KVR ~ Trail Challenge ~ Little Canada ~ Part One

I hiked Little Canada, The Ice Cave Trail, and the trail to campsite "I" just below Little Canada and along the Bridge 14 Trail.
I'm going to have to divide things up.

Little Canada:

I picked Sunday because the temperatures would be in the higher 20's and the winds would be light.
I didn't want to walk on the warm days. The trails would be mushy and slippery.

A light snow had come down overnight and had coated the world with a fresh blanket of white. That is, a fresh blanket of snow over the icy surfaces below the snow!

I pulled up into the small parking area on County P and put on my Yak Tracks.

Under the car, it was glazed ice, slippery even with the Tracks on.
I headed south on Old 131 trail towards the trail head for Little Canada and the Ice Cave Trail. I'd suspected that there was a Hiking Only trail that wasn't marked on my map. I'd seen it indicated on the route for the Dam Triathlon, as part of the 3 mile running course. I thought I'd keep my eyes open for it.

I suspected that it was part of the trail that ran near the bluffs above the river that we used to ride years ago. It was deemed too dangerous for foot traffic and equestrian traffic.

It soon became evident that I was the only hiker in the area. I'd seen cars parked near Mule Trail and Camp J on 131. But mine were the only tracks.
And they were the only tracks made on these trails.

The old road bed was a bit slippery so I chose to walk alongside the road in tufts of grass. This was to be the strategy for the entire hike.
I got to Bridge 15 and wanted so badly to walk along the river as I'd done last year to see what had changed.
I reminded myself that I was doing a hike.
I had a route to take.
For this trip, I had my pocket camera and my Olympus stuffed in the back pack. I used the pocket camera mostly. I was here to hike and not spend hours taking photos.

The view from Bridge 15 always makes me stop and admire it. See the ice 'shoves' on the banks? That was from our 50 degree day.

Onward.
Past Bridge 15, I found the Trail Head for Little Canada.

The Hikers Only trail was clearly marked and I knew that it should join up with the Little Canada Trail at marker #6.

The trail was rather easy and it went alongside the river through a huge stand of pines.
It was eerily quiet and sometimes a bit dark and foreboding on the trail.

I was able to find the old equine trail we used to ride about 20 years ago.

I could see the faint path of the trail still and I wondered how in the heck I was ever brave enough to ride that.
The old timers scoffed at the closing of this trail. Looking back, I applaud it.

I moved along the "Hikers Only" trail and saw a few places where I could see through to the multi use trail.

I stopped at Marker 6 and had a snack. I'd hiked for an hour and had done some back tracking and exploring. I didn't get close to the bluff. The footing was too iffy, but I used the long lens to grab a shot looking down on Camp "I" for reference later.

I don't know how people rate trails. I've read in Wisconsin Explorer the only trail they cover it the Billings Creek trail and they say it is a 4.5. I am not exactly sure what that means.

I do know that this trail can be challenging if you are not used to this sort of terrain. In areas it is wide and easy. Then it gets steep and narrow, sort of a single track horse trail. It winds back and forth and goes down to the river before climbing again to the bluffs and winding around the areas where the dry runs form ice caves in the winter.

I found marker #3 and had a moment of confusion. The trail didn't seem correct after such a narrow track. I consulted the map and then figured out that this section was also used as a snowmobile trail.
Boring...

However I did get back down to the river and took a shot towards Camp "G".

Things got a bit more interesting when I got to marker #5.
To be ...
Continued...

KVR Trail Challenge ~ Dam Trail ~ Wintergreen Trail

Here is a fuzzy looking map of the Kickapoo Valley Reserve and its surrounding trails.
More about KVR here: Kickapoo Valley Reserve

There are links to the Reserve site and activities that go on there. There is a long and storied history about how the Reserve came to be including the Dam Project as the locals call it or the Flood Project that was going to make a huge lake and keep the towns along the Kickapoo from flooding.

I'm not going to write about that. It is a bitter story, but a very interesting one.

The Reserve or KVR as we now call it is located in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin.
They have something called the Trail Challenge. If you complete all the items on the list in one year and turn in the paperwork, you win a free pass to the KVR for the next year.
I'm not interested so much in the 'free' pass, but in the challenge itself.

I need a self challenge. Something to have as a goal. This looked like a good one.

So Friday I took the first steps.

Doing the challenge takes some pre-planning especially if you are by yourself. I can see that in order to do some of the trails it would be handy to be 'dropped' off at one area and picked up at the other end.
My first hike was on known trails that looped back to the Visitor Center.

For this 'project' I have acquired a little pal.

He is a finger puppet and I have a fondness for skunks anyway. He is small enough to fit easily in my pocket.

Why not?

I followed the Dam Trail to the Dam Tower.

Down the stairs...

Along the Old 131 Trail which is a groomed cross country ski trail in the winter. Hikers and snowshoers need to keep off the groomed trail.

Trail that leads alongside the dam to the Tower.

The Tower.

I wanted the photo of the tower to mimic the old files photos from the 1970's when the project was underway.

View of the river. See that rock bluff? That was part of the next segment I was going to do, it is straight across the Kickapoo River.

I can never get enough views of the rock formations along this river.

After finishing off the Dam Trail, I headed back past the Visitor Center and launched into the Wintergreen Bluff Trail.

I've done this trail twice before. So I was pretty sure I had allotted enough time to get it done.

Remember that bluff from the Dam Trail?
Here is a slightly poor panoramic shot of the view from atop that bluff.

This is an amazing trail in any season.

The photos below are towards the end of this trail which really does just end at a bluff.

There are a few spots on this trail that require paying close attention to footing.
The rock stairs can get slippery when wet, snowy, or icy.

You can circumvent these stairs and take a high path near the highway.

I generally chose to take the more difficult path, of course. But it can lead to more adventures.
Such as the ice flow over the trail.

It was easy to get around and the colors in the ice were amazing.

If I'd had no place to be, I could have spent hours along this trail. As it was, I'd told my husband I'd be home somewhere around 2 pm.

What can I say? Doing the Trail Challenge will be a challenge! My oldest son would wonder if I could actually hike and not stop all of the time to take photos.
I don't know. We will see.

I did use a cell phone app called Map My Hike.
It helped me move along by telling me how long each mile I did took and what my pace was.

The chart on the bottom explains your pace ~ blue line. And the red line is a chart of the elevation changes made during the hike.
I won't lie.
Hiking the Kickapoo Reserve is going to be tough. The only real flat trail is the Old 131 Trail which is the old 131 highway. Everything else will be very demanding.
Just up my alley!

My Stinky Skunk friend and I made it. I smiled all of the way home and then got out the map and plotted my next trail adventure.
Only 47+ miles to go!