The photo to the right is long distance hiker Luke Jordan who came through the Spirit of the Woods section on July 10. We offered him two nights of hospitality and were able to hear his saga first hand. He started his hike in March and for the first six weeks he was on snowshoes. Then when Luke reached the U.P. he got lost (even with a GPS) in the Ottawa National Forest where he was also devoured by mosquitos. He developed heat exhaustion because he was wearing long sleeves and pants to try to foil the mosquitos. Even in our “tame” lower peninsula, Luke took shelter in a ravine because of a lightning storm when he was north of Mesick. When he is able to have help from “trail angels” he is can take care of his feet and rest without the added time factor of making and breaking camp and cooking. Luke has been doing about 30 miles a day with a fully loaded pack. Luke has added extra miles as he hikes the North Country Trail. He hiked the Superior Hiking Trail in MN because that will become part of the North Country Trail and he also plans to finish in Vermont rather than Crown Pointe NY since there are plans to add trail miles in Vermont to link the NCT with the Appalachian Trail. At last report Luke has just entered New York. The second end-to-end hiker is Al Learned who started from Cincinnati and hiked to Crown Pointe. He then flew to North Dakota and hiked into Minnesota. He became ill in northern MN and withdrew from his quest but he is now resuming his hike. He completed the Kekekabic trail in MN, which is a difficult and remote area. He and his son then came to Michigan for the Mackinac Bridge Walk that is a required part of the North Country Trail for end-to-end hikers. He then resumed hiking in MN. At last report Al has entered Michigan. I will send out an email to Spirit of the Woods friends when I become aware that he is close to our chapter’s section. If you would like to be added to the email list please email me at spw@northcountrytrail.org Photo and article by Loren Bach

Two End-to-End Hikers Vie to Complete 4600 Miles on the North Country Trail This Summer

Spirit of the Woods

Local Chapter of the North Country Trail Association

Lake, Manistee, Mason and Oceana Counties in Michigan

Fall 2013 Newsletter

Photos by Loren Bach

Joan Young Wins Lifetime Achievement Award By Lorana Jinkerson, As the North Country Trail Association's (NCTA) Awards Committee Chair, I am pleased to announce that Joan Young of Scottville, won the NCTA's most prestigious Lifetime Achievement award on August 17th at the NCTA Annual Conference in Slippery Rock, PA. The Lifetime Achievement Award goes to an individual in recognition of more than a decade of true dedication, exceptional service, and outstanding contributions toward the dream of the North Country National Scenic Trail. As her nomination stated, "What could more accurately describe Joan Young's love affair with the North Country Trail and her service to it than this Awards Criteria? Joan has demonstrated remarkable investment in the NCTA and one can never doubt her “heart for the trail—not for a minute”. Her contributions to the trail are widely known but to recall just some examples: • Joan was the organizer of the Spirit of The Woods Chapter and served at least a

couple of terms as its President. During that tenure, she arranged for the NPS to conduct volunteer training on trail design and construction. She also secured several NPS Challenge Cost Share awards and led the efforts to construct one of the first of the long boardwalks, throughout the trail, across Dead Horse Marsh. She led the chapter in hosting numerous National Trails Day events that encouraged participation by non-members via various kinds of activities. These included opportunities to combine hiking with canoeing, family nature walks, and other popular activities that led to large NTD attendance.

• Joan has served more than one term on NCTA's Board of Directors. • For many years, Joan served as NCTA's Webmaster. • Joan wrote and self-published North Country Cache (a chronicle of her NCT

hikes) and travels extensively to present programs to help promote the book and of course the trail.

• In 2006, she received the NCTA Communicator of The Year award for her efforts such as her webmaster service and her book.

• Joan spent her rare vacations, over many years, to section hike the North Country Trail and in 2010 became the first woman to achieve End To End status. In doing so, she went out of her way to contact many people along the way and educate them about the trail. She has followed up by developing and presenting a variety of programs about the trail with "catchy" titles such as “The North Country Trail and The Kitchen Sink” and "High Hopes Wearing Sweaty Socks”.

• Joan is a tireless presenter of these and other trail-related programs and travels extensively for presentations to a variety of groups. While doing this, she convincingly promotes our trail.

• Joan has served on numerous NCTA committees over the years, including: the Publicity Committee, End-to-End Committee, and others.

Joan Young is truly worthy of receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award."

