Building trail in Yankee Springs:  When Charlie Krammin, Steve Hicks and Mike Wilkey seemed to be the only three to gather for breakfast on Saturday at the Gun Lake Inn, they feared briefly that they might be the work crew for the day. 

The task ahead was sizeable — finally putting trail on the ground as the final phase of a big project initiated many moons ago by Charlie to get the NCNST moved off the horse trail between Norris Road and Hall Lake. 

Mercifully they were eventually joined by Ron Sootsman and Larry Pio.  Ron had run into an unexpected delay at Delton when he'd had to use his car jack to extricate the Chief Noonday work trailer from the mud.

But things got even better as work time approached.  At Hall Lake the work crew grew to fourteen with the addition of Scoutmaster Rod Brownell and Bill Asakevich, with three scouts from Delton Troop 50: Zach Haas, Jarryd Calhoun, and Ray St. Onge, along with Jeff Fleming, Mick Hawkins, and Tom Warner of Chief Noonday and Jim Studt of West Michigan Chapter.  Actually, make that fifteen, counting Verle Krammin who executed a couple of "rescue" missions with keys and a trip to the DNR headquarters.

The workers, with crew boss Charlie, organized themselves into teams based on task:
•  Jim reprised his role from a previous work day at Kellogg Biological Station by expertly wielding the Stihl BR 600 backpack leaf blower and clearing nearly 2/3 of the re-route section to a little ways east of the Pines Trail two-track.
•  Steve, Ron and Jeff served as sawyers, assisted by Larry and Mike.  They essentially cleared the whole re-route track of downed trees and limbs. 
•  Charlie, in addition to affording leadership, instruction and inspiration, also did a little cutting up of his own with the chainsaw and ran his ancient roto-tiller to prep the sections to be benched.
•  The hardy five from Troop 50, along with Mick and Tom, got about half of the benching done that we estimated would be required for the whole re-route.  Charlie figured that about 600 feet of benching was completed.

Key:  A. where re-route takes off east and south from original trail.  B. intersection of re-route with old horse trail where we started building the new trail southward.  C. orienteering marker post.  D. about how far we got benching from point B.  E. Pines Scenic Trail 2-track crossing (now closed to vehicular traffic).  F. where we finished leaf-blowing and clearing from the north.  G. the southeast end of the re-route where it crosses the horse trail and joins the original trail out to the Norris Road trailhead near the site of Yankee Bill's hotel and the original "Yankee Springs." H. the "Little Mac" bridge.  J. the Norris Road kiosk and parking area.

We'd initially anticipated this project would take three full workdays.  But after getting about half the job done today, we figure we have a good crack at getting it completed in one more workday on April 25th — at least the trail-building part if not the marking. 

We still need to build the pathway at the north end of the re-route (between points A and B on the map mash-up), then continue clearing and benching west to the intersection with the horse trail at the Norris Road end.  The entire re-route will need to be blue-blazed, several Carsonite posts will need to be placed, and marking on the horse trail will need to be revised.

Thanks to all who pitched in today.  Special thanks to Charlie Krammin for all his steadfast pioneering work on this project, and to DNR staff Ben Stapish, YSRA Park Manager, and Andru Jevicks, YSRA Park Supervisor, whose valuable support and legwork was essential to getting this project approved and off the ground — or, should we say, on the ground!

Mick Hawkins, Webmaster   

Annual Meeting to host Tom Funke:  Chief Noonday Chapter's Annual Meeting on May 13 will feature a presentation by one of our pre-eminent hiker/outdoorsmen, Tom Funke. 

Tom is Director of Conservation for the Michigan Audubon Society, as well as a member and trail adopter in Chief Noonday Chapter.  He doesn't even leave the job behind when he goes home from work, because he is Resident Manager of two Audubon sanctuaries in Barry County — the Robert and Mildred Otis Sanctuary, where he lives, and the Ronald "Pop" Warner Sanctuary. 

Tom has spent more time hiking the trails of Michigan than most of us can even dream about.  Not to mention that he has hiked over 1,500 miles of the North Country National Scenic Trail, including hiking the entire states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.  He's also hiked hundreds of miles in Minnesota and elsewhere in Pennsylvania.  (Click here for more information on Tom's resumé and how he keeps busy.)

Tom's presentation at the Annual Meeting will focus on the hiking trails in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan — a subject for which he's well qualified to speak, having written 50 Hikes In Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  His book was just published last summer.

Tom will have copies of his book available for sale at the meeting and will even autograph them for you.  If you can't make the meeting, you can still obtain the book from Tom's Web site.

The main item of Chapter business at the Annual Meeting will be voting on revised by-laws for the Chief Noonday Chapter.  The proposed revisions with commentary were scrutinized and discussed at the March and April monthly Chapter meetings, and copies were e-mailed to all chapter members for whom we had e-mail addresses.  [Update 5/13/2009: The full text of the by-laws as revised and approved at the Annual Meeting can be seen and downloaded here.]

