Softies Hike 2008

Softies rock! by Marge Forslin

 The spring 2008 Softies Hike was another winner. Eight hikers and a driver spent the first weekend (2-4) in May hiking at the west end of the peninsula. We finished the east end of the Porkies and made our way east to Old M-64. Hikers were Lorana Jinkerson, Cliff Stammer, Bob and Sue Holtzman, Jan Lindstrom Wester, Bruce Schwenke, Pavie Rasmussen-Donnelly, and Marge Forslin. John Forslin was the driver and ham radio base station.

We enjoyed three days of hiking on the trail—5.5 miles Friday afternoon, including a log-crossing of the spring-melt-filled rushing Little Carp River that gave some of us shaky knees; 13.5  miles Saturday of varying terrain-- swamp, followed by creeklets and ravines until we ended with another swamp; and 2.5 miles Sunday--first up Bergland hill to the abandoned fire tower then down the back to the waiting van.

Saturday, 5 of us did the long walk, 3 chose their own shorter hikes and made trips around the area and John played ham radio and made contacts as far away as Thailand and Ukraine.  We all enjoyed a couple of nice dinners together at the AmericInn in Silver City and celebrated our friendships and adventures Saturday evening with a party.

Temps were mild to cool all weekend with no precipitation, which meant bugs were absent except for a few ticks.

We saw a few wildflowers in bloom, but most were still in bud, if up at all. We saw bloodroot, hepatica, trout lilies, Dutchman’s britches, trillium, and marsh marigolds. We found all but the trillium and marsh marigolds in bloom.

At one point on Saturday we took a wrong turn, although we quickly discovered what had happened and made our way back to the trail, but while we were on the errant path we saw woodpecker scat and very clear bear and wolf prints in the mud, so the mix-up yielded very nice results nonetheless.