Originally printed June 19, 2020.
After some planning and consultation with the chairperson for the High Point chapter of the Ice Age Trail Alliance, I designed a way to cut 17 miles of trail into three pieces, each accessible by bicycle self shuttling. With Jane’s blessing, I made the trip to Medford last Monday for three day’s of bike-and-hike. Day 1 would be on Tuesday, June 16th.
When I’ve been up here before, I have stayed at a house that is part of Airbnb. The house has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. In the pre-Covid days, I would share the house with two other tenants – for example, a medical student on a field experience and a traveling nurse from Ashland. One bathroom would be designated for men, and the other for women. With the pandemic, I wanted the house to myself, and I was able to negotiate a reasonable rate with the landlady, a member of the Medford Police Department. After arriving on Monday afternoon to scout the trail heads and the roads I would be biking, I got some takeout for dinner and settled in at my base camp for the next three days.
On Tuesday morning, I packed my gear and made the 30 minute ride to the trail’s end on Tower road. The trail head, which I would reach on my bike, was 2+ miles south, also on Tower Road. On my 15 minute ride to the trail head, I had to really keep my eyes peeled and ride slowly on Tower so I didn’t blow past it; the sign is very discreet, and it was partially obscured by branches. After locking my bike to a tree, I got started.
My plan for this day was to hike the 3.9 mile Timberline Wilderness Trail from start to finish. I was also going to do a 1 mile out-and-back on the eastern leg of the Wood Lake segment. From the moment I started, I quickly understood why “Wilderness” was part of the segment’s name. From the floor to the ceiling high above me, the forest seemed to envelop me. At times it was hard to see the footpath I was hiking because the ground vegetation was so thick. Even though I was never actually more than a mile from Tower Road, the dense canopy made me feel I was very far away from civilization.
Happily, the trail was much dryer than any of the trails I hiked on my last trip. Most of the wet spots were unnamed streams. It was easy to step on rocks or logs left by previous hikers to cross them. My hiking sticks came in handy to help steady me when stretching from one rock to the next. As I walked, I thought to myself that there seemed to be less “problem solving” on this hike.
A new (to me) land form encountered on this segment were Ice-Walled Lake Plains. According to my guide book, they are “Mesa-like hills that were once lakes on a melting glacier. Streams flowing on the glacier deposited loads of sediment into these lakes. When the surrounding glacier had completely melted, the lake bottoms became hilltops.” I could sense that I was atop these plains looking down as the land sloped away from the tops of these “mesas”.
I haven’t mentioned seeing critters. To keep bears away from me, I wear a cowbell that makes a nearly constant noise as I am walking (I also sing, especially when approaching bends in the trail. You should hear my rendition of the opening part of Mahler#8 in the wild!). The good news is that I haven’t encountered any bears. The bad news is that I usually don’t see any animals – just evidence of them. On this hike, I did flush a mourning dove, and a doe crossed the trail about 20 yards in front of me. We stood there staring at each other for a bit before she bounded into the woods to my left. And, I saw plenty of tracks.
But, the biggest evidence of animals’ presence I encountered that day was the massive beaver dam in the picture above. The picture doesn’t convey how wide or tall the dam really is. It is much wider than the two boardwalks in front of it; I’m thinking a good 30 yards. The water you see being held back I would estimate as about five feet high. I have no idea of the size of the pond created by the dam, but it is considerably large. I could not see the opposite side of it. Most incredible is that this dam has only been there for three years, according to Ruby, the local chapter coordinator for Lincoln County. Before the dam, this was a small stream that one could cross by stepping on a couple of rocks.. Makes you wonder why the beavers chose this place. Just amazing.
As you might expect, the area around the dam was the soupiest of the entire trail. I joined the throngs of hikers who have fashioned bridges from the dead fall branches. I found a roughly 7 ‘ branch that was 6” in diameter. I suspect a beaver left it for we. Worked like a charm.
Once I reached the end of the Timberline Wilderness Segment, I still had an out-and-back to do on the Wood Lake Segment. Basically, it was a footpath that threaded its way through rolling forest country.
I looked forward to learning about Wood Lake in the next two days.
My Days on the Ice Age Trail 