Annual hike Gone to the Dogs....

I met Jason and his dog Piper last year on New Year's Eve. We hiked together for the first time during the Kickapoo Winter Festival in 2022. We hiked together a couple of time sense then. Saturday we met up again to hike at the Weister Creek ice cave trail.

Jason had adopted Felix just weeks ago. There is a lot of unknown about Felix as he is an older dog who supposedly lived on the streets. 

Felix is in the red coat. Charlie is trying to help Jason do something or get in his car.

Here Piper is running back towards us on the trail. Piper wears a coat and also has Paw Balm on her feet to help protect her feet.

She seems to have boundless energy.

Both of Jason's dogs are adopted rescues and he absolutely adores his dogs. Charlie adores Jason too because he has the greatest dog treats.

Jason explained that he wanted to see how Felix would do on a hike that was a bit longer than 30 minutes. He planned on taking his dogs with him to Superior next month to visit the Ice Caves along the lake.

Charlie didn't wear his coat, I'm still trying to find something that will allow his tiny legs free movement when negotiating deeper snow and jumping logs. However, the weather didn't bother him one bit.

His orange reflective vest is great for visibility as long as we are on a groomed trail.

Photo by Jason:

Piper, chillin' out:

We got to the Ice Caves fairly quickly.

Piper lead the way and then waited for us.

Ahhhh hah!

We can see who the dogs prefer!

Felix inside the ice cave doing his own thing.

We spent a long time exploring the ice formations and Felix started to get a bit grumpy and began to shake. We figured he was cold and decided to head off the bluff we were on.

By the time we got down into the valley, Felix was himself again and walked sedately behind me or Jason. Charlie often walked shoulder to shoulder with Felix. [Hey! A new friend for Charlie that doesn't try to roll him over like a ball!]

Piper kept bounding around us and trying to get Charlie to play. Charlie decided that Felix was more his speed. All was good in the doggy hiking world.

We met up with two large groups of people. Felix just walked by them and ignored them with no more than a sniff. Piper sat out of their reach and waited for them to pass. She is good with one or two people, but shy of crowds.

I had leashed up Charlie because he is a greeter and adores humans of all kinds. They asked if they could pet Charlie and I said sure. I let him off leash and he did his Charlie thing. He squeaked and grunted with pleasure, his tail doing wild wags.

One lady asked how did Charlie get through all this snow? Charlie showed off by jumping a log and diving through the snow to circle around her with glee.

My answer: He Loves Snow!

We got to the end of the ice formations near where the old Beaver Dam used to be. Jason climbed out on a boulder next the the very cold and very swift Weister Creek where he wanted his photo taken.

It was pretty funny that Charlie whined and fussed all the time Jason was up there. I kept him with me as I am sure the little stinker wanted to try and jump over the water to get out there.

Our hike back was rather quiet and unexciting. We talked about meeting up again this winter for another outing. I think I'll take him to an off the map place to see some bluffs and ice.

Hopefully, it will all work out. And...Felix did fine on a 2 hour hike! We didn't hike fast but kept it to his pace.

Charlie was exhausted from his outing.

Another good hike in the books for the start of 2023!

Sneaky Doodle Gang

Once upon a time long ago and far away...well. Hmm.
About 20 years ago I lived in Kenosha County and my older 4H horseback riders and I used to ride the side roads and we'd 'sneak' through the farm fields on the paths left for huge tractors. We'd sometimes ride at night through the fields.

At that time we dubbed ourselves The Sneaky Doodle Gang.
I know, how stupid sounding is that?

Well this past weekend we wanted to get back to a place we'd been to before. It is a State Natural Area. It has no real access points that are trails. If you look the area up on a site, apparently you can park on a road and look around for bent over grasses and follow that until you come to the 'trail head' which may be a pebble or a thicket of thorns.

We knew where we wanted to go. One of the options is to climb directly down a steep dip between bluffs. Good luck with that on a snowy day. That area is strewn with a boulder field and dead falls. We have done it once before but it takes good balance, two functional arms and two very functional legs.

One member of our gang had just had shoulder surgery 10 days ago. That meant she had one functioning arm. Since I've had a similar shoulder surgery about 10 years ago, I fully understand how painful and awkward one feels after the surgery.

We opted to find an easier way in. We found a fairly wide open looking trail and headed down it. It was much further from our destination than we planned, but it looked much easier to negotiate than a slippery boulder field that was strewn with hidden danger under the snow.

As we walked in we looked up and saw a private residence above us. Dang! Were we on private property? We we trespassing? We saw no signs but that doesn't mean that is an excuse.

Time to pass on the old school skills of The Sneaky Doodle Gang. The two adults I were with are a part of the old Sneaky Doodle Gang. SDG from here on out.
We told the kids to be quiet. Our goal as ahead of us and we didn't want to waste time going all the way around and then back down the boulder field. So we split up quietly and continued to hike.

Can you see the SDG member in the middle of this shot?
Aren't we just awesome?
So eventually we followed the trail and came out in an area where there was a picnic table and some chairs.

All right. Let me stop the presses right here.
This morning I looked up the State Natural Area through the DNR website and looked for access points for future use. I found photo of the picnic table claiming that it was part of the SNA we were looking for.
Devil's Lake State Park Visitor's Guide

Guess what.
We had not been trespassing.
The trail we were on and the one described on the website were the same. They went directly to the picnic table.

Photo by Daryl Clausen

And we found the chairs too. However, we found a surprise in them.

