North Country Trail Hike:North Country Trail Hike:
Adapted from the October-December 1997 North Star: The Magazine of the North Country Trail.
by Cora J. Killinger
This summer, my sister Connie, her German Shepherd, Bear, and I started hiking the North Country Trail. We'd like to do the whole thing, but the trouble is that we hike only 5-8 miles a day and are of the age that we figure that at that rate we'd be dead before we finished.
Actually, that wouldn't be a bad way to go, doing what we love to do. When my old hiking shirt wore out last summer, we buried it in the woods along the trail. My sister said, "We've got to think about this. What happens when your boots or your backpack wears out? That's a lot of digging with a little trowel." I should have told her what happens when I wear out!
Since we live in Michigan, we're hiking the NCT in our state. We know the trail south of Croton is mostly road walking to the Michigan/Ohio border. We prefer the woods, so we planned to start out from Croton and head north on the NCT.
We left on our trip on Friday, July 18, after my sister got out of work. It took three hours to drive to Croton, and we camped at a canoe rental campground. There's a dam and power station in the back, and a main road in front -- not really a wilderness experience. The other people there were having a grand time playing music and drinking beer until 1:30 AM. Our policy is to go to bed when it gets dark and get up when it gets light. Suffice it to say our schedules clashed a little!
Saturday morning dawned, and we were anxious to get started. The journey of 875 miles of NCT in Michigan begins with the first step and a heavy pack! It was a beautiful day, sunshine, breezy, about 75 or 80 degrees. The path meanders through woods and some moss covered jack pine forests. The sun rose in the sky, and we crossed a clear-cut area. It was hot, but there's a little shade, then more open, hot grassy areas. We came across some cactus in flower -- the flat, picky kind that winters over. Surely this had to be a desert!
Our packs were heavy, loaded with a week's food and three quarts of water. The dog, Bear, carries her own food and water, and is leashed to Connie's belt when we're hiking. The heat got to all of us. Bear pulled on Connie for a while, then stopped to sniff but never in a shady spot, of course. Connie got grumpy with her and told her to get going, but not to pull.
Later, when we stopped for lunch, Connie mentioned that she gets tired and ornery in the late afternoon. I kidded her about Exception No. 1: Open hot areas -- and said I'd be glad to point out exception No. 2 when we got to it. The good natured kidding had begun. I knew she'd get me back; I just had to wait and see. It's all part of seeing yourself through other's eyes, the sandpaper of life that rubs off the rough edges.
After our first day of hiking, our second night was spent at another campground. We would rather camp in the woods and we'd planned on camping at Cold Creek, but it was dried up. By the time we got to the campground we'd already hiked seven miles and the next lake for water was a couple miles away, so we stopped. The shower was great, but that's about all. The grass at our camp was worn to a frazzle. The place was a beehive of activity with all the sports and recreation known to man available to the 800 or so people that were there. We could hardly wait to get out of this "civilization" and into an environment where instead of the whirr of motors, there's just the breeze in the trees, the birds singing, and lots of soft leaves to put your tent up in. There was a beautiful full moon, but the people at the campground would never know what it was like to have it light the landscape because of all the electric lights. We decided the bathrooms are cleaner out in the woods. Out in the woods, we turn the dog loose and tie up the food, the opposite of the campground.
We left the campground Sunday morning while most people were still sleeping, and had a couple of miles of road walking to do. The road passed over several creeks where we could've gotten water had we went on. One creek was way down in a ravine, very pretty. We were hiking along 40th street, which has a very small shoulder to walk on. We were very glad when the trail turned back into the woods; those cars were too close for comfort. The next stretch of trail wound along the side of a hill overlooking a beautiful creek. Big ferns grew everywhere.
We followed the creek for about a mile. We got to Twinwood Lake and took a break. From there, it wasn't far to M-37. We crossed the road and found ourselves in rolling hills with tall trees. A large hawk spotted us and flew noiselessly through the woods. We reached our intended camp spot at 1:00 PM and ate lunch, then found a spot to put up our tents in the vicinity of the side trail that leads to the roadside park. After we made camp, we went to the roadside park to get drinking water. It was a quarter mile away and we needed enough water for the three of us for supper, breakfast, and the hike on the following day. That much water weighs a lot, so we took an empty backpack to carry it back in. The water was good and cold, and was very refreshing to wash up in.
When the mosquitoes came out, Connie pulled a 6x6' netting tent out of her pack. We sat inside, reading and writing until it was almost dark. It was cloudy and seemed moist and muggy like rain, so we put up a tarp for a kitchen area.
