Good people doing good things

An Outdoorsman’s Journal

Hello friends, This week I have the material for five stories and I have to put it into one, so I have to be short on everything I write. Last week I backpacked a section of the Ice Age Trail in Taylor County near Rib Lake and I saw a sign for some volunteer trail work that would be taking place this week. Long story short, I got the phone number of Gerald “Buzz” Meyer of Medford, who is a major volunteer on this section and, just like that, I had plans for three days of hard labor and three nights of good times camping with a whole lot of great people.

Monday, July 17 High 74, Low 47

Here is the scoop. It is about a 2.5-hour drive from my home to the Mondeaux Flowage. I would be in one of five campsites at the Eastwood Campground in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest and there would be about three groups per site. I arrived at 7:30 a.m., had zero idea of what I was getting into and did not know any of the maybe 25 people I would be with. First, I met my new buddy Buzz, who was quite upset that I did not look like my mugshot in Medford’s The Star News, which has run this column for 30-years. There would be a lot of joking over the next 3 days as Buzz had a copy of my column from The Star News and it had a mugshot that was taken in 2002.

At 8 a.m. everyone got together for what is called “roundup,” which essentially is everyone getting around Lisa Szela, who is the volunteer support coordinator for the Ice Age Trail Alliance (IceAgeTrail.Org or 608-798-4453). Lisa gave the plan for the day and the group does stretching exercises for what is about to be a very physical day. There is excellent camaraderie among this group as the majority of the volunteers belong to one of the 19 chapters of the IATA on this 1,200 mile trail. All of them are backpackers.

One group of young people that we would get to know and respect was five kids in the late teens early 20s stage of life that are putting in a summer living out of tents working for WisCorps. WisCorps is based out of La Crosse and is a nonprofit Americorps organization which serves the midwest in conservation efforts. Basically, after a screening process, young adults work their butts off all summer, learn a lot and have a very nice addition to their résumé. After three days these kids were like family to everyone and highly respected.

Mic Pelech of Wisconsin Rapids would be our crew leader on day one. There would be five crews and our group would have six people. Our task on the section was working on the removal of trees that are small and too close to the trail, some rock removal and short detours, as in 10 to 100 feet around sections of trail that were too wet for hikers. The tree removal is necessary because the mostly silver maple will over grow the trail and hang up on backpacks. The dry stream bed, bridge building is a matter of carefully placing rocks that are separated with openings for flowing water. This keeps hikers feet dry when the streams are flowing. Everything about our day was 100% physical labor with massive thought put into safety and the environment.

Over the next three days I would work with four crews, spend time with Lisa Szela and, at night, we would all eat together and sit and visit. Back in 1991, I hiked 1,244 miles of the Appalachian Trail and I felt like I was with family. These guys and gals even gave me a trail name and it was MOB. My buddy Rod Bensley, who passed away last November, always called me Outdoor Boy. There was another Mark in our group so I was now MOB.

On the last night of this experience, Butch Clendenning, who I had met at his home the night before and is from Rib Lake, cooked an incredible meal of homemade chili with a pork shoulder that he had smoked. Buzz, the guy that thinks I look old, made a cherry and blueberry cheese cake and Butch even made me a loaf of bread to take home that is better than good. Butch made a section of his land available for the IAT and it is a really big deal.

Folks if you are into anything that I wrote about, Butch and Buzz need helpers in the Taylor County area, they honestly do. Lisa, can help you out with that or if you want to volunteer or on a wider scale connect with her or the website. Everything about the IAT and the IATA is cool.

MOB