I always carry some toys that are given to me by kids. One of our favorite toys has been dubbed "Creepy Baby" and here is a shot of him with the sort of creepy raggedy Teddy Bears.

Oh yeah. That was just too darned Creepy!

Once we made it past the Sentinel Teddy Bears we found....

Ice.

Magnificent ice, multi colored ice. The hues ran from yellow, blue, green, white, to an almost reddish color.

This is what we had come for and had hoped to find. 

I was stunned as were my fellow SDG friends. The kids were ecstatic and slide on the creek ice that was as smooth as a skating rink. We took photos and stared at it in wonder. 
It was worth the difficult hike in.

However, we made a pact to not reveal the exact location of this place.  We'd been to Pewitt's Nest three winters ago and had admired its beauty. It became an internet sensation and by early spring of 2017 it was closed to the public because of the senseless destruction that occurred from the people. There will be viewing platforms built but I still see posts from people who sneak in past the NO Trespassing signs to take photos of the place.

I shouldn't worry too much though. This place is difficult to find, hard to hike to and even harder to climb out of.

A view from behind the ice.

I would love to go back in the early spring and in the fall to see the rock bluffs and the plants. 

Sadly, the weak sunlight began to fade quickly and we started to seek a way out of the gorge.
There is no specific trail. 

Just before dark we reached the Subaru and climbed in. 
The Sneaky Doodle Gang had done it again.

And we were happy.

4th Annual Ice Hike~ Parfrey's Glen

Well, it was that time of year again. The Annual Ice Hike.

It started a few years ago when my friends took me to Parfrey's Glen just outside of Devil's Lake State Park near Baraboo.

Last year I drove in a rain/snow/sleet event to get to our annual "Ice Hike". This year? Well, I followed the events of a snow event that dropped about 4 or 5 inches of snow on my travel route. It made the drive a bit more interesting, but it wasn't too bad.

We went to Parfrey's Glen as our first stop in hopes of seeing Skillet Creek running over the rocks or some magnificent ice formations.

Well that wasn't to exactly 'be'.

As I slugged through the roughened snow trail, I thought how nice it would have been to have my snow shoes on.

This area never really is disappointing and it is always in a state of change with the weather. In places the creek was solid with snow covering the ice. I could hear the water running underneath us.

We probably shouldn't have come to the Glen so late in the day. But there we were, making our way upstream to the water falls.

However I thought it would be a good idea...

well, that didn't really pan out. 

I should have known how quickly it gets dark in these areas. After all, when I am at home I know it gets dark quickly in the deep valleys.

Things get quite tricky after you leave the "maintained" trail. 

It became obvious to me that my snow shoes although very handy for part of the trail would have been a real pain in the rocky boulders.

We reached the water falls at the end of the trail and did some exploring. It was obvious that the day light was fading fast.

The light in the gorge was fading but above us it was still sunny and bright.

We didn't want to have to scramble over the icy and snowy boulders in the dark so we headed back.

But not until we had some fun of course...

The danger of having another photographer around is that they will 

get that shot of you...that you don't want shown to the world.

Aren't those gloves just precious? 

And then, with the light fading, we headed back to the Subaru.

Oh yes. Waterproof boots are a great idea on this hike.

Saturday was going to be a busy day. We were going to see how many of the State Natural Areas we could explore.
We had one place in particular that we wanted to check out.

Water and Ice

I really don't know why water and ice is so attractive to some photographers.

If I go somewhere, I am always hoping to see a pond or a stream. I love them.
Big lakes are incredible too. But I don't live near any. However, I think a few trips along Lake Michigan or Lake Superior in the winter would be great fun.

That is if one could take the cold weather.

Mirror Lake was interesting and I will definitely want to go back in the spring and visit one little known place. In fact I am not even going to mention the name of the place or how to find it.

Pewitt's Nest used to be a pleasure to go to. Now you have to visit it during a time that normal people wouldn't show up. In the summer people crowd to it.

This place did not disappoint.  And now that we've found it, we'll leave it to local knowledge to keep it somewhat quiet.
It isn't easy to get to, it is pretty much unmarked, and if you are resourceful, you could figure out where it is.

In the shot below can you see the person? She is one of the avid hikers and part of our 'gang'. She is in the lower left portion of the pano shot.

We were just...Wowed.

A natural gorge where none seemed to be. Hidden in a forest.
Naturally with the sandstone and limestone formations, the water drips off the sides of the gorge and forms fantastic ice flows.

Last week we had days of warm weather and we were pretty sure that no ice formations would be left.
However.
Looking at these indeed they must have been massive, monstrous!

It seems the mostly melted and then were frozen when the next storm moved in, so there was new and old ice formations mixed in together.

We'd found an 'ultimate' ice gorge full of formations.

And because it would be nice to get an idea of the size of the ice, here is my friend climbing along the icy precipice to get a different view.
I was not that brave.

Here are my friends exploring also.

One might wonder about the camouflage colored clothes. If you want outdoor gear that is warm and will stand up to hard hiking you seek the sales rack for hunting clothing. It is pretty simple. Besides it is fun to 'hide' from each other!

We found open water and the ones with tripods split up each of us hunting for a neater spot to grab some shots of the icy waters.

We haven't all yet traded our shots with each other so here are the ones I took.
Yes, we generally share our photo adventures with each other so we can look at how each of us saw our adventure.

I find that interesting because not everyone has the same perspective on things.

After a snack for the kids we headed back. The sun was breaking from the clouds and we still had to visit Parfrey's Glen.