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It was a Halloween-themed backpacking weekend, complete with Franky, Ghost and Jack lanterns! |
How did the Kickapoo get its name? Well I have my
theories, which I conjured up in my mind as I hiked Saturday and Sunday along
some really awesome regularly and recently used equestrian trails. There were
many a’ poo I nearly kicked. But after getting home and doing a couple of
simple Google searches, I learned that the Kickapoo is really the name of an
Indian Tribe (which was my second guess). Kickapoo actually means “stands here
and there” or “wanderer.” I like that. I like everything about the name – and
everything about the Kickapoo Valley Reserve. What a wonderful place to spend
outside. And it’s got a really interesting history.
A super-quick history lesson by Robin: Because of some
major clear-cutting lumber work done on the land in the late 1800’s, the water
tables got all goofed up, causing too much runoff and some pretty major
flooding, so in the 1960’s, several families were forced to move out of the
valley because they were going to dam it all up and make a giant, man-made lake
to help with the flooding issue and create some recreational opportunities. In
fact, one of the businesses we stopped at was going to have lakefront property
and be a yacht club. But the early 1970’s brought on the environmental
movement, and they didn’t think it would have the positive benefits they originally thought, so the project was abandoned half-way in. There’s still half
of a dam built, and it sounds like some local residents are still kinda’ ticked
off about the whole situation. I don’t know how it would’ve been as a giant
lake, but for now, it remains a beautiful valley of trees, trail, the Kickapoo River
and some really cool bluffs and overlooks. And that business we visited? It’s a
really cool bar/restaurant that invites in hikers and horse riders (the trail
goes right by it!) and it also rents out canoes and river equipment... instead of
yachts. Now that’s some cool stuff right there.
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If the dam had been finished, we'd be lookin' at a big lake here instead of trees, hills and farmland. |
This backpacking trip was another Fox Cities Backpacking
Meetup trip, and one of my bestest backpacking buddies, Randall, was the
organizer. He did a great job bringing all 10 of us to a new place, and the
route he planned for us was really fun with some spectacular views. We started out
on Friday night meeting at a cart-in campsite at the Wildcat Mountain State
Park. We arrived during daylight, which is always nice, and we started off the
weekend with a Halloween-themed camp. Randall brought along a few glowing
lanterns for ambience, and later passed around some banana-liqueur-soaked gummy
tarantulas. They were scary-looking for sure, but tasted pretty good! One of
the Friday night highlights was a unique, random flyover. We had about 3 GIANT
planes fly over our camp – I mean RIGHT over our camp. RIGHT over the treetops.
It was super-loud and super-awesome. We all stared up into the sky and
followed them out of site. I have no idea what kind of planes they were, but I
was so excited that I exclaimed, “Hey! I can’t believe those flanes just plew
over like that!” Sigh... yeah, that was the beginning of my oral-ambidextrousness
during the weekend. All in all, we enjoyed a nice fire and slept in warm
sleeping bags at night as the temps dipped down to 22°F.
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Gummy tarantulas! Scary! |
The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast and packed up
camp. Rachel was first to don her Halloween costume. Returning from the
bathrooms, she came up the trail towards camp dressed like a bee! We later
learned that Darth Vader also enjoys backpacking – although sleeping out in the
cold leaves a chilly layer of frost on his helmet. We also had a prison inmate
amongst our group, but he was a pretty cool guy, so it was cool with us. I went
as a two-part costume. I wanted to find something easy and not too expensive,
so I safety-pinned about 50 mini Snickers bars to myself and went as “Bear bait”
or, as a few of our Meetup members would refer to as a “Snicker Locker.” My
costume lasted about an hour on the trail before I stopped and unpinned the
remaining Snickers that hadn’t already fallen off and/or been eaten. It didn’t
look like the hikers behind me minded as I dropped them along the way!
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Costume: Bear bait/Snicker Locker |
Saturday morning, after shuttling cars, we hit the trail
for a little over 8 miles. We hiked some nice rolling hills, through woods;
down into a little river valley with a snaking creek and bluffs on either side,
then through some farmland, and then the trail went right past the Rockton bar.
Well, why not stop in for a quick drink!? We all enjoyed a drink of choice,
then head back out on the trail, past a line of “parked” horses (riders were
having lunch in the bar – what a great idea!), and then continued towards camp.
We hiked past some gorgeous fields of seeding wild grasses that glowed in the
sunlight, and back into some hilly forest until we came out onto a dirt road
where our campsite was located.
I was a ball of energy, and I’m not really sure where it
all came from. Maybe it was the jelly beans; maybe it was the crisp fall air.
But I cruised up the giant hill next to our camp and sat on giant tree for
quite a while as I looked down on our camp and everyone milling about getting
tents set up, starting a fire, and chit-chatting about this and that. It was a
nice moment. Then I got another burst of energy and started to collect some big
downed branches for firewood and had fun dragging it down the hill with me. I
felt like a plow through the crisp leaves, using the steep decline to give me
some momentum. Fun!
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Pretty-colored pheasant feathers |
After that, with still a little left in me, I explored
the area around our camp. There was constantly-flowing water well at our camp that
created a small stream, so I followed that for a while until I came across an
area where local pheasant hunters decided to clean their birds. We saw a couple
of live pheasants on this trip, which was pretty cool – they are beautiful
birds. Even though the butchering area I stumbled upon was kinda’ nasty, I did
enjoy getting some pictures of their pretty feathers close-up. The colors are
just amazing. Then it was back to camp for hot drinks, dinners, more
Halloween-themed fun (Randall broke out the temporary tattoos!) and an
appropriately haunting nearly-full moon. I picked up a kid’s activity booklet
for Smokey Bear at the Visitor’s Center on Friday, so I pulled that out while
sitting around the fire, and as I read, I discovered the truth to his name... finally!
I’ll get to that later. But for the evening, we again had a great fire, Mad
Libs, fun conversation, laughs and more hot drinks until we all crashed into
our tents and the warmth of our sleeping bags. This weather was getting COLD!!
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Halloween-style full moon. Can you spot the food bags hanging in the tree? |
On Sunday morning, I woke up at about 5AM with the urge
to pee. I hate getting up to pee when it’s so cold outside – it’s so hard to
get out of the cozy warmth of that sleeping bag! I tried to ignore it, and was
successful for about 45 minutes, but had to finally give in. I strapped on my
headlamp and found myself enclosed in a beautiful dome of diamonds. No, I wasn’t
dreaming. We had a nice, decent layer of sparkly frost covering the entire
inside of our tent. It was definitely cold! We later found out that the temps
dipped down to 14°F overnight! Awesome