Category: Backpacking

A Change of Plans

5/14/2018

I had big plans for Earth Day weekend in April. Epic plans, like fastpacking the entire 80-mile High Country Pathway through and around the Pigeon River Country north of Gaylord. Fastpacking combines ultralight backpacking with trail-running. I even had plans of setting the fastest known time (FKT) for the trail. Those plans didn’t include, though, the more than two feet of snow that dumped on the forest just a week earlier.

The snow did not abort my plans, though: it amended them. With temperatures expected into the high fifties – and sunny – during the four days I allotted myself, I thought that the snow would melt enough to run the trail after a day or two of snowshoeing, and I could still finish that trail in four days that most people take a week to complete in good weather.

As an experienced outdoorsman, though, I should have known that you can’t force your plans on nature. There are days in the fall when I want nothing more than to still-hunt deer all day, moving silently from tree to tree against the wind, crawling through tall grass, and seeing a deer at full draw before it sees me. Sometimes that’s exactly what I do, but sometimes the leaves are too dry, and the wind is too still, and so I adapt. I sit still. A few years ago changing my plans to nature’s conditions yielded a nice 3 ½ -year-old 8-point buck on the firearm opener in this same forest, which provided a year of venison lunches.

I set out from the forest headquarters, seeing a white-tailed deer where the trail crossed through the Pigeon River campground. The river sparkled in the sun. After pushing my pace for five miles, snowshoes breaking through an ice-crusted top layer of snow and post-holing every third or fourth step, I sat down on a stump near where the High Country Pathway splits off from the shorter Shingle Mill Pathway loop. I ate a few protein bars for lunch and calculated that if I kept up my pace and pushed it until dark, I could stay on pace to finish the loop in four days, the weekend plus two vacation days.

When I planned this trip nine months ago, though, this was not what I wanted. I wanted to run the trail now covered with snow beneath me. I wanted to dodge roots and leap logs fallen across the trail, sleeping under the stars without a fire and setting the fastest known time. That’s what I had taken those two vacation days for, not this. And I realized quickly that this snow wasn’t melting anytime soon – certainly not within the time I had.

Then I thought about that hunt a few years ago, about how I sat down against a tree on a ridge instead of still-hunting, and was rewarded with venison and a better outdoor experience than if I had continued forcing my plans on nature. So how could I adapt this trip? The answer was on my feet. Instead of being frustrated that I couldn’t run the trails I wanted to run, I could appreciate that I was snowshoeing in my favorite forest on a sunny day in April! How often do I get to do that?

So I decided to turn this epic four-day fastpack that wasn’t into an overnight snowshoe backpacking trip, and save those two days off for another attempt at setting the fastest known time for the High Country Pathway when I could run it how I wanted.

I sat up from the stump, strapped on my pack and stepped back on the trail. I no longer resented the snow; I appreciated it. Ahead on the trail, I saw a movement and the light tan rump of an elk drinking from the headwaters of a small stream where it crossed the trail before flowing down into the Pigeon River. It was either a cow or a young bull that had shed its antlers, but it looked “bullish” to me. So I stood still and watched it until it moved uphill and off the trail. While I was waiting, a raccoon sauntered from tree to tree below me, which I appreciated since “Ranger Rick” is the mascot of my employer, the National Wildlife Federation. Further down the trail, I heard the “woosh” of wings and looked up to see a bald eagle flying overhead.

I backtracked the trail to the Cornwall Flats – an old logging site – and slung my hammock and tarp between two trees, flushing a woodcock along the way. The flats are a wetland complex cut by a meandering stream, surrounded by hills. A pair of ducks flew from the wetland. A pair of geese honked before flying overhead. I watched a Cooper’s hawk land on a snag and survey the flats before alighting to hunt whatever it was it saw from its perch. A northern flicker flew over my hammock. A bluejay landed on a branch. A squirrel scrounged for food on a sunny patch of bare ground on the hillside.

Though I didn’t complete what I had planned to do that weekend; I did something better because I listened to nature instead of my own ego. I saw an amazing diversity of the forest’s wildlife and thoroughly enjoyed our public lands for a weekend. Just like that hunt a few years ago, my change of plans paid off.

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Backpacking in Short Time

2/15/2011

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The snow is melting, the sun is shining, and birds are chirping. With Spring seemingly around the corner (though in Michigan we could still get arctic weather any day until June), I'm getting psyched for some Springtime backpacking / fly-fishing trips. With that in mind, here's a revised backpacking essay I wrote in 2007 for Woods'n'Water News.

Backpacking in Short Time
by Drew YoungeDyke
I awoke to see a loon floating on a mirrored glass lake at dawn. It was a beautiful sight to greet my eyes as I crawled out of my one-person tent. I had spent the night camped on the shore of Grass Lake, one of many small, biologically abundant lakes in the Pigeon River Country, which spans parts of Otsego and Cheboygan Counties in Northern Michigan.

