And so this is Christmas

With the holidays approaching, I decided to play a little hookie from my dissertation and family obligations and do some winter hiking.  Winter is a great opportunity to let my new pup run off leash, since he has well trained puppy friends and few stimulating hikers where we chose to go, plus large swatches of land without paved roads to dodge. Admittedly I had some concerns about snowmobile traffic,  which ended up being unwarranted.

We went hiking on the north country trail in Michigan around the traverse city area,  and it did not disappoint! Our section started a little south of Fife Lake and went north toward Kalkaska. The hiking club maintaining this stretch of trail has been active,  so the maps you can purchase through NCT are a bit out of date.  The interactive map, however,  is spot on.  And the sections they added are gorgeous, traversing beautiful stream banks and rolling hills. We began where the trail crosses 131 south of Fife Lake at a roadside park. The park is closed in winter but there is still room in front of the gate to park your car for a day hike. If you plan to overnight,  there is a campground about 2 miles trail south that would be more appropriate. The trail here is easy and follows a pretty river. A bench sits at a nice overlook about a mile in for those of you who are just passing thru. About five or six miles in,  you hit a lovely dam.  In the summer,  this stretch is full of swimming spots begging to be used.  A state campground about 8.5 miles in is lovely,  though primitive,  and has privies a plenty. When we went through there was a tree down in a campsite,  but there was evidence that someone was already working to remove it. 

You cross railroad tracks after the campground,  and can make your way into the town of Fife Lake both from Lakeshore Drive (which is a bit of a needless hike) and by following 4th street or a snowmobile trail away from the NCT, which the trail follows briefly before crossing west over 131.

The trail is pretty, but nondescript from this point until you travel north of Mayfield rd. About 2.5 miles north of that road crossing, you enter a portion of the trail (signed at the north end) called "valley of the giants." There is a lovely stretch of stealth camping if I ever saw it. A few miles north of that is Sheck's campground, which looked pretty nice. There were a lot of picnic tables and fire rings, anyway. This stretch is also a little more hilly, and just all around pretty.

The scene maintains its beauty for another 4.5 miles or so, which is where the holiday season got the better of us and ended our long stretch of day hiking. In sum, we walked around 27 miles of the NCT, all of them snowy and most of them quite beautiful. This was a Christmas gift I gave myself, and I loved every minute of it.

Well done, winter wonderland.

another country heard from

Its been a long time, internet!

Well, not really. But shortly after our last post, my magic phone stopped being magical. It took more battery to connect to the internet and type a blog post than the phone got while charging. So a two hour break was no longer conducive to blogging. Add to that the fact that my phone was already an old, crappy thing that didn't have the right (insert tech phrase) to write to the blog offline and just upload when we had a connection, and that writing in the memo app wasn't able to copy and paste to blogger (I lost a good 10 days worth of blog posts that way), and that was it. Since I had followed so many blogs in the months before my hike, I felt really badly. I remember how much fun I had virtually following people - coming home from a long day of grad school and hopping onto my favorite blogger's pages to see why I was working so hard - I wanted to pay it forward with this blog.

Then you ask, so why didn't you upload when you got back? Did you quit the trail?

Good questions.

About the time I realized there was no hope for my old phone and blogging (see lost blog posts note above), I got some amazing trail magic and some terrible news. We were in New Jersey, sitting at a bar (the name escapes me now, and my ATbook is stored with my gear), and met an amazing couple. They invited us over for dinner, showers, and a comfy couch, and we were more than happy to comply. They also taught us an amazing way to drink whiskey...with a chocolate milk chaser. Honest to goodness, don't knock it till you try it. We hadn't made our miles for the day, but their company was so pleasant, we decided to indulge in their kindness.

And thankful I am we did. The next morning my father called. My grandmother had passed away. The couple lent us their GPS unit, got us to a car rental place, and helped me get back to say goodbye to my beloved gram.

Needless to say, when we got back from the funeral, the trail had lost a lot of its carefree happiness. I sat down to blog a few times, and I just couldn't. I knew I wanted to finish the trail, knew my gram would want that for me, but I no longer had the emotional energy to write it all down for the world to read. I kept a hand-written journal the whole trail (highly recommended weight - a mini composition book goes a long way), and I continued to write in it. But down time was for me. I had to recharge my batteries. There was a lot of crying while walking, a lot of intense contemplation. When we made camp for the night, or found ourselves in a town, I got loud, friendly(ier than usual) with the locals, and drunk.

So, you ask, why are you writing now?

Firstly, I don't know who 'you' might be, or if 'you' exist. But I'm writing now because 1) NASCAR sent me an email, I responded, and never heard from him. If for no one other than Nascar, Bullwinkle, and the few people we grew to love on the trail, I wanted to let them know we finished. There is some grey area there. We skipped a section to hit the Whites when Jesse's brothers came out. They wanted to hike with us in the Whites, not in the foothills. Our plans would have put us there if not for the time off for the funeral.

And we skipped some of Maine. Jesse got hurt, quite a substantial back injury that had him on muscle relaxers for 2 weeks. Sleeping in the woods and not going anywhere was out of the question: anything but a bed hurt his back. So we spent a lot of money on a crappy hotel in the middle of nowhere. Eventually we decided we wanted family and our money more than we wanted to pass every white blaze on the trail. But we both really wanted to hike Katahdin. It had been such a goal for so long, we needed it.

We did hike Katahdin. And at the top, Jesse proposed! It was a beautiful ending to what had been the experience of a lifetime. Though bittersweet with the loss of my gram and the injury, we felt gloriously accomplished. And I hope we go back someday to hike the 100mile wilderness and catch the section we missed. Maybe we'll make up for missing the Shennys - but I doubt it. I loved aquablazing with every fiber of my being, and truly believe we saw those mountains the way they should be seen. From heron hatcheries to the friends we found in Farmer and Chovinard, it was my second favorite part of the trip. Besides, there's too much beautiful land to see in the world to travel the same patch twice. I've got my eyes on the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan, bagging all 46 peaks in the Adirondacks, and maybe the John Muir trail...and that's all in addition to the Carmino del Santiago. Yes please, wine hike! (BTWs, hope you're well, Ironman!)

In the lack of Christmas spirit brought on by the loss of the aforementioned matriarch, we haven't made holiday cards to send in thanks of those who helped us on our way. We will, we promise. But expect them later in the year. Perhaps as a SAD (seasonal affective disorder) pick-me-up in February, on the cusp of another year of promising thru hikers!

I'm also writing because I want to have a record of all of the awesome hikes Jesse and I do. We're starting an adventure together now. One even bigger than the AT. Also because lots of trails in our home state of Michigan have very little information floating around about them on the interwebs. We've been hiking the North Country Trail here in Michigan, and have hiked a section of the Michigan Shore-to-Shore trail. Someone has to encourage people around here to get out of doors!

If you (whoever you are) find yourself in Michigan and want to hike - or grab a beer and talk trail - shoot me an email. Make sure you include your email in the note (as per my sad lack of correspondence with Nascar, I think this thing might randomize your email when you send the note).

And look forward to hearing more adventures from Margarita and the now-less-aptly named TreeBeard. Happy trails!