Susan and I first learned to backpack together 10 years ago. We learned on the
Superior Hiking Trail along the North Shore of Lake Superior. We used to drive up from the Twin Cities. Later we moved to Duluth to be closer. Since 1998 Susan and I have logged over 3,000 backpacking miles including places like Big Bend NP, Grand Canyon NP, Glacier NP, Isle Royale NP, and an
Appalachian Trail Thru-hike of over 2,100 miles. While we've backpacked in 20 or more states we've never backpacked in Wisconsin, a state that we can see from our front porch.

This weekend we did an overnighter, in Wisconsin, on a section of the
North Country Trail in the Brule River State Forest.

The NCT is a work in progress. When completed it will wind it's way from New York state to the western end of North Dakota stretching over 4,600 miles.

The section we chose was called
Gaylord Nelson Portal to Samples Road. We started at the Portal and hiked out approximately 7 miles to the Winneboujou Overlook campsite. Camped for the night and returned back to the car today. This sections vegetation was widely varied from pine plantations (above) to mixed hardwoods, northwoods pine, and mixed. This area has a lot of managed logging. We crossed several recently logged areas.

The trail was beautiful. Despite following Hwy 27 the entire route, it seemed rather remote. We walked the bluff above the highway and the river most of the distance. The Brule River has 500-600 foot bluffs on either side of it formed by an ancient river that drained a larger glacial lake and later left Lake Superior. Now the relatively small Brule River flows into Lake Superior.

This was an interesting feature. The guide we had said it is a "large frost pocket or glacial pit that once held ice, and now holds colder air which prevents growth of brush and larger trees".

It was shaped like a huge bowl with a birch tree forest surrounding the rim. Very interesting feature.

The look of the forest changed every few tenths of a mile it seemed.

Most of the section followed the bluff with views through the trees of the river below and the facing bluff across the river.

Here I am on a bench at an overlook. There is a very active trail maintaining club for this section. There were half a dozen of these benches placed at overlooks along this section. With me is our dog "Tickboy", aka Dash Riprock. We renamed him Tickboy due to the thick layer of ticks he accumulated along the way. We did too. We had hoped that tick season was past. But alas, we have had only a few days in the 80's. Not enough hot weather to kill them off yet. I found two ticks on my pant legs before I had even pulled my backpack out of the car. We dealt with them. They made the hike a bit unpleasant, but didn't totally ruin it. In fact, we had a great time despite the ticks. We were pulling ticks off ourselves the whole way, both wood ticks and deer ticks. Dash was covered. Susan pulled 10-20 ticks off of him the first night and close to 30 when we got home. He gets Frontline treatments that kill the ones that attach. Dead ones were falling off him like white flakes from a bad case of dandruff. It was mass tick carnage.

This was a pretty wooded section that lasted for about a mile. Apparently it's days are numbered. The trees looked they were marked for logging.

Another nicely wooded section along the bluff nearing our campsite.

To get water while at the campsite I had to descend 1/3 of a mile down the bluff to the Little Brule River. Above is the nicely maintained side trail to the water source.

Above is the Little Brule. Very clean water.

We use a different method than most causal backpackers to get water. What we see other groups do, all over the country, is to gather up all their bottles and their water filtering device and carry it to the water source. Once there, they balance precariously on the edge of the stream, or lake, on rocks or a muddy bank and pump water through their filter into the various bottles. It requires good balance and strong quads to enable you to squat after a long day of hiking. What a pain in the arse!! Here's what we do. We empty out one of our packs at camp (if the water source is 1/3 of a mile away like this one was). Throw in our 6 or 10 liter
MSR Dromedary Bag (whichever one we brought) and lexan coffee mug. At the water source, we fill the bag using the cup. Then we put the full dromedary bag in the pack for the walk back. Once we're back at camp we hang the bag from a tree limb or prop it against something while sitting comfortably. We put the hose from our
filter into the bag and pump at our leisure. We often pump a couple of liters, stop, then pump more later as we need it or in the morning. It works great. We've also hung the dromedary bag upside down from a tree limb and taken a backwoods shower under it.

Our new home away from home. Lighter than our two person tent we love so much, yet gobs and gobs of room. There is room for the two of us, our dog and both our packs. And we still had spare room. Sets up and comes down in a flash. We both were very satisfied with our decision to try this kind of tent.

Today we woke up to the sound of light rain on the tent and the rumble of a distant thunder storm. The sky quickly cleared off and the temperature rose quickly. The forecast called for mid-80's, but it was nearing 90 by noon. A bit too hot for all three of us. Specially Tickboy with his black fur. He suffered a bit in the heat.

Great views of the river valley and bluffs. This part of Wisconsin, the north woods, is truly beautiful.

Tick heaven, tall grass, all the easier to jump onto passing mammals.

The Brule River can be seen from this overlook.

Tickboy and I leading the way through yet another Red Pine plantation.

Nearing the end of the two day trip. Susan leading the way downhill towards the highway crossing. Highways in these parts are two lane and very light traffic.
WILDLIFE sightings. The biggest thrills of the weekend were two amazing wildlife sightings. The first was only two tenths of a mile into the trip. I looked ahead up a planted row of red pines and what did I see standing in the middle of the trail about 50 yards away? A large gray Wolf. I've seen wolves in zoos and at the
International Wolf Center in Ely, but I have never seen one in wild. It saw us, walked slowly off the trail, circled around, back out onto the trail and then walked off into the woods. Very cool!!!
Later in the day we were walking along the bluff. We heard the familiar sound of a startled animal running away from us in the woods. Normally we expect to see a white tailed deer. But this time is was a black bear running at full speed down the hill away from us. Not my first black bear sighting, but very cool nonetheless!!