the end point for the day’s hike. Tess, the chapter coordinator for the Dane County IATA was already there, picking up litter left by some thoughtless souls. She was quite petite and looked extremely fit. On the way to my starting point, she shared that she was a member of the 1000 Mile Club. In the “It’s a small world” department, she was a retired systems engineer with the State of Wisconsin IT department. So, in theory, she was a customer of mine when I worked at IBM! After a short drive, she dropped me off at my starting point.
On the menu for the day was a 3.8 mile connecting route from the north end of the Monticello Segment to the start of the Brooklyn Wildlife Segment, the entire 3.5 mile Brooklyn Wildlife Segment, and the first 2.8 miles of the Montrose Segment. I wasn’t dividing the mileage evenly between the two days I had planned for hiking, and there was a good reason for that. There was no parking lot at the north end of the Brooklyn Wildlife Segment. Instead, the recommendation was to backtrack more that a half mile to a parking area along a county highway. I wasn’t interested in backtracking at all. If I’m gong to take a step while hiking, it is going to knock off trail that I hadn’t previously covered.
So, as Tess drove off, I slipped my pack on my shoulder and quickly realized two things. First, I left my broad-brimmed hiking hat in my care. No matter – I had a baseball cap in my pack. Then, there was equipment problem#1.
In this case, the problem concerned equipment that I was born with – my stomach. I had gone out with my church choir buddies after Wednesday’s rehearsal, and two of them offered me some munchies. This included some mega-hot dipping sauce that caused me discomfort almost the moment it hit my stomach. I took some antacid for the problem that night, and I also dealt with the issue on Thursday – twice. But, as I stood along the highway, my stomach was sending me the messages that (1) it wasn’t happy, and (2) I needed to deal with it right then and there.
This was a challenge since there were no public restrooms for miles. Up to now, I haven’t written about such matters for obvious reasons. But, we’re all adults. I try to plan for every eventuality on the trail, and that includes packing a garden trowel and some TP. So, I had to delay the start of the hike while I backtracked down a trail I previously hiked nearly a month ago to find a suitable spot for…you know.
I’d like to say I was fine after that, but I would be lying. My stomach was still bugging me an hour later when I passed through the tiny town of Dayton, saw a small town park, and took another side trip. For the balance of the day, my stomach was in varying stages of grinding. Thankfully, this sort of thing doesn’t happen often.
The first three miles of the hike was along a connecting route of county highways. I then entered the Brooklyn Wildlife Segment. It was at this time that I realized that, somehow, my phone’s screen was nearly black – equipment problem#2. This was a puzzle to me; I had just used it less than a half hour earlier. It was so dark that I could not see what app I was running or read anything on the screen. I use my phone every hike to keep in communication with Jane, so this was a real problem. I’d walk a bit, take out the phone, fiddle with it a bit, get frustrated, put it away and trudge on, all the while wondering how I had done this and how was I to fix it. This occupied my thoughts for the better part of an hour. I’d like to tell you about the area through which I hiked, but I wasn’t really paying attention. After what seemed like forever, I was barley able to see I was back on my home page. With considerable squinting, I was able to find my settings and scroll to what appeared to be my brightness control. Voila!! I cannot tell you how relieved I was. I celebrated by stopping to have lunch and relax while enjoying a panoramic view of meadows, prairie country, and farmland that spread out before me. While sitting there I took the picture that is at the top of this page.
With that worry behind me, I was able to focus on the trail, and I could not help but be impressed by its beauty and variety. My guidebook spoke to the “meadows, woodlands, oak savannas and colorful prairies on this segment, and it was there in spades. I had to remind myself exactly what a savanna was. According to Wikipedia, “ A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses.” Even though I had lost considerable time during the first six miles or so of hiking, I slowed down a bit to enjoy the sights. Simply glorious!
The IATA Guide spoke to great bird watching opportunities on this trail. As I hiked, I could also see plenty of chances for a person to station himself or herself along the way to watch deer moving through the open spaces. Near the end of the Brooklyn Segment, I was walking past some bushes when I heard some commotion and a loud snort. Within seconds I saw a doe about 15 feet away from me emerge from the cover and bound away from me. Other than that, my contact with critters was limited to squirrels, songbirds, and a woodpecker pecking away at a tree(love that sound). But I saw plenty of signs that animals had been around – deer tracks and droppings on the trail, a tuft of fur where there had been some kind if life-and-death struggle, and clumps of fragments of nuts left from a squirrel enjoying a feast. Before long, I crossed County D and entered the Montrose Segment.
I greatly enjoyed the geographic variety of this 2.8 mile chunk of the segment. Very soon, the trail took me through a canopy of sumac that was a combination of green and that wonderful burnt red that the leaves become in the fall. Like Brooklyn, this segment is rated a 3 on the five point “hilliness” scale. I’m sure that is because the nearly five miles on the schedule for Friday was basically all flat; the segment I was hiking Thursday had a wealth of challenging up and down to it.
The trail took me through a lot of wooded country, and – for the first time in a long time – along and directly through some farmers’ fields. Sometimes the most open areas can be the most challenging. I will be at a marker looking out in the distance for the next yellow marker. Sometimes they are easily seen, sometimes they are barely perceptible. Here is where one recently acquired piece of equipment DID work. I bought a GPS device that syncs up with my phone. It allows we to see where I was in relation to the trail, and it was very helpful in keeping me on the trail when I began to stray. I understand that the trail gets very hard to follow as it winds into the northwestern portion of the state. From talking to other hikers, I understand that the signage can get pretty scant, especially in areas where loggers have been doing clear cutting. Any help I can get in such sections will be welcome.
I wrapped up at close to 4:00. I was hiking for over four hours, and I was hungry. After checking in at the camp ground and having a welcome hot shower, I drove into Brodhead, found a nice family style supper club, and enjoyed a steak. I had earned it. As I opened my car door to return to the camp ground, the door brushed against my left hand, which was holding my cell phone. Down it went, pancaking upside down on the pavement. The glass cover of the phone had shattered.
Hope there weren’t any kids around to hear what I said then.
My Days on the Ice Age Trail 