Bill had a schedule to maintain, he greets two of his grandsons at the bus stop by the intersection near his house. I had a late start to my day so we decided to take a short easy route.
We thought we'd hike point to point from Gate 12 and the canoe landing south to County P. Any of the trails in the woods would be slushy with ice under the snow, so we opted for the old road.
We've always biked this part of the trail in the summer and thought it would be fun to see in the winter.
Here is the sign at gate 12:
So many people just use a photo of the map to Navigate the Reserve, but that is ill advised. Often, you will lose cell service. I'm an advocate of carrying a map. Some intersections can get tricky and the landscape is such that getting turned around is easy unless you are familiar with it.
We thought the blacktop would be melted off. Well, we were wrong. It was slushy and in some places the snow topped ice and under the ice water was moving.
This part of the trail is called section 11 on the Challenge paperwork. On one side there are rock formations and little bluffs, on the other side the Kickapoo River flows.
During hard rains or spring floods this section usually gets partially or fully covered by the river.
We found several places were the snow had melted from above and created tiny little waterfalls. If I'd had time I would probably explored some of these rocks. There were little caves that we could see without all the summer foliage hiding it.
So enticing! But we had a schedule to maintain.
The hike was only just short of two miles but the March sun was bright and cheery with a promise of spring soon to come.
We took a break at Bridge 13. This is one of the few remaining Truss Bridges in the State of Wisconsin. At one time every crossing over the Kickapoo between LaFarge and Ontario was constructed this way.
The original highway was built in 1926.
Old 131 trail is the original road between LaFarge, was moved and rebuilt to make way for the Dam Project that never happened in the early 1970's.
Bridge 13 looking north towards Rockton.
Looking west from the bridge. The ice is melting and the river was flowing above and below the ice.
Here Bill is on the bridge giving Charlie a dog cookie. So far this tiny dog has done all the trails with us. I told Bill I would try and make sure that Charlie made the whole 59+ miles with us even if he needed to be carried part of the time.
Charlie must be our mascot!
After the break we headed south to County P. Here is a shot of Black Hawk Rock from old 131, section 11.
This is zoomed in of course so the outcrop looks closer. In the summer it is harder to pick out this formation due to all the greenery.
And the best surprise of all was the chirping we heard of a Robin!
Lucky us that he/she landed in a oak tree just above the trail. The orange surrounding him Bittersweet.
And that was our really enjoyable hike.
To date we have covered 15 sections and 12 miles. I don't know if that is impressive or not, but coordinating two schedules and working around the weather is pretty impressive.