Packs float...who knew?

Over the summer, Jesse and I also did some hiking on the MCCCT. It follows the Au Sable river for quite a while, and despite the very few other blog entries I've read by hikers re:this trail, it was quite nice. I can imagine that if you're sharing the trail actively with horses and their riders, you might not be as thrilled, but there were places to camp all along our stretch of trail (which was near Byron Lake and on the NatGeo map of Huron National Forest) and it was great. There were 2 or 3 campgrounds along our section, so we got to chat with others outside enjoying themselves, too. We hiked out about 8 miles from the car...

This is where I have to stop and explain how brilliant Jesse is (whether I like to admit it or not). You see, it was the 4th of July, and while we were happy to be hiking, it was hard to watch the drunken people tubing down the river all lazily and not be a little jealous. So, Jesse suggested that we only pack hiking essentials and leave our camping gear at a site chosen near our start. Which left them nice and light for packing 1) beer, and 2) uninflated tubes. We got to a road about 8 miles up that people were putting in at, with a town with a bar only 1/4 mile from said bridge. I stayed back and inflated the tubes, Jesse went to the bar to grab some to-go beer.

Then, we threw ourselves and our packs into the water, tied them all together with guy line, and used mother nature to carry us back home. Turns out, the packs float nicely and make a GREAT table for resting a 12 pack of beer on!

I'd have given a lot for a picture of this endeavor, us floating down the river in hiking pants with packs as rafts...but alas, no waterproof camera. Trust me, it's on my list now.

Gonna take a sentimental journey

Over the 4th of July, Jesse and I chose to sneak away from our sets of parents for a few days and go hiking and camping for a few days. We spent our time in Huron National Forest in the northeastern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan.

We hiked a lovely loop in the Hoist Lakes Trail System, starting at the trailhead off F32 and traveling northeast on the trail. We got a late start, having had breakfast with my parents at our cabin in West Branch. We took a nice break at the other trailhead about 8 miles later, and ran into the Forest Service guy who was checking the parking lot there. Word to the wise: the signs at the trailheads say that there is water on the trail, but they took the wells out a while ago. We decontaminate water with bleach (one drop per liter) and filter solid bits with a bandana so it wasnt a problem. 

I was ready to stop at the lake 2.5 miles in from the second trailhead. There was a gorgeous campsite at the northwest corner of the southern lake, just past a 

Iittle bridge that traversed the stream connecting the upper and lower lakes. But there were a few different groups of people at the lake already, and we still had hours of sunlight, so Jesse suggested we go further, maybe to 'no name' lake, and camp there. There weren't designated campsites on no name, but we are pretty good stealth campers, so we thought we'd give it a shot.

No name lake was a mosquito-filled cesspit. Some respite from the heat, but we weren't sleeping there. The lake was nicely sized, but had bog-like growths reducing it to half its size. Great for fishing, I suspect. But we couldnt get water there, and we would need more before morning, so we continued on. 

We hiked a little over 14 miles to Byron lake. Boy was it worth it! Only about 1.5 miles from the trailhead from which we had started hours earlier (talk about the long way around, eh?), since the trailhead was on the lesser used road, nobody was there. But the lake was pristine. There was a big fire pit and some fishing line/hooks from someone else who must frequent the spot, but we had the lake to ourselves. 

We jumped in to cool off and rinse 14 miles of hiking off of us, then made camp right on the beach. Check out our campsite!

                In the next entry, I'll describe to you our brilliant day hike along the Michigan shore to shore trail near here. There was a touch of epic...

Virtual Memories

I've learned a lot of things this summer. I'm not going to talk about that, though. However, I also made a few neat discoveries about the area around me. But...I don't remember things well, I get distracted too easily to journal, and the interwebs has lots of pretty PDFs to share. Also, I lose things, so the idea of the magical ether gnomes storing info for me, and allowing me to add posts  from any one of the zillions of devices via methods only previously dreamed of (dude, seriously, you can text a post....), well, it's pretty magical.

And I had a couple of not great weeks. Culminating in a 7am trip to the e.r. vet for my cat, Darwin.

After he and I woke up from drug-induced naps, I decided that recording past and future journeys here will solve a) the problem of the forgetting and the storing the logistics and the planning future trips and the remembering those trips, and b) it'd make me happy to have this record.

Finally, and most importantly for, dear reader (catch the reference? If not, you need to sit yourself down with Harry potter and an Internet connection), I've found out some awesome things about natural areas in Michigan, the state I currently call home. If you like Michigan and nature (and/or beer), I've got deets. Ones that have been tricky to learn about except from other bloggers, helpful but not always finished or up-to-date. I'm gonna try to fix that in my explorations.

So, check in often. I go on weekend journeys and random excursions, and am planning some big trips in the future!