Melanie Radzicki McManus - Thousand-Miler: Adventures Hiking the Ice Age Trail

Thousand-Miler

Thousand-Miler

Adventures Hiking the Ice Age Trail

Melanie Radzicki McManus

WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY PRESS

Published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press

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2017 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin

E-book edition 2017

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: McManus, Melanie Radzicki, 1961 author.

Title: Thousand-miler : adventures hiking the Ice Age Trail / Melanie Radzicki McManus.

Description: [Madison, Wisconsin] : Wisconsin Historical Society Press, [2017] Identifiers: LCCN 2016043299 (print) | LCCN 2016043924 (ebook) | ISBN 9780870207907 (paperback : alkaline paper) | ISBN 9780870207914 (ebook) | ISBN 9780870207914 (Ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Ice Age National Scenic Trail (Wis.)History. | Ice Age National Scenic Trail (WisDescription and travel. | McManus, Melanie Radzicki, 1961 TravelWisconsinIce Age National Scenic Trail. | HikingWisconsinIce Age National Scenic Trail. | GeologyWisconsinIce Age National Scenic Trail. | Natural historyWisconsinIce Age National Scenic Trail. | HikersWisconsinIce Age National Scenic TrailBiography.

Classification: LCC QE697 .M454 2017 (print) | LCC QE697 (ebook) | DDC 796.5109775dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016043299

To my S.B., of course.

Contents

Ice Age Trail Route

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

LAO TZU, CHINESE PHILOSOPHER AND POET

A kaleidoscope of colors and shapes whirls outside the car window. If I could focus, even a little, Id see rolling, green hills. Sparkling sapphire lakes. Golden prairie grasses just starting to burnish to a russet sheen. Stands of pine so thick theyre almost ebony in hue. But even the neatly rolled hay bales I love to admire while driving through the bucolic Wisconsin countryside are nearly invisible to my eyes today, appearing merely as smudged amber dots on the horizon. Im unable to take in the scenic landscape because my thoughts are caught up in a frantic loop, continually reminding me that no matter how many miles we put behind us, more will simply unspool ahead. Something pings my chest. Fear? Anticipation?

Ed and I have already been barreling down the highway at sixty-five miles per hour for more than two hours, and weve still got several more hours to go before reaching our destination: St. Croix Falls, a sleepy town of 2,100 perched on the rocky bluffs towering over the St. Croix River in northwestern Wisconsin. Well have zipped along more than 250 miles of highway to get there from our home just outside of Madison, the capital, which squats down low in the center of the state not too far from the Illinois border. A 250-mile car trip is pretty long. My butt is already angrily cramping in protest at sitting so long, and my legs continually twitch around trying to find some new, more comfortable position. But 250 miles pales in comparison to 1,100, especially when covered on foot. Alone. And in remote, unfamiliar territory filled with Lyme-disease-bearing ticks, poisonous plants, bears, wolves, and Im not even sure what else. Yet thats whats in store for me starting tomorrow, and for every day after that for the next month or so. You see, Im going to hike the Ice Age Trail.

The Ice Age Trail is an eleven-hundred-mile footpath that gently traces the edges of the last glaciation in Wisconsin. One of just eleven National Scenic Trails, its in the same vaunted company as the Appalachian Trail, which runs some 2,181 miles from Georgia to Maine, and the Pacific Crest Trail, which winds 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada, passing through California, Oregon, and Washington along the way. Its also one of just three National Scenic Trails to be coiled entirely inside one state, the other two trails being in Florida and Arizona. Although the Ice Age Trail is a state and national treasureits no easy feat to become designated a National Scenic Trailmany people are unaware of its existence, even Wisconsinites. And more than 3.4 million of us live within an hours drive of some portion of the trail.

Why has the trail never grown in our collective consciousness? Perhaps because it isnt yet complete; about 650 miles of footpaths have been carved into the land so far, stitched together by 450 miles of road, dubbed connecting routes. Maybe its because Wisconsin isnt home to an avid hiking culture, like those found in mountainous regions such as Colorado or New England. Or perhaps its because we midwesterners, long derided by East and West Coast folks as living in flyover country, have bought into that notion, believing our corner of the United States couldnt possibly be home to anything truly special.

About a year before I began planning my hike, I was one of the clueless who had no idea what the Ice Age Trail was, despite having hiked, skied, and run along numerous segments of the trail for years. Sure, Id seen the name before, along with the trails signature yellow blazes. But I never stopped to ponder that Id used something called the Ice Age Trail in the Kettle Moraine State Forest in the eastern half of the state, and at Indian Lake County Park near my home, and over at Lapham Peak in Delafield, west of Milwaukee, and up at Devils Lake, Wisconsins most popular state park. But once I learned what the Ice Age Trail was, I became entranced with the notion of following a one-thousand-plus-mile path all around the statethrough hardwood forests and pine plantations, across waving grasslands and lumpy farm fields, over rivers, along a Great Lake, through trail towns big and small. I could get to know my beloved state on an intimate basis, step by step, in a way few other people ever would, unearthing its hidden secrets, inhaling its heady scents, listening as it spoke to me through the sighing wind, the rustling prairie grasses and the creaking forestland. I could become part of the landscape, and the very earth could become part of me. As someone who has always felt a primal connection to my home state, the thought was intoxicating. Seductive. The trail was singing a siren song, and I couldnt resist.

So here I am.

Ed exits Interstate 94 when we reach Eau Claire, pointing the car north along State Highway 53. The sudden change in speed and direction abruptly halts my obsessive thoughts about the length of my pending hike.