An Amazing Friend and Adventure Part II

 

The day grew darker and a bit more dreary when we got to the south end of the ridgetop. The Hogback Ridge opened up into a larger and flat plateau like area. At different times, the State Land had been rented out as farm land. 

We walked around this field and entered the old oak forest. Jason kept looking for an old trail he knew he'd used a couple of years ago.

He said that he hadn't done this part of the hike alone because he didn't feel safe in case something happened to him. He has trouble with his knees and had surgery last year.

This type of landscape is something I've hiked in for the past 28 years. I often scramble up and down rocky and dirt dry runs. Looking for handholds while climbing over roots and rocks is something I don't even have to think about any more.

I took this shot below after we had an incident with Jason's older dog. While negotiating this animal track on the hillside, Felix lost his balance and rolled down the steep incline. He rolled into a log. Jason was upset. Felix got up and shook while Jason called to him.

Felix had decided he wanted nothing to do with that trail and did not want to follow us stupid humans. [In the mean time, Charlie and Jason's other dog Piper sat and watched]

Jason called and called. Felix ignored him and started slowly started to climb the steep hill with a slippery bed of oak leaves up and away from us.

I'm a fast scrambler, so I took off after Felix. I used trees, rocks, and balance to get ahead of Felix. Jason warned me not to grab Felix by the collar. He'd bite me. Felix is a pretty laid back dog except when he is upset. He is a rescue 'off the street' dog. Jason calls him his High Dollar Doggy for all the vet bills they have had.

I positioned myself on the trial so that Felix couldn't get by me except by climbing over a huge log. I offered him one of Charlie's dog cookies to interest him while Jason came up to put him on a leash.

As expected, there was quite a tussle getting Felix leashed. We eventually made it to the main attraction.

We took several minutes to just chill out, get the dogs some water, and sit quietly on the floor of the cave.

Jason suffers from PTSD and Anxiety so I understand his need to be able to just sit and breathe when something happens. He has to process things differently than I do. He just recently had doctors diagnose him with borderline autism. His life long struggles with processing information and relationships now make a bit more sense to him. That said, he is a brilliant geologist that no longer works in that field. He is smart and articulate but needs different rules for conversation and friendship.

Let's say, we get along just fine.

I pulled out two Lego Minifigures and set them up on a rock shelf to take their photo. I presented the one minifig as Jason, one as me...and one little Charlie.

Jason pulled out something from his backpack and handed it to me.

I quipped with delight: You are so prepared! You brought along Guardians of the Galaxy in case we needed Superhero's!!!

With things settled down we had some fun. Jason tried to crawl back to see how far the holes in the rock extended. The shot below is an infrared shot in black and white. I really love how one can see the details of the rock that was washed and eroded by underground water flowing millions of years ago.

And after that, silliness happened.

Jason wanted a photo of himself doing silly things. Jumping up and down...

A silhoutte.

And the last bit of fun silliness. Charlie and Jason's dogs were curious when Jason started jumping up and down. Charlie wouldn't get out from under Jason, so he scooped Charlie up and continued to jump!

We found a better trail to climb up and out of there and started back towards our vehicles. With Jason, I never have to think of something to say as he is always chatting. That's fine, listening is a good skill to have.

He says he enjoys my friendship and hiking with me because he doesn't have to worry that I can't handle myself. I bring emergency gear like he does and have some good knowledge of woodcraft.

On our way back Jason had to take a few rest breaks. Apparently, Charlie adores the heck out of him!

We got back to the parking area as it started to drizzle. Both of us were a bit sad that the hike ended but I had to get home to hubby. Jason had a two hour drive to get back to Madison.

Lots of hugs and promises to get together to explore together again with our dog pack.

Until the next time....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One last bit.  
While standing on the top of the ridge, Jason explained the development of the historical geology of this particular area.

Direct, copy and paste from his FB post explaining the Hogback Ridge.

This is the floor of a formerly underground sandstone cave that was exhumed and eroded away including the ceiling and walls. The sandstone has various dissolution textures (vertical pipes, polished surface, lots of eroded fracture sets) than can only happen by groundwater. It’s a very unique rock and unlike the weathering textures seen in sea or ice caves. There’s more of this a few other places. I like this spot the best.

An Amazing Friend and Adventure Part I

The photo above is of my friend Jason. 

We met December 31st on New Year's Eve. Other folks go to parties or whatnot. Jason and I ran into each other while searching for Ice Caves. Link to our first meeting: Totally Unexpected

We have continued our interesting friendship since that afternoon in 2021. State Natural Areas are the places he explores. He and his dogs are always going on adventures.  Piper and Felix get along well with Charlie. He calls them...our gang.

He lives two hours away from me, but manages to get out in my area every once in a while to go for a hike. 
Jason used to teach Geology and take students on field trips to SNA's in our area to study the incredible rock formations and teach others about the history of the driftless area's formation. 

In the shot above, Jason is explaining how this Hogback Ridge happened a gazillion years ago. [Not his words, but mine since I don't recall all of the scientific words he used!]

Pictured below is ... in Jason's words ... is one of the longest meander scars. A Meander Scar is a geological word for a feature of a remnant of a wandering river channel. It is now called a Hogback Ridge which is a dry prairie. Locally called a Goat Prairie. 

I don't think this place is often hiked. I would never have done it as it doesn't look that interesting at first glance.

But then Jason took me up to the top. We stood 300 feet above the valley below.

The view from the ridge was simply amazing. I felt like belting out the Lion King song and beating my chest. I didn't, but the feeling of being overwhelmed by the height and the incredible landscape stayed with me all along the narrow ridge. Seriously. In places it was only a several feet wide!

I thought, there are no trees along here to make things interesting. But everything was interesting. The colors of the different varieties of Lichen were beautiful.

The shapes of the rocks [Jason explained the reason behind the shapes] were beautiful and curious.

This section of rock has 3 different layers and kinds of rocks in it. Jason named them all [it mostly flew over my head]. I do recall that one of the layers was Karst. That was a name I recognized.

The dogs had a blast. Piper led, Charlie found a sweet spot in between Jason and I, and Felix followed...mostly. Felix is a rescue dog of Jason's with his own ideas about things and a few health issues. We often stopped to get Felix back on track and to chat. 

Here, Jason is pointing to something I should notice. I think I'd have to visit this place again to really take it all in.

See those trees in the distance? That was where we were headed. We actually were going to walk through an oak forest to the end of the ridge and drop down to see some amazing rock shelters.

Here is Piper doing her impression of the Lion King. I went up there with Charlie to get a good view also.

Jason's photos of Charlie and I... 

We stopped to look at rocks and of course the plants and Lichen. We joked about Liking Lichen.

On the narrow ridgetop, there was single track trail through the grasses. Many spots were dotted with rocks to negotiate through and around.

There was Bittersweet growing in some areas of the ridge and as we headed to the south side we went into a forest.

That's where things got really interesting.

I'll go into that in Part II...

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!

Off the Map

Remember that Billings Creek Trail that I said I wanted to do and then found out that it wasn't on the map or on the Trail Challenge anymore?

Well, I met up with a hiking friend who was camping at the Reserve not far from the Un-Trail Trail head. So I asked him if he'd ever been on that trail before it was removed from the official map.

Jason said no and promptly asked me to show it to him. 

Whoops. Who is this Jason guy? Well I met him on New Years Eve of 2021 while hiking The Valley of Ice in the Kickapoo Valley Reserve.

We've kept in touch and hiked together once in January with my friend Bill and the dogs. Jason prefers early spring, fall, and winter hiking to avoid the nasty bugs that apparently like to bite him. 

So we headed off to the Off the Map Trail.

We spend a lot of time exploring the bluffs I'd explored last week. I explained to him that apparently the trail was too hard to maintain and even though it was there for the Challenge last year, it had been removed from both the Challenge and the current maps. 

It is obvious though, that people still do hike it as it is foot-worn in places and there are places where someone has clipped brush back with a pair of nippers. Our conclusion is that it is still hiked by folks like me.

I didn't take many photos at all. Jason described how the river bluffs were formed and he was able to even name some of the mushrooms we found.

I was able to ID flora and fauna for him when he asked. I guess it suffices to say that we were learning from each other. 

Here he is below with Charlie. Who doesn't love Charlie? 

Here is a photo he took of me and the dogs on the same pine logs. I was holding dog cookies behind my head so the two dogs would sit on each side of me.

Piper was fun. She rolled Charlie a few times in play. Charlie was the wimp and ran to Jason for help. Jason told Piper to settle down and she did. The two dogs really got along together. Charlie just has a bit of a melt down when he's pounced on.

I don't envy the clean up that Jason has to go through after his hikes to clean the burrs out of her hair. 

We eventually found the origin of Billings Creek where it is a tiny tributary of the Kickapoo River. I was surprised and hadn't even thought about ...the where of how Billings Creek originated. I knew it as a stream that is pretty wide only a few miles away by WildCat Mountain State Park.

Jason also studies water flow in the area, so he was an excellent source of even more learning!

We stepped over it. The tiny stream at that point is so inconsequential that I never thought to take a photo of it. [I will next time!]

Billings Creek from a mile away just south of County F looks like this.

This portion of the creek is considered a great trout stream.

We turned around yet again before we reached the stream crossing. That's okay, Jason's foot hurt and I didn't want him to try and get through all the downfalls that were waiting just a 100 or so yards away. We walked on the footpath all the way back to the Winchell Valley Road and leashed up the dogs.

While we were gone it looked like 4 other vehicles had parked by us. We started to walk past a big red truck and being friendly we said hello.

The guys were putting on waders and what looked like trout fishing stuff. I was curious. 

"Fly fishing the Kickapoo?" I asked.

"Nope," one guy said, "We will be fishing Billings Creek!"

I glanced at Jason and tipped my head. "Oh, well, wouldn't you want to be on County F where Billings Creek is really flowing?"

The other guy spoke up as he adjusted his waders. "Nope," he said, "we only have to walk along the Kickapoo right over to those pines." He pointed towards the bluffs we'd just been hiking on.

He then hiked up his waders and asked Jason why we'd just come out of the woods. 

Jason shrugged, "We were hiking an old trail up there. It follows the river to Billings Creek."

The other dude stretched and picked up his gear. 

"We drove in from Indiana to fish Billings Creek. We'll either take the trail or just walk along the river here."

I nodded slowly and glanced at Jason once more.

Jason remained expressionless and said, "Good luck!"

We turned and walked away with the dogs in tow. 

"Jason, those guys are not getting to any place they can trout/fly fish on Billings Creek from here!"

Jason smiled, "But they also know better than we do. Let them find out on their own."

In conclusion? For those fisher-people dudes, perhaps they should listen to the locals? But their body language and tone of voice were that of  

~~ We know better than you do~~. 

Our hike together was fun and very educational. I learned things about sand that I never even knew. The dogs had a great time, and we promised to keep in touch for some more winter hiking and some Off the Map trails I still know about.

I even made it home before we had company arrive.

Trail Challenge Segment #53

What a totally boring title. It should be two dogs, two men, and a wild woman guide.

I'm not really a guide, but it felt like it. 

Or perhaps it should be Two Dogs, a Geologist, and a retired IT guy with the Skunk Hat Lady.

I thought I'd get going on our Trail Challenge 2022. Bill said he wanted to be a part of it and was a willing partner. I meet Jason while hiking on New Year's Eve and he happened to be free on Saturday too. I coordinated the hike and times for all of us.

The trail challenge encompasses 59 miles of trails that are to BE hiked. They say there are 50 trail segments. But I count 54. I've done all but 9 miles of these trails so I could familiarize myself with the KVR since it has been many years since I rode it with my husband on mules.

Bill wanted to avoid the Kickapoo Valley Reserve Winter Festival . I did too so I picked a trail that had bluffs, rocks, and a decent distance for us to do. 

The Trail is called the Cut Off Trail and runs from Cut Off road just south of County P. The distance of the segment is only 1.87 miles. 

Bill in front 
Jason bringing up the
rear

Jason's shot from inside a small

cave at me taking a 

photo of 

him.

Piper is his dog.

The first leg of the trail winds around a rock formation. Jason probably has a good technical term for it, but I don't.

Charlie and Piper took about a half mile to sort things out between them. They became the trail leaders.

The first part of this trail will make you pause and just keep saying things like.

Wow.

And...Wow....

Photos were shot with my infrared camera

which really brings out the 

details of the rocks.

While hiking, the dogs entertained us by playing. Charlie did great and Piper was an excellent pal for him. I think Jason and I were very pleased with how they got along ~~ I know I was. [At the end of the hike Charlie thought he should jump in the car with Piper and Jason. Sigh....Traitor!]

Jason explained rocks and geology. Both Bill and I enjoyed the learning experience. We learned more about the development of ice caves and rock shelters [new term for me that makes a lot of sense]. I learned why bluffs are on one side of the river and why the other side didn't have bluffs.

The guys actually chatted more than I did. I was there for the hike ~ and you guessed it ~~ the photo opportunities.

I don't always go for documentation. Sometimes I go for the odd and the different.

On our walk back along Cty P, I did just that. I used my Infrared Camera with a 665nm filter. 

My New Year's Resolution? Well I don't make them often. However I am trying to attain a goal this year. 

I want to actually complete the Trail Challenge. That is a goal and not a resolution per se.

And of course. Explore with photography.

Only 52 more segments to go....

Our hike map:

Sunday Stills #36