February 10, 2022 (and January 29)

Thursday -- a phone call to the Fayette State Park headed us on down for a very nice late afternoon hour and a half walk on the trails there. Two weeks ago we had gone down for their annual Lantern Lit Bluff Trail Walk, the 1 1/2 mile loop with the glow (and with no wind the "aroma"!) of kerosene lamps marking the way in the dark. It was surprisingly well attended and an interesting walk with a light snow filtering down. But Steve had apparently dropped his headlamp in the process of putting gear and snowshoes into the car when we were done. When he couldn't find it he called the Park and happily got the word that it had indeed been found and turned in. Which was nice because he was just getting ready to order a new one (it has a particularly bright setting and good for work in dim settings). The Supervisor offered to mail it but we decided to take advantage of a reason to go for a walk. So they nicely put it in a mailbox for us to pick up after hours and we drove down to go for a nice hike. The trail was firm enough with just a reasonable covering of snow after it had been groomed so we stashed our snowshoes and went a'foot. It's a trade-off for comfort. It's nice to walk without the snowshoes but with some snow it's rather like walking in loose sand and we notice the different muscles used! But we made it around all the loops as the light was fading and managed to get home before dark; no headlamps needed. The Park is such a peaceful and pleasing place to walk.

December 18, 2021 -- Picking Up Sticks          

With the recent storms, big melt, and gales over we figured it would be nice to head out and help clear a trail and go for a walk. Mildly cold, mid to upper 20's, not much wind, cloudy with occasional flurries -- a decent walking day. But we didn't get going until well after noon so it wouldn't be worth it to drive too far, the days being so short. Maybe down the Garden Peninsula to Fayette, we might even find some bare ground to walk on. Though we had lost significant snow our ground was still well covered with maybe 6" of snow. With the recent freeze the paths were walkable without snowshoes which was nice.

Turns out they had as much snow as our area did. But the main roads were clear and the roadways at Fayette State Park covered with just the most recent snowfall. We parked in the empty parking lot and walked up and over the plow-bank to the start of the upper Bluff Trail. No other tracks from today but when we got out on the trail we guessed the staff had been out yesterday to clear out the larger tree and limb blowdowns across the trails. There was plenty of smaller stuff though to make our walk a progression of stop-stoop-toss-step-step-bend-toss... But there was enough new snow over the layer of frozen slush/snow that had survived to make walking easy. The hardest part was to let small stuff be -- more snow would cover it soon and be fine for the skiers and snowshoers. It was a bit cool along the cliff near the water but we warmed as we went along, stopping a few times to gaze out over the cold water to the townsite on its small wind-swept peninsula.

It wasn't too long and we remembered the important tool of clearing trail -- a good flip-stick -- sturdy but not too big, fairly straight with a nice little hook on the end. No more bending, except for bigger stuff. But then it was even harder to ignore the small stuff, they were so much fun to flip! But we did want to walk, too, so on we went. Such a peaceful place this is this time of year, and always beautiful. As the trail turned inland it was warmer and the woods thicker. Being full of oaks and still live beeches it was also the domain of squirrels. Suddenly the ground was covered with squirrel tracks and little piles of leaves where the critters had been busy retrieving their stashed of nuts. They must have been really happy to have that deep snow melt down.

Later on we came upon a much larger area of dug up leaves. We both said -- deer. We had seen that at on other trails through oaks where deer had cleared the snow around every large oak, going for the acorns under the fallen leaves. But when we got closer there were no deer tracks, just an impressive amount of squirrel traffic! They either had a few crazy active squirrels or a very large population. Maybe both. We only saw one red squirrel but the rest were probably down in their cozy dens sleeping off their nut eating frenzy. Or maybe they had just moved their stash in anticipation of snow to come. Either way, I think they have a healthy squirrel population here. We were surprised not to see any other tracks.

As we walked along the trail we couldn't help but notice temporary wood hanging brackets, regularly spaced, held to trees with velcrowed straps -- easy to installed and remove. Very well designed and built! Every winter Fayette State Park hosts an evening ski-snowshoe-hike Lantern Lit Walk along the 1.5 mile Bluff Trail. We had never gone down for it (it's hard to get us back out out on the snowshoes after dark in the winter) but maybe we will this year. When I got home I looked it up (January 29 this year) to read they use regular kerosene storm lanterns, which explained the sturdy hangers. That's an impressive lot of lanterns to haul, hang, light, and maintain!

When we crossed the road near the entry booth building the trail headed down and was signed with neat small wood signs carved with a painted shoe-sole -- must be a walking trail! We put our flipping sticks down and decided to stop clearing trail and enjoy the rest of the walk. We had an option of the longer outer loop or across the shortcut. None of their trails are "long" but with the cloudy day we chose the shortcut, not wanting to end up walking by headlamp light even on an easy trail (we do enough of that at home!). So down and around we went through a different but still pleasing wood, heading over to the campground and the road along the water. Lined with beautiful and impressive cedars and patches of the unique shaped sumac, with the sound of the waves against the banks this was a cooler (light breeze off the Bay) but beautiful section of the walk. Glimpses of the gray ruffled water was lightly muffled by light snow in the air. This is a walk we've enjoyed often in much warmer, and greener, weather. As we neared the open view of the Bay and the townsite we enjoyed seeing the buildings from this direction, outlined as they were with the snow. We marveled at how cold it must have been to live and work here in those winters long past with cold winds blowing across cold water on either side.

There was enough light left to walk around the townsite but we could feel the falling temperature and breeze picking up so were content to head up the steep hill back to the still empty parking lot and car, having enjoyed our few hours at Fayette.

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Copyright © Susan Robishaw and Stephen Schmeck