Hiking the Ice Age Trail

Random Memories of a 67-Year-Old Ramblerby Chet Anderson (

aka “Gray Ghost”

)

I successfully hiked the Ice Age Trail - June 2

to July 25

2009.

For those reading this who are not familiar with the Ice Age Trail (IAT): The IceAge Atlas with 105 maps covers about 1100 miles-all in Wisconsin. Map 105f isPotawatomi State Park on Sturgeon Bay and Map 1f is Interstate Park in SaintCroix Falls. There is also a companion guide describing the trail and ice agefeatures. It reads east to west; that made my decision to start in the east and hikehome easy. I live within two blocks of the trail near the western terminus.I compare it to the Appalachian Trail (AT) because I walked that in 2008: 2176miles in 148 days.Some statistics about my backpack: It started out weighing close to 40 poundswhich includes food and water. I carried this weight only four times (three timeswhen I resumed the trail after food drops). My pack weight averaged-with foodand water-between 25 and 35 pounds. The basic pack was 20 pounds, about 2

pounds lighter than when I hiked the Appalachian Trail. The 2 pounds lighterweight resulted from not packing clothes for cooler weather or even any extraclothes. On the IAT I carried 3 liters (max.) of water (about one third more thanwhat I carried on the AT). I wanted fewer food drops-which were 4 poundsheavier than the food drops on the AT. Forty pounds of weight was verynoticeable; it really slowed me down.I had a very good walk and found I enjoyed our home state very much. I identified115 different birds. I identified four frogs: Bull, Green, Leopard and Eastern graytree frogs. I saw lots of does and fawns, coyote, fox, woodchuck, porcupine,squirrels, muskrats, beaver and one bear. Lots of sandhill cranes-heard or sawthem almost every day, only twice with young. Saw hundreds of barns and silosand innumerable cows, quite a few towns and not so many people.It was very different from the Appalachian Trail. On the IAT there was a lot of road-walking as connecting route between official Trail route sections. Withoutthe elevation changes of the AT I was able to average 20 miles a day. The Trail ismarked fine, but since it is used less it is more overgrown than the AT, so I waswading through everything from reeds to raspberry bushes. Most of the trail ispretty good.Hiking in June and July did have some disadvantages: heat, ticks, mosquitoes andlots of foliage that covered some of the trail markings. The advantage is that itwas the drier part of the summer. I was able to walk across most areas that areusually wet and less rain fell than in the spring and late summer. In the firstmonth since I have completed thehike we have had numerous

showers. (It’s great watching them

from the comfort of my home.)

Confusing signs!