This next part is very embarrassing and humbling for me, but it shows how easy it is to get lost in the woods. I had dug a hole in the woods beside a certain tree, within shouting distance of camp, so when I went to visit it before it got too dark, it was unusual to not walk right to it. The woods were a little foggy, and everything looked the same. I wandered around a little looking for it. Our canine companion was with me -- she always goes with whomever leaves camp, and once we settle down she'll run back to camp. Then, if we take too long she'll come back and check on you. I was wandering around when I realized I couldn't see camp and I didn't even know for sure where it was. I stopped right there and did a "yoo-hoo" to my sister. When she answered, the dog took off in the wrong direction, but I soon realized it was the right direction and I was the one mixed up. I have a real hard time telling the direction of sound because one ear is almost deaf. We kept calling back and forth; at one point I was headed away from her and she hollered that I was getting fainter, so I turned back and soon I could see camp. Well, all that excitement got my adrenaline pumping and I was wide awake, so I sat up and watched as hundreds of fireflies lit up the woods. After a while, I crawled into my tent and went to sleep, content to be out in the woods. During the night it thundered and lightninged a lot and rained a little.
Monday was still cloudy and we ate breakfast under our tarp where it was dry. We were done eating when we heard some more thunder, so we quickly tore down our tents and threw our packs together. We still had the tarp up, and there we huddled for the next 45 minutes while it thundered and poured rain. It got so black that I momentarily lost my green canteen in the grass. When it let up, we packed our tarp, hoisted our packs and set off. Everything was wet: ferns, grass and tree drips. Connie remembered exception No. 2: Getting wet -- but having laughed about it, we both made do and hiked on through tall pine plantations and oak and wintergreen forests.
Bear was a real trooper in the wet conditions; she sloshed through a lot of wet ferns before she was willing to give up the lead. She was carrying a pack of about 18 pounds; ours are 40 to 55 pounds, depending on how much food and water we have. A wet tent, tarp and wet shoes and raingear all add to it, so by late afternoon we were real happy to see the sun come out.
Just before we got to White River, we came to a place where there were some trail signs, and we took a picture of the three of us by using the delayed flash and setting the camera on top of my backpack. We got to the White River and found a place to set up our camp. We hung our wet things to dry in the nice breeze that had come up.
We enjoyed the White River. There is a large iron bridge over it; we filtered our water from the river and had a beautiful moonlit night. After supper we were sitting in our little screen room on the ground and my back got tired, so I laid back on my foam mat and brought my knees in sort of a stretch that felt real good. Connie looked over at me and said, "What'd you do? Fall out of your chair?" Gotcha!
The next day, Tuesday, we set off and soon encountered Rattlesnake Creek. The trail follows it for a while; it's a beautiful, shady area, with ferns and cedars lining the creek. We didn't have far to go. We camped at Second Cole Creek in an open, grassy area under some oak trees. We took baths out in the woods and washed our hair. A person gets so sweaty and dirty hiking in the hot, sticky weather that the cold water to wash in feels like a luxury. Second Cole Creek is pretty, with a nice sandy bottom and lots of ferns. There is a unique bridge there; it's made of roots of the surrounding trees. The open area where we camped had an old fire pit, so we made a little twig fire to entertain ourselves as it got dark. There's something special about sitting around a fire! We doused it real good with water from the creek before we went to bed.
The next day, Wednesday, was another nice hiking day, with temperatures in the 60s to start out and in the 70s in the afternoon. We hiked through hilly areas of oaks and maples, tall trees that block out the sun reaching the forest floor, making for an open area under the trees. So far, we hadn't met any other backpackers; we had met one couple out dayhiking on our first day. They only had one vehicle, so they had to hike the trail twice. They're doing the NCT in weekends.
On our way to Croton on Friday, we'd dropped a food box at the old schoolhouse that used to be NCTA headquarters. They rent it out to hikers and groups now, and we rented it for that night and the next one. We got there at 3:00 PM; the first thing I did was take a shower and emerged a new person! I even washed out the clothes I was wearing and put them back on. At least they were clean, and what a way to cool off after a hot summer hike! The schoolhouse has cots, big tables to spread your stuff on and a stove with an oven. I mixed up a bread mix and baked it in the oven. Ginny Wunsch, the caretaker, was kind enough to take me back to Croton to get the car. Now, we could go to the laundromat and visit the Loda Lake Wildflower Sanctuary on Thursday, a no-hiking day.
The school house is a neat place to stay, not only because of its history of being a school house and NCT headquarters with maps and pamphlets laying all over and on the walls, but because people kept stopping in asking information. Two people stopped and we gave them some information pamphlets. Two others asked to park their cars and one called on the phone, so we gave him the new headquarters phone number.
