I woke up early on the first day of fall. Most hikers are typically out of bed and ready to go well before the dawn, and this morning was no exception. Back in September, my mom and I did an overnight backpacking tip on the Ice Age Trail. Our destination: the Dundee Shelter in the Northern Kettle Moraine State Forest.
For those not familiar with the state of Wisconsin, the Ice Age National Scenic Trail is a 1,200-mile trail that spans the length of the state and follows the edge of the last glacier. It allows for a wide range of recreational opportunities but is known for being one of the best long trails located in the Midwest.
My mom and I setting off on a grand adventure. Also the entrance of Mauthe Lake.
My mom and I were both interested in hiking in the Northern Kettle Moraine. Large sections of the Ice Age Trail are located with the boundaries of the State Forest and are heavily wooded. There are very few points in the Northern Kettle Moraine where the Trail intersects with roads or towns. Most of the time, you are set apart, walking through dense patches of woods, prairies, and marshes.
We could not have asked for better weather. The sun was bright, the sky was blue, and the temperature hovered somewhere in the mid-sixties. The conditions were basically perfect.
Mauthe Lake and Blue Bird Skies.
Yes everything was perfect, except for the mosquitoes.The end of August and most of September brought an unusual amount of rainfall to the state. This coupled with hot and humid temperatures produced one prolific and nasty hatch of flood water mosquitoes. My mom and I set out at peak hatch and were grateful for the head nets we sported for most of the weekend. Any time we stopped for a break, we were instantly swarmed.
The hardest working piece of gear I own cost less than five dollars.
Along with an unusual amount of rainfall August weather brought with it some terrible storms, especially in the Northern Kettle Moraine. A tornado recently tore through the town of Campbellsport and the Long Lake Recreation Area which was less than five miles from where we were camping. According to the condition reports on the Wisconsin DNR website, there were so many downed trees that parts of the Ice Age trail farther north were completely impassable.
Some pretty epic storm damage.
It was obvious that that spur trail which lead from our shelter to the official Ice Age trail, was recently cleared by a crew of dedicated volunteers. Massive trees had fallen in the high winds of the recent storm and it was both impressive and terrifying to see the extent of nature’s destructive forces.
The vaulted toilet at our site which was damaged by the massive downed oak in the recent late summer storms.
After our afternoon of exploration it was dinner time. My mom and I had a very filling dinner of instant re-fried beans and rice, even if we did forget the cheese we bought to top it off. After we dinner we enjoyed our campsite, enjoyed a warm cup of tea, and called it an early night.
A lovely and very small fire that we made sure was completely out by the time we left our site the next day, unlike the persons who used the shelter the night before. Only you can prevent forest fires kiddos.
Or so we thought.
We set up our tent inside the shelter, and left our packs resting on one of the “sleeping benches” located inside.
Around nine pm we woke to a sound that no backpacker wants to hear, the dreaded and unmistakable sound of something rooting around in our backpacks. Screaming ensued, and critters scattered.
After the nine pm run in with the raccoons, in which packs were rustled but no food appeared to be missing, our backpacks ended up in our extremely roomy two person tent.
Midnight. The shelter’s shutters, which we had closed after our last run in with the raccoons, started to gently rattle. This rattle, which occurred in almost perfectly timed two-hour increments, kept my mom and I awake well into the morning.
Around five am, my mom and I woke to the now familiar sound of our small furry forest friends rattling the shutters on the outside of our shelter. Deciding that it was probably not worth it to go back to sleep, we started to pack up our things and get ready for the day ahead.
The inside of Shelter #3 featuring my sunshine yellow tent and the window raccoons will use to sneak in and steal your stuff.
We had our morning coffee sitting out on the front bench of our shelter with the unbeatable view of a sky that shifted from a subtle pink to a brilliant blue. There is nothing quite like drinking a steaming cup of black coffee on a chilly morning out in the middle of nowhere.
Tamarack Pines located just on the edge of our campsite.
Strangely, we saw more people out early on Sunday morning than we had the day before. It’s hunting season in Wisconsin and people dressed in camouflage and high visibility orange were out in the woods with us. We passed silently, with the occasional wave, and I tried not to think about how neither my mother or myself were wearing high visibility colors, and how my white hat could be easily mistaken a deer’s tail.
We ended up back where we started, at the entrance of Mauthe lake, sleep deprived, but happy about a weekend well spent.
Off on another adventure! Or just my mom exploring our campsite.
Field Day 