Originally printed November 12, 2017.
Last Thursday’s hike promised to be a very interesting day for me. High winds and plummeting temperatures were in the forecast. I had never hiked in high winds, and I wondered how I would hold up in those conditions.
The hike was to be a 12.9 mile chunk of the 21.9 mile connecting route between the Sauk Point and Portage Canal segments. Usually, when I see connecting routes on the menu, I resign myself to seeing a lot of farms. While I certainly expected to see a lot of farm country, I also knew that I would be treated to some spectacular views of the Baraboo bluffs.
Though high winds were definitely in the forecast, conditions when I started my hike at 10:00 a.m. were actually very calm. Even so, the breezes had an effect on the temperature, with a wind chill of 17 degrees against a “regular temperature” of 27 degrees.
After saying goodbye to Debby, who volunteered once again to be my trail angel, I left the Parfrey’s Glen parking lot to begin my hike. After a short walk east, I made a left turn onto Bluff Road and immediately began a two mile climb up a very steep grade that wound its way through deep, beautiful woods. What a way to open a hike! Within minutes, my lungs ached as I kept climbing, and I began to get very warm.
Heating up so soon turned out to be a good thing because it forced me to address the issue of heat .vs moisture right away. Certainly, I want to be comfortable in the cold. But, I also want to avoid overheating and perspiring. It is a balancing act, one that I had spotty success with last winter. This time, I decided to try a number of things to help myself. First, I under dressed a bit, so I started my hike a little chilly. Last winter, I started a cold weather hike toasty warm. Thirteen miles later I was soaking wet under my jacket. Don’t want a repeat of that. Second, I tred to wear clothes that breathed. Last, I tred to ventilate to control against overheating. On this hike, that meant opening my vest, plus unzipping the vents under the arms of my coat so some air could circulate. On this hike, making these early adjustments worked, and I stayed comfortably warm and dry for the duration of the hike.
So, that piece of the hike worked well for me. Something that did not work well for me was the decision I made to push on, even though I began to feel a little heat under the little toe on my left foot. As many readers know, that bit of heat would likely turn into a blister. I should have patched the toe with some mole skin right away, while the winds were relatively calm. My decision would come back and bite me later.
The country through which I hiked was simply gorgeous. After the first two miles walking a road through deep woods – Parfrey’s Glen was to my immediate left – the country opened up a bit, and I walked through farm land that was intermittently broken up by deep woods. During those times when I was walking through more open country, I began to get sneak previews of the winds that would really kick up later in the hike. Even though it was past peak, there was still plenty of autumn color to enjoy.
About two and a half hours into the hike, I decided to have some lunch. While I don’t eat on the run, I can say that this time, like with most hikes, I don’t stop to eat – I eat on the walk. My go-to lunch is a quarter pound turkey sandwich. I also ate some almonds and a bit of dark chocolate. Last, but not least, I made sure to pound down some water.
Pretty soon, I turned onto state highway 33. Normally, hiking along highways like this is boring at best and dangerous at worst. However, this was an exception because I was in the Baraboo hills area, the Lower Narrows State Natural Area. According to a roadside marker, the Lower Narrows “is one of three major gorges that cut through the 50 mile circumference of the Baraboo Range. These gorges were created by rivers over 500 million years ago then buried by sediments in a vast sea over the next 150 million years. Wind, water and glacial erosion have once again exposed the gorges. The Baraboo River flows through the Upper Narrows gorge near Rock Springs, entering a basin surrounded by the Baraboo Range, and exits here at the Lower Narrows.” The picture above can give you an idea of how gorgeous this area is.
By now, the wind was really strong, blowing from the north to northwest. For the next four and a half miles plus, I was out in the open without a semblance of a wind break. In order to stay on course, I really had to lean into the wind and dig in to avoid being blown to my right. If that wasn’t challenge enough, remember that hot spot on my left toe? Now it was the squish, squish of a large blister under that toe. It hurt, and I’m sure I was compensating for it, which meant more trouble.
Thankfully, the last mile plus of the hike was on a road through a densely wooded area. Before long, I reached the end point of the day’s hike, the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center. Surprisingly, especially considering that blister, I made terrific time. I expected to be on the road more than five hours. Instead, it was more like four hours forty-five minutes.
I stopped in the Center to take a very quick look around. It looked to be a very interesting place. Aldo Leopold was a conservationist, a forester, a philosopher, and educator, a writer and an outdoor enthusiast. His “Sand County Almanac”, a collection of his essays, was published a little more than a year after his death in the late 1940s. It is considered to be one of the most respected books on the environment ever published. The Aldo Leopold Foundation was founded in 1982, according to its web page, “with a mission to foster the land ethic through the legacy of Aldo Leopold, awakening an ecological conscience in people throughout the world.
The headquarters buildings now at this location were opened to the public in 2007. Again according to the Foundation’s web site, it was built to the highest standards of green design.
All that was well and good. But I wanted a warm hotel room, a hot shower, and a meal right away and in that order.
Oh, and a stick pin to deal with that blister wouldn’t be bad, either.
My Days on the Ice Age Trail 