We got our packs all repacked with fresh food and water and clean clothes. Then we looked over our maps for the Friday hike. We felt we ought to get a good start since we didn't have to break camp. But the next morning, I woke up feeling so nauseous that I couldn't eat. I had cramps and diarrhea, but after I got emptied out I figured we might as well hike. I mixed up 2 1/2 quarts of electrolyte solution, saving one quart of water for mixing with dehydrated food at mealtimes, and we set off. I didn't feel sick, just weak, so we hiked slower than our usual slow pace. Usually we hike for 1/2 or 3/4 hour then rest for 20 to 30 minutes. Well, this day, we hiked less and rested more. We crossed Mena Creek and went through some beautiful open woods. We hiked 8 miles and came to Bear Creek at about 5:00 PM. I was whipped. I set my pack against a tree, leaned against it and warmed up some dehydrated rice pudding and slowly ate it. I'd eaten only dates and bananas and drank my electrolytic solution, so I was hungry, but glad I could eat. As I sat there feeling a little strength seep back into my weary body it started to rain. I put up my tent right beside where I was sitting, threw in everything I needed including my food sack because I didn't feel like hanging it in a tree, covered up my backpack, climbed into the tent and promptly went to sleep. By morning I was feeling OK and after eating breakfast I was my old self again.
>Saturday was hot and muggy. We had to rest longer to let the dog cool down. The woods we hiked through were pockmarked with marshes. We made it to Nichols Lake boat landing by 1:00 PM. I dived in clothes and all and stayed there till I cooled down. Bear waded in, too, and cooled off. We ate our lunch under some nearby trees and sat around until 4:45 PM. It was just too hot to hike. Two other backpackers came while we sat there and we visited a while. They were using the NCT as part of their hike but were circling back to their car. We'd apparently spent the night in the same area about a quarter mile apart. The next lake was only about 1 1/2 miles away so we thought we'd hike on to it and set up camp. We'd only hiked about 15 minutes and my sister was experiencing some health problems for which she's planning surgery, so we decided to just camp right there on the northwest side of Nichols Lake. We were on a grassy bluff overlooking the lake in some tall trees. We could get water to filter from the lake. It was a good place to spend the night.
The next day, we hiked back to Nichols Lake Campground and set up camp there. The campground manager took me back to the schoolhouse to get our car. We decided if my sister felt better we'd go on, and if not, we'd go home. It was so hot Sunday we were glad we weren't hiking; even laying still made you perspire. It rained Sunday night and turned rather chilly. We didn't hike Monday, but Connie felt better, so plotted our next move. Vern, my husband, was to meet us on US-10 at Timber Creek Campground on Thursday with another food box so we needed to be there by then, too. We figured we'd drive north to Star Lake Road and hike from there, and be able to make it on time.
Tuesday was one of those clear, crisp sunny days. It was good to be out hiking again; I was happy to be back in the woods. We took a break at a sandy-bottomed creek, and I took off my shoes and waded in the cold, spring-fed water. This is the life! We hiked on through jack pine and young white pine trees, and camped at Bowman Lake. We called it our slanted campground, because it's on the side of the hill. Bowman Lake is in a pothole with the surrounding hills rising up on all sides. It's hard to find a halfway level spot for your tent, or to sit while cooking your food. Everything slants toward the lake. But, what a lake -- it's like a giant aquarium. Fish, water plants, and water lilies were in bloom.
Wednesday we hiked on toward the Pere Marquette River. The woods were real hilly, but our trail skirted the ridges and wasn't hard. We saw lots of deer, at least we saw their white tails bounding off into the woods. We got to the Pere Marquette River about 1:00 and camped by a bend in the river. After lunch we washed up and then read our books and wrote in our journals. We decided to check out the canoe parking access to see if they had a water source so we wouldn't have to filter river water. They did -- they had a flowing well.
The next day, Thursday, we hiked on to Timber Creek. Vern and Andrea (a 7 year old miniature backpacker and granddaughter) were already there setting up camp. Vern was so glad to see us that after greeting me, he had to turn back to fixing the camper so he could get his composure back. He worries so about us, but he lets us go. I'd hike all summer if I could, and Connie would, too. But this year, we decided to stop at Timber Creek due to Connie not feeling well.
Our original plan called for Vern to resupply us and we'd hike another week on to M-55, completing 105 miles. But we did about 60, and with Vern's help in spotting cars we did a day hike of a section of trail north of Nichols Lake. It was an interesting hike. We passed four lakes, each one prettier than the one before. It's such a pretty area. We'll come back here and take up where we left off. The challenge is out there waiting for us.