Mick Hawkins, Webmaster   

Hiking the Baker Audubon Sanctuary:  We ventured off the North Country National Scenic Trail for this month’s hike.  We found another great source for early morning vittles at the Riverside Cafe in Bellevue.  Larry and Mick Hawkins, Charlie Krammin and Ron Sootsman met there, had a good breakfast, and were on the road to Baker Sanctuary in amazing time, arriving there way ahead of our scheduled gathering. 

Cal Lamoreaux shares some of his geological expertise with Joe Higdon at one of the Exploratoria along the main Meadow and Marshland Trail.

At the Baker Lodge we met and talked with Mike Boyce, the resident manager of Baker Sanctuary, while we waited for Cal Lamoreaux, Joe Higdon and his daughter, sister-in-law and her twin golden retrievers to arrive.  Mike was setting up for a workday with the Audubon member volunteers

The day couldn’t have been any nicer, and a hike with both Charlie and Cal is a delight for those of us who need a little more “larnin” in botany, birding, forestry and geology. 

We hiked the Doty Wildflower Trail on the east side of the sanctuary first, and there were wildflowers emerging, skunk cabbage, hepatica and water cress among others.  This trail is composed of a boardwalk through wetland and a trail through a mixed mature forest.

Taking a break around a handy old black cherry tree on the Meadow and Marshland Trail:  Charlie Krammin, Ron Sootsman, Joe Higdon, Mick Hawkins, Cal Lamoreaux.  (Photo by Larry Hawkins)

We convoyed over to the Meadow and Marshland Trail on the west side of the sanctuary for an altogether different experience walking through meadow and along a large cattail marsh. 

Unbeknownst to us Steve and Josie Hicks were out there hiking ahead of us having come later and missed the gathering earlier.

We identified species of swallows, bluebirds, field sparrows, and hawks.  The main group failed to see any cranes, but Ron saw a crane and a wild turkey before the group hike started, and Steve and Josie reported seeing four cranes.

Joe and his family and Cal left after we completed the second loop, and the rest of us headed down to Turkeyville for lunch — and that’s where we met Steve and Josie and caught up on their hike experience.

The Baker Sanctuary is a great site for birding and wildflowers, and we all agreed it would be a good site for hikes as the spring and summer progress. The trails are easy, not too long, and would be great for children.

As always, we invite those of you who were unable to join us this time to hike with us at one of our future events.  Just check out the Events Calendar on the web site.

Larry Hawkins
Chapter President - Chief Noonday Chapter of the NCTA

George Lee, Bill Asakevich and Rod Brownell deftly wielded McLeod tools — when they weren't being interrupted by the photographer.

Yankee Springs revisited:  Our workday this month was a squeaker, weather-wise.  It was warm and gorgeous when we gathered for breakfast at the Gun Lake Diner, home of the world’s largest omelets. 

Steve Hicks and Larry Hawkins were sort of waddling when they left and weren’t too sure about working.  Ron Sootsman had his usual short stack of blueberry pancakes; so he was rarin’ to go.  Charlie Krammin accidentally ate breakfast at Sandy’s but showed up in time for the planning session at the GLD.

When we arrived at Hall Lake, the rest of the crew rolled in.  Bill Asakevich and Rod Brownell came without the scouts of Troop 50 this time.  Between a huge cross-country invitational and the Science Olympiad, the troop was decimated.  

George Lee, fresh and tanned from his travels in the south land, also showed up ready to work. 

Tom Warner arrived in his pickup, fortunately, rather than his motorcycle — he would have had a wet ride home otherwise.
 

"Absolutely No Horses!" — or else tangle with a not very happy Steve Hicks.

Charlie had already warned us that the horse people have already been out on our brand new trail.  To say that we were disappointed at the amount of damage that they had done to our freshly built trail would be an understatement.

Charlie Krammin did spade work the old-fashioned roto-tiller way.

Charlie feels that a little weather and some hikers will undo the damage, although it looks like it is going to have to be gone over again with McLeods to really bring it back.

Naturally, our first job was to post “Absolutely No Horses” signs where the reroute intersects with the horse trail.  Larry and Steve carried an eight foot 4x4 back into the south intersection, an experience which taught us that it is much wiser to look at a map before you start off bushwhacking.  Neither of them had high blood sugar issues by midday.

Ron was the lucky guy to get the blower today.  He hiked back to the Pines Road intersection and blew leaves and debris both ways.  He used up one tank of gas and had to come back for another.
 

Ron Sootsman worked — then hiked a few miles to boot.

Charlie had his monster roto-tiller out, and Tom, George, Rod and Bill wielded the McLeods and probably got us about half way from where we left off last month to the Pines Road Intersect.  They built some pretty trail into the hillside.

Tom Warner worked on the trail — and did some rescue work on the side.

As mentioned, we will have to be back to finish the rest of the way to the southern horse trail intersection and probably repair the damage done by the horses.  We should have the decals and Carsonite posts from the NPS, so we can mark and blaze the route as well.

We arrived back at the trailer to pack up and sign our volunteer forms for the DNR/YSRA just as the rain began to fall.  Tom rescued some young hikers who were stranded in the rain and took then back to their trailhead.  Larry ferried Ron Sootsman back to the M-179 trail head where Ron began his trek in the rain back to Hall Lake.

You guys need to get hiking and report your miles to Larry Pio.  Ron and the lady in the wheelchair (Linda Sootsman) are making you look bad!

Larry Hawkins
Chapter President - Chief Noonday Chapter of the NCTA

News briefs:  Here are a few items from our "short & sweet" department, so you can get back to enjoying the spring weather — or whatever weather Michigan is dishing out to you at the moment:

1)  The National Web site:  There's been a lot going on lately with the North Country Trail Association's spanking new Web site rebuild that is definitely worth checking out. 
    Recent developments in NCTA's presence on the internet and the instant communication, sharing, collaboration scene include "Web 2.0" features:
●  Facebook — social networking comes to the NCNST.
●  a new Wiki Trail Guide including Michigan's own page — guide to the NCNST driven by the people like you who work on it.
●  Twitter
●  The Insight blog — for an inside look at what's going on in and around the NCNST.
●  The Trail Tech blog — for news tips, tricks and ideas on all things tech as they apply to the NCNST and the NCTA.
●  Flickr — the North Country Trail's photostream
●  YouTube
    Not familiar with "Web 2.0"?  Read about it in Wikipedia.

2)   Hiking the NCNST in the Upper Peninsula:   Two of our avid NCNST workers, supporters, and users, Jeff Fleming of Chief Noonday and Jim Studt of Western Michigan Chapter recently joined a couple other people for an early season hiking trek on the North Country Trail in the Upper Peninsula.  Click here and here — and enjoy some of their pictures.

3)   New maps:  The Webmaster has been hard at work on a project to develop maps of off-road trail in our tri-county area.  Here are some "first fruits" of his efforts:
●  Kellogg Biological Station — and here is a view of a new map which Mick cobbled together for the kiosks at KBS.
●  The proposed pathway for Phase 1, Segment 1 of the Calhoun County Trails Alliance trail in Emmett Township east of Battle Creek, much of which it is expected the North Country Trail will one day share.
●  The trail re-route in Yankee Springs Recreation Area between Norris Road and Hall Lake, which we've been building the past couple of months.
●  The NCNST pathway through the Village of Homer, including Homer's old Grist Mill Park and their beautiful Linear Park along the Kalamazoo River.
●  The NCNST pathway through the City of Albion, including Albion's Victory and Rieger Parks and the River Trail along the Kalamazoo River.
●   The NCNST pathway through the  City of Marshall, including Marshall's Riverwalk along the Kalamazoo River in Calhoun County.
●   The NCNST pathway through Kimball Pines County Park east of Battle Creek.
●   The NCNST pathway through the Ott Biological Preserve east of Battle Creek.
 

From left:  John Rudnicki, Steve Hicks, Larry Pio, Mike Wilkey, Larry Hawkins (president of Chief Noonday Chapter), Mary Fleming, Ron Sootsman, Jim Martin, Bob Cooley, and Mick Hawkins.   Rounding out the group but not present for the picture: George Lee, Jerry Pattok, Roxanne Potter, Marcia Mellen, Tom Funke, Josh Richie, Jeff Fleming, Susan Bond, Joe Higdon, Chris Vreeland and family, and Terry Meden.  (To see a larger image in Firefox, right-click on this picture, then on View Image.)

Trail Adopters 2009:  A group of our Trail Adopters gathered at Kellogg Forest on May 9 with Dave Cornell for the annual Adopters get-together and picture. 

This year no blue paint was spilled.  The only mishap was with the picture itself.  The dark and rainy day provided lousy light conditions, so a flash unit was needed.  The flash unit did not play nice with that (reflective!) NPS Triangle Emblem sign that we always set up in front for the Adopters picture.  Click here to see what one of the unedited pictures really looked like as a result.  The image above was the result of the Webmaster spending an hour in Photoshop doing repairs.  Live and learn....

The Chapter was happy to welcome a new Adopter, Bob Cooley, who will serve as an "Adopter apprentice" to John Rudnicki and will take over John's Trail section in Emmett Township when John retires after this year.

The roster of Adopters for this year appears on our Volunteer Recognition page.