QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Mailing Address:
NCT/SPW
861 West US 10
Scottville MI 49454
Preparing to lay corduroy on a trail section.
Ed Chappel is our trail coordinator. You can contact him by email or call him at 231 266-8008
Ed Chappel won the 'Trail Coordinator of the Year' award from the national North Country Trail Association. He is pictured here with Ed Morse
(associate trail coordinator) with the
engraved ax he was awarded.
You can read about his background
by clicking the button.
Trail Day--081
Trail Mile--26.7/255/2226
Location--Manistee NF, well past Nine Mile Bridge
Rained off and on all night, but the morning dawns to clear skies. By a little after seven I'm pack up and hauling. Wind jacket and gloves for a short time only--then spray and head net for the skeeters.
I have been hiking on, and in the next four or five days will be completing, one of the longest stretches of pretty much uninterrupted off-road trail, around 500 miles. It began in the U.P. and will end, basically, at Croton Dam.
Turkey are everywhere; I hear both the gobblers gobbling, and the hens clucking. I see them and their chicks. All the other friends of the woods now have and are caring for their young. Said it before, many times--looks like spring is here. But then again...
The section of trail this morning, below Tippy Pond, is one of the most delightful sections I've yet hiked. It follows beside the Manistee to cross open, green meadows for a considerable distance. In the meadows about are wildflowers in profusion, an amazing variety and abundance. I pause often to take pictures of their pretty faces.
Where the trail crosses a meadow I startle two turkey hens, their young brood under wing. They let me venture close enough for some grand video, both of them and their chicks. Finally, they've tolerated enough of my invasiveness; they flush to the trees nearby. The chicks are hilarious as they too take flight--haven't got the knack quite down yet.
Beyond the open meadows the trail again climbs by switchback to the ridge above. So ends the hike below Tippy Pond; yes, a grand, memorable bit of this amazing and varied NCT!
This short time spent hiking through the meadows, by the river, has been so inspiring. Comes now the realization that man can only mimic, man can only copy. Man cannot create. The rushing waters, the hills above, the towering pine, all combine in perfect harmony to form Nature's cathedral, God's own place where man might commune with Him in silence. The most impressive cathedrals man has designed and erected do not near match this grand and glorious place. Indeed, man might experience God's presence within them, but does God not truly take residence in Nature's bosom!
I dearly love the mountains. To me the most beautiful and spectacular of them all are the Southern Appalachians, in and about the Nimblewill, such a special place near Springer Mountain, the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. Within those hills and here below Tippy Pond today are such of Nature's spiritual places.
As I cross the Manistee River at High Bridge, I am now hiking trail maintained by volunteers of the Spirit of the Woods Chapter, NCTA. More finely blazed and maintained trail. Also, here the trail turns to leave the Manistee, a most remarkable and memorable section of NCT that I've been hiking the past three days.
Ed Chappel has been honored to receive a plaque from the Spirit of the Woods Chapter of the North Country Trail Association naming the boardwalk through Sterling Marsh the Ed Chappel Boardwalk.
Trail Work (we can always use help, join us)!