May 19 2012 - South of Lodi

Sunny and 80s

Hike 2: Madison Segment - Lessons Learned

Since the last hike, there have been some developments in Casa de Hiker. The Hikeress was out of commission for a few weeks with a neck injury. And, we picked up the Ice Age Trail Atlas and Ice Age Trail Companion Guide at REI. I'll get to this later, but it's a good thing we did.

Today's hike was a 6.3+ mile jaunt from Highway PD to Woods Rd through University Ridge Golf Course.

The weather was fine for a fall morning: 55 degrees and overcast. It was supposed to rain, but unlike last time, the rain actually held off today. The 6.3 miles took us approximately 2 hours or so. We crossed Hwy PD (the walk button at the jogging trail, though not, technically, part of the Ice Age Trail, works very effectively at stopping traffic to cross PD), hiked down the hill to Raymond Rd, attempted to cross Hwy M, got through University Ridge, and made it to Woods Rd.

During the course of the two hours you have some time to think about things, like:

- thankfully I dressed appropriately today

- I did not wear the right shoes (note to self and others: combat boots need more padding in the soles)

- How, with one car, are we going to hike this whole damned thing (without two cars we have to hike every segment as an out-and-back - essentially hiking everything twice)?

- Who the heck marked this trail?

Luckily we had actually read the Companion Guide before heading out today. The trail at Hwy M is not exactly intuitive.

This is from the trail looking at Flagstone Dr. The stop sign is HWY M. It is not clear here, at all, what direction to go. It seems relatively obvious that we need to cross M, however, there is no obvious place to cross. Moreover, there is no Blaze on the other side of M. We thought we had basically two options:

1) Cross Hwy M and go to the left to the driveway for the Noer Turf Grass Facility

2) Walk through the allotment to the right, to a safer place to cross Hwy M

If we didn't know that we were supposed to be crossing Hwy M, we would have no idea where to go. The Hiker thought that we should go to the driveway; the Hikeress, after success with the walk signal on PD, thought we should find a safer place to walk. It turns out the the answer is to eschew safety, run out into traffic, and go to the driveway for the Noer Turf Grass Facility. 

Lesson learned. Safety is for losers.

It did, however, give us pause to consider that if the trail marking was this questionable in a populated area like Madison, the prospects for the lumber trails in Northern Wisconsin were dim indeed.

The rest of the hike was relatively uneventful.

Hike 1: Baby Steps and Just Doing It

What do Dr. Leo Marvin, Eric Ries, Michael Jordan, and the two of us (The Hiker and The Hikeress) have in common? We all believe that at some point you just have to get out and take the bull by the horns. Although Dr. Marvin may suggest first grabbing a kitten by the ears. Baby steps.

Much like my first (and, to-date, only) half-marathon, the Hikeress said one day (OK, the morning of the hike) "Let's go hike the Ice Age Trail". I'm pretty sure she just meant we should go hike a portion of a segment. But I heard "Let's figure out how to hike the whole damned thing".*

I don't know much about The Ice Age Trail. I know it's a relatively new set of connected trails that go across Wisconsin roughly along the edge of the last glaciers to invade the United States about 10,000 years ago. As of this writing, that's pretty much the entirety of my knowledge of: Wisconsin History, Glaciers, and Hiking.

On Sunday, October 23, 2011 we decided to take our first baby steps out in Verona. We started at the Ice Age Trail trailhead on County Hwy PD. Upon arriving at the trailhead we were confused. The Hikeress had wanted to hike North and go through University Ridge, but the map at the trailhead only showed the route South. We weren't entirely sure which direction was which, but there was an arch that said "Ice Age Trail", so we went that direction. Turns out it was South.

The Hikeress and I are not hikers by trade. We aren't avid campers though we get out maybe a few times a year to camp and hike at state parks. The biggest hike I've ever done was a 7 mile hike in Glacier National Park; it consisted of hiking a dense forest for 1.5 miles straight up the side of a mountain, walking along a forested ridge for 3.5 miles or so, then walking down the side of the mountain 1.5 miles. It was a surprisingly difficult and disappointingly dull hike. I was only at Glacier National for less than 24 hours. The Hikeress runs 5k's maybe once a month and I bike to work and the occasional longer ride, maybe a run or two if I feel like it. We aren't in the world's greatest shape, though we probably look less fit than we are because of our sedentary work "demands".

Which is all to say that we are probably in better in shape than the "average" American, but not by much. We more or less put some normal clothes on; I wore a regular ol' pair of hiking boots, jogging pants, and a long-sleeve t-shirt, and The Hikeress wore tennis shoes, jeans, and a fleece pull-over. We didn't start the hike before stopping at EVP to get some apple cider to take on the hike with us.** The weather was upper 50s to mid-60s depending if the sun was out and on the return part of the hike we had a light-ish rain.

Below, I've included a map and elevation of the hike. 4.19 miles and it included a category 5 climb! Which is only funny because I was commenting when we began, as we walked straight downhill, that the hike back would probably not be much fun. Actually, it wasn't really that bad at all and made an otherwise mundane walk in a prairie seem at least something of a workout. If you are familiar with the Madison area, the hike went past both Reddan Soccer Complex and what looked like a minimum security prison.

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* One day The Hikeress asks me "Do you want to run a half marathon?" Before I knew what I was saying I had said "OK." Followed quickly by the thought "Why the hell did I just say that?" I had never run further than 5 miles or so (I think I ran an 8k once, but I'm not sure if it was 8k or 5k). I ran the half marathon based on the following theory: if you can run 3 miles you can run 5 miles; if you can run 5 miles, you can run 8 miles; if you can run 8, it's really not that far to 12; and once you hit 12, you're basically done with the half-marathon. Therefore, if you can 3 miles you can do a half marathon. The theory works, though it is not the most pleasant way to spend an afternoon (and the following 3 days).

** I wish I had nice things to say about EVP, but alas, we got the ciders because we didn't just trust the barista to make anything else.