Events Calendar Everyone is welcome to attend our activities

For up to date information and maps to our events visit our website at www.northcountrytrail.org/spw or contact Loren Bach at 231 510-1983 or email

spw@northcountrytrail.org

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Hikes and Other Outings For all these hikes see www.northcountrytrail.org/spw

Please put these dates on your calendar for outings. We will have hikes on the first Saturday of each month. Join Us! Saturday, October 5, 2013, 10 AM Hike with Loren Bach and see fall colors in the northern part of our chapter’s section. We will hike from the Consumers Power Hodenpyle dam (on the side nearest Seaton Creek campground, the Manistee River Trail side) and cross the river on the suspension bridge. We will then do an out and back hike on the North Country Trail side of the River. Total distance will be approximately 4 miles. FFI email Loren at spw@northcountrytrail.org call 231 510-1983 or see the website at http://www.northcountrytrail.org/spw Saturday, November 2, 2013 10 AM Hike with Joan Young leaving from the Bowman Lake trailhead on 56th St. west of Baldwin, MI at 10 AM and going south on the North Country Trail. The hike will be out and back and the distance will be tailored to the participants and weather conditions. FFI Joan Young at jhyshark@gmail.com or phone 231 757-2205.

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Saturday, December 7, 2013 10 AM Hike at Freesoil Road Trailhead going south. Approximate hike distance 4 miles. This will be an out and back hike FFI email Loren at spw@northcountrytrail.org call 231 510-1983.

Trail Work Days For the latest information about trail work please contact Ed Chappel at 231 266-8008 or email ed.chappel@goldcommcable.com to be added to the email list. We really need help this fall to replace boardwalk in the area with the blow down in Sterling Marsh. Unfortunately funding and the government shutdown will affect this project).

Boardwalk+Trees+Wind= Re-Route

Mother Nature is busy remaking our section of the North Country Trail. We have had a huge blow down which destroyed our third boardwalk section in Sterling Marsh just north of 96th St. This area is just north of the county line between Lake and Newaygo counties, south of the town of Baldwin.

The Forest Service has plotted out a re-route around the blow down which will take a lot of work to accomplish as it will be about 300 feet of new boardwalk. As you can see from the pictures, the current boardwalk is only accessible with mountain climbing equipment!

Map to Hodenpyle Dam trailhead. It is .9 mile past the Seaton Creek campground on 26 Mile Road. The website has a Google map.

Photo by Ross Spencer

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Short Bits In Minnesota, near Duluth, the North Country Trail crosses the Saint Louis River. The method of crossing the river was a historic swinging bridge created by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1934. However on June 21, 2012 northern Minnesota got 10 inches of rain in a 24-hour period and the bridge washed out when the Saint Louis River reservoir embankment failed. I was travelling in this area in September and stopped to take a picture of the bridge restoration project. The bridge has been washed out one other time in its history, in 1950. The interior of the main towers were not damaged by the flood and will be saved and will be refaced with slate from the river bed just as the original bridge was built by the CCC.

PHOTO CONTEST!!! Best shots of the North Country Trail win prizes. We'll also do a “Peoples’ Choice” contest on Facebook--and the most “Likes” wins! Send your high-quality photos (300+ dpi) of or from the trail to photos@northcountrytrail.org. If selected we'll watermark them (to protect your ownership) and post them on Facebook. Photos with the most “likes” by OCTOBER 18th win! We're hoping to use some of the photos (with your permission) to promote and support the North Country Trail. We'd love scenery, as well as people using and building the North Country Trail! Both horizontal and vertical shots are encouraged. Please include contact

information as well as location of the photo. Your submission should verify that the photograph is your own work, and that NCTA has permission to post it on Facebook. Grand Prize winner will receive a NCTA shirt, hat, and Strickland Guidebook. Three runner-ups will receive a NCTA shirt of their choice. Thank you for your support!

Trail Coordinator Ed Chappel (Irons)

231 266-8008 ed.chappel@goldcommcable.com

Trail Work Assistant Coordinator

Ed Morse (Grawn) 231 276-7901 edmorse@charter.net

Manistee National Forest Liaisons

Baldwin District (south of Freesoil Rd.) Dave Jaunese

231 745-4631 ext. 3122 djaunese@fs.fed.us

Manistee District (north of Freesoil Rd.)

Brian Belt 231 723-2211 ext. 3107 bbelt@fs.fed.us

President and Newsletter Editor Loren Bach (Irons) 231 266-8584 spw@northcountrytrail.org Vice-President Steve Meyers (New Era) 231 861-2525 steve@meyerschevrolet.com Treasurer Brian Buchanan (West Olive) 616 786-2945 nctrelay@nctrelay.org Secretary Dave Martus (Irons) 231 729-0544 spw@northcountrytrail.org

Trailwork east of Coates Hwy. June 2013 L to R: Patti Dunning, Merl Schlaack, Dan Adsmond Below: Indian Pipes

Above: Judy Ferguson

Photos on this page by Loren Bach

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2013 Spring and Summer Hikes and a Canoe Trip with Spirit of the Woods

National Trails Day hike and picnic June 2, Sheep Ranch Pathway near Baldwin

Saturday, July 6, 2013 Big Manistee River paddle

All photos by Loren Bach

Saturday, May 4, Wildflower hike near Cadillac, MI

Come join us on the first Saturday of each month.