Peter Wolfe Chapter
North Country Trail Association

Trip reports on the NCT in the western U.P.

Email me (click on "Email the webmaster" below) your trip report and I'll post it here.  I'll put some of my own on after a while, too.

North Country Trail, M-64 to Old M-64     8/1/99      submitted by Doug Welker
This was an easy hike, though it had 700 feet of continuous climbing from M-64 to Bergland Tower at the top of Bergland Hill.  Pleasant hardwoods/hemlocks on the west side of the hill, mostly nice hardwoods/hemlocks with some white ash and large northern red oak on the east side.  The first half mile or so west of Old M-64 has had recent logging, and while logging is never pretty, they did a good job of keeping the trail route intact and removing logging slash from near the trail. Blue diamond markers are sparse in some areas, but the easily-followed tread and presence of flagging tape make it easy to find.  Little maintenance is needed, other than more diamonds or blazes.

At the top of Bergland Hill, the trails come out basically west of the tower.  There are plenty of thimbleberries, raspberries, and blackberries there, as well as where the westbound trail goes through an old clearing as it heads northwest down the hill. The eastbound and westbound trails enter the berry thicket very close to each other, and you may have to hunt for them a bit.

While at one time there may have been a great view to the west near the tower, things are grown up now and in summer there are only hints of a view.  There's a so-so view to the east near the tower.  Climbing the tower for a view is not recommended, since the stairs have been removed near the bottom of the tower, and I'm not sure I'd trust the old boards at the landings  higher up on the tower.


Gogebic Ridge Trail, Old M-64 to Cookout Mountain  8/1/99  submitted by Doug Welker
This section of the Gogebic Ridge Trail has only one redeeming feature, the great panoramic view to the south toward Bergland and Lake Gogebic from the clifftop on the south side of Cookout Mountain.  While I have enjoyed other sections of the GRT (Old M-64 to the NCT, and the first couple miles west of M-64), the section we hiked today was not particularly pleasant due to past timber management practices.  Previous logging removed such a high percentage of the tree canopy that now an understory maple thicket has grown in, making trail maintenance difficult and making the hike uninteresting at best.  Only the summit area of Cookout Mountain had pleasant woods.

We opted to return to Old M-64 via Forest Road 324, which crosses the NCT on the south side of Cookout Mountain about 160 feet below the summit.  Forest Road 324 can be driven to this point, it turns out, and there were tons of ripe thimbleberries and raspberries along the road.  We took a side trip to Weidman Lake, not far north of FR 324, which has a few nice camping areas along the shore.  The GRT trail would have been much more interesting if it had been taken along and near the lakeshore; while there are some wet and brushy areas, there are several nice hemlock-covered hills and plenty of views of the lake.  Don't plan on swimming or fishing there (unless you're desperate for a swim or like catching minnows), as it's shallow and has lots of stumps, but it would be a great place for watching wildlife.

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Last modified: August 2, 1999