Originally printed June 21, 2020.
Thursday, June 18th, was my last day hiking in Taylor County that week. On the menu was the 5.4 mile western chunk of the Wood Lake Segment. I was expecting a relatively short, intense hike through hilly country. My guidebook mentioned that “Hikers can expect to cross unbridged creeks and seasonally flooded wetlands that occasionally swamp portions of the segment.” In other words, prepare for some surprises.
One unpleasant surprise was that my stomach chose to act up once I was ready to start my bike ride to the trail head. I dealt with it, I thought, and started my ride. But, it continued to bug me, and ultimately I had to deal with it again before starting the actual hike. Fortunately, I had some tummy medicine with me that did the trick. Things calmed down very soon, and the hike got underway.
As was the case the day before, my hike began with a brief walk through an area that was clear cut for lumber before plunging into deep forest. Soon I came to a bridge over an unnamed stream and a “T” intersection. The horizontal portion of the T was previously a railroad right-of-way. A logging camp named Camp 7 was nearby, marked by a sign with historical information and a photo. At first, I thought I was to turn left in the direction of the sign. But, I quickly realized I was going the wrong way and reversed course, only to realize that the trail was taking me uphill along the same right-of-way, except that it was inundated with water cascading downhill. The water was flowing so fast that I thought it resembled a kind of woodland slip-and-slide.
To keep as dry as possible, I walked in the middle of the road. If this were in the city, I would have expected to see an open fire hydrant at the top of the hill. But, I had another suspicion as to the cause that was soon confirmed.
Yep, another beaver dam, this one about 20- 25 feet wide. If you look to the lower right, you will see a sliver of water. That functioned as a kind of spillway, and this was the start of the “slip-and-slide.” As I write this, I realize that Taylor County got a lot of rain over Friday and Saturday. I can only wonder what the slip-and-slide looks like now.
At this point, I was pretty tickled. I had been on the trail less than an hour, and I had already experienced something that was entirely new to me. Quite a surprise. Soon, the trail crossed Bear Avenue headed north. Whether it narrowed to a footpath or widened as it ran on another former right-of-way, the trail was taking me on quite a roller coaster ride. No matter. At this point, I was feeling good and moving briskly. I attacked the uphill sections aggressively, and maintained good control in the downhill runs.
And then I came upon this scene.
I looked carefully to my right and left, and then moved so I was even with the dam, as shown in the picture at the top of this page. There was no way to skirt this. The trail resumed directly across the pond.
How to get there? As the picture at the top of the page shows, there was a path to the left of the dam and parallel to it with a boardwalk, but the water had risen to such a degree that the path wasn’t remotely discernible. So, unless I wanted to swim across, the only way was to walk ON THE DAM. I used my walking stick to probe in from of me for a solid footfall. When I found one, I took a step. There, that worked. Now, I probed again with my other walking stick. Found another solid footfall. Took another step. That worked. Then, I tried to step closer to the right edge of the dam. Soupy. Starting to sink, I quickly shifted my weight back to the solid ground where my trail foot was, probed again for a solid footfall, found one, and made another successful step. With each step, I made sure not to drag my trail leg. I didn’t want to catch my foot, trip, and land in the drink. In this methodical way, I made my way across the dam with my feet basically dry. I was so glad to have walking sticks. I hate to consider the mess I would have been in – literally – without them.
Once I got across, the trail narrowed again to a footpath, and I resumed my roller coaster ride. The last highlight before the hike concluded was encountering a box turtle on the trail. No doubt she was on the way to or from laying eggs. I’ve seen a number of them in the past two weeks; this must be their time.
This was quite a day. A lot of surprises. It is a grace that I have been granted this opportunity.
My Days on the Ice Age Trail 