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10/00 Waterloo Pickeny Trail, Mich.
Day 1 We're up at the butt crack of dawn to head out to the trailhead. 5:30 am to be exact. I came up yesterday afternoon to Lavonia Michigan to do a Hike with Hyperpacker. We're going to be doing a section of the 32 mile long Waterloo/Pickeny Trail that is about an hour west of Lavonia. That's why we're up at such an ungodly hour. Hyper, Joy and I had a great dinner at a little Mexican place then went to REI. My first trip to Nirvana! They had a "returns table" covered with such wonderful goodies as $20 Thermarests, 2-in-1 pants for $14, wicking T shirts for .86 cents and more. Hyper snatched the pants and shirt. Grrrr! My size is never on special! We made the trailhead a bit after 6 am and started out at a nice brisk pace. It was chilly and never really felt warm all day. Great hiking weather if you keep moving. We had planned on doing the whole trail which would be 24 miles the first day and about 10 the second day. We decided to go for 14 the first day and 10 the second. Good call as you will see from the second days tails. It was a long day of hiking but the miles just pealed away with little effort. If you have never hiked with someone that is of a like mind as yourself you are really missing out. My friend Hyperpacker and I have very similar views on just about everything from religion to politics to hiking to just about everything else under the sun. We can talk at length about a variety of subjects and I learn so much from our hikes together. We found a HUGE oak tree along the trail. It is by far the biggest tree I've ever seen. Hyper held his 5' hiking staff across the truck and there was at least a full foot on both sides it couldn't span. I can't imagine how this tree escaped the ax all these years. We stopped to marvel at it and take pictures for a while.
Anyhow, we made it to Green Lake where the overnight camp is and set up camp in a stiff, cold wind. After we had the shelters set up we found some Guinness that some poor sole must have lost under some brush and leaves, behind a tree. [wink, wink] We threw the ales in the lake to cool down a bit more. It turned out the lake actually warmed them up above the air temperature. That's a good indication of what kind of cold snap we were in. Green Lake Hyper Holding Our Beer Cooler While we were scrounging for fire wood a scout troop began filtering into camp and we thought, "Oh crap! There goes the peace and quiet!" They turned out to be the best bunch of scouts I have ever encountered. They did everything by the book just as they are supposed to. Kudos to good leadership. I love it when my own stereo-types get smashed down. Hyperpacker found some cool-ass WWF sunglasses that he tried on and lost control of himself. I'm just glad there were no folding metal chairs handy! We left the glasses at the camp for the next visitors to enjoy. "Bring it on baby!" A couple of guys came into camp a bit later and we ended up hanging out around our fire with them all evening and having a great time. After a great evening of ale and fellowship we went off to bed about 11 pm. At least the wind had died down some and it wasn't quite so cold. Day 2 When we awoke the next morning it was that kind of 30 degree foggy morning where everything gets covered in frost and you are chilled to the bone. We stood huddled around our Esbit stoves waiting for the water boil when Pat and Chuck, the guys we spent the previous evening with, came over and had morning coffee with us. We packed up our frosty camp and hit the trail as we had to cover 9-10 miles by 1 pm to meet Joy at the trailhead for our ride home. This end of the trail is markedly different from the trail we had done the day before. For one it was a more hilly and rough. It was beautiful though and the miles came easy.
An indication of some of the wildlife to be found? By the end of the trail I was feeling very drained. We maintained about a 3 MPH pace in order to make it out by 1 pm and this is a full mph more than my rock solid 2 mph. You wouldn't think it'd make that much difference, would you? It sure does though. My knees were killing me and I was sore for a full week after the hike. It usually doesn't take me that long to recuperate from an asskick but man, I was hurting bad. The trail was no rougher than what I was used to so I can only imagine it was due to the increase in pace. Ok, OK! It is basely caused by my lack of fitness! We made it to the trailhead about 5 minutes before Joy got there and was I ever glad to see the end of the trail! We went back to Lavonia and cleaned up and hit the Chinese buffet and left to the cries and demands of, "You go now! You been here four hour! You no pay! Just go now!" Yeah, we ate good. CT [Because of the fact that I usually don't take my journal with me on non-solo hikes this is all written in retrospect and I don't have a gear list for the trip. I need to be sure to take it with me from now on. One gear note I learned is that I need to beef up the wind screen on the Esbit stove and that the Esbit lost a bit of it's effectiveness due to the cold. I may take it out one more time this year with a better screen to so how it does. If it doesn't perform up to snuff I'll put it away until spring.] |
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