The Pigeon River Country affords outdoor adventurers the opportunity to hunt, fish, hike, ride horses or spend family time camped at one of its rustic campgrounds. Its 105,000 acres range from lowland cedar swamps to hilly red, white and jack pine forests. It is a short drive from anywhere in northern Michigan and offers the best slice of semi-wilderness in the Lower Peninsula.

I had recently returned from a wedding in North Carolina, though, where I had talked with two brothers who had taken four months after college to hike the Appalachian Trail. I lamented that I may never have four months to take such a journey; lately I have rarely had more than two days at a time. There are great opportunities for adventure in Michigan, though, and I have found that the 11-mile loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway is a great hike when I am short on time.

My trek began around 6 p.m. the previous night. I wanted to begin earlier but the realities of the world kept me until 5 p.m. Despite the late start, I was confident that I could locate a site and set my camp with enough time left in the evening to photograph the wildlife that move around in the evening to feed, such as deer and elk or black bear and bobcat if I was lucky. I even had the perfect campsite picked out on the banks of the Pigeon River.

Soon after I started, though, an unwelcome beacon on my camera warned me that my batteries were fading. Luckily, I was only a few hundred yards down the trail and had extras in my car. I am sure that I spooked every animal within hearing distance as I crashed through the ferns engulfing the trail in my rush to retrieve the batteries.

The delay caused me to miss out on my intended campsite, as when I rounded the bend of the trail near it, I saw two tents already pitched. A man was picking up kindling sticks along the trail. “Hello,” I called, hoping not to startle him. He gave me a sideways glance and returned my greeting. I complimented him on his site selection and asked if anyone had claimed another site further up the trail. He told me it was empty when he passed that afternoon and I was quickly on my way, hoping to reach the next site before someone else took that one, too. The battery on my watch has been dead for some time, so I guessed by the sun and the time I had been on trail that I had little daylight left and a few miles yet to hike. I quickened my pace along the trail and jogged a little to shorten the gap.

I had slowed down by Ford Lake, scanning it through the trees and looking for watering wildlife when a flicker of movement caught my eye. I stepped as lightly as I could, toe down first to feel for any branches that might snap and then easing down the heel, and crept from one tree to another. My footfall rustled some dry leaves, though, and a pale young doe lifted her gaze toward me. She looked in my general direction first, and then snapped her eyes directly upon me once she located the noise she heard. I already had my camera in hand and carefully raised it to my eyes and snapped a picture through a gap in the trees. I watched her for a few more moments before her unseen companions huffed and ran away, crossing the trail fifty yards ahead of me.

Continuing up the trail, I carefully checked for deer or elk where I had seen them on previous trips, especially in the clear-cut field north of Elkhorn Road. Seeing no immediate sign, I moved as quickly as I could toward the Grass Lake campsite. When I found the faint side trail leading to it, my heart sank. A DNR registration card was hanging from a nearby tree, indicating that other campers had beaten me to this site, as well. It would be another few miles to the site at the former logging camp of Cornwall, and dusk was fast approaching.

There was a distinct absence, I noticed, of any of the other signs of a camp, though. I peered through the trees toward the lake, but I couldn’t see any tents where the site would be. I walked toward the tree and read the registration card. It was from the previous weekend! I quickly dug my bivouac card out of my pack, filled it out with a knife-sharpened pencil and posted it right next to the previous one. I had my tent pitched in minutes and began gathering firewood and kindling, breaking dead branches by stepping on them and yanking the ends toward me. A wad of tissue paper served as tinder; a knife stuck to a magnesium fire-starter provided the spark.

I sat on a log near the fire, drank the bottle of Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat that I had packed along and ate a granola bar. Light faded fast and I drew in a deep breath of pure relaxation. It seemed like a mad rush to get to this point, but I felt completely at home listening to the bullfrogs call throughout the lake and the squirrels chatter in the tree above me. I read a few chapters out of Jim Harrison’s Sundog before crawling into my sleeping bag.

A loon’s call awoke me and I vacated my tent, snuck down to water’s edge and crouched amongst the weeds to get a few pictures of the bird. The sunrise cast a perfect glow upon the water and the trees on the opposite shore admired themselves through the mist in the lake’s clear reflection. A beaver swam laps in front of me and a duck flew directly overhead. I pulled my bear bag down from the tree in which I had stashed it and ate a granola bar for breakfast before packing up camp and continuing the trail’s loop.

Though I was only in the woods for fifteen hours, it is short treks like these that keep me rejuvenated enough to face the real world for another week or two. Backpacking in Michigan does not require a four-month vacation; just a few spare hours on the weekend and an appreciation for all that our outdoors has to offer.

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Michigan Outside

A Change of Plans

Backpacking in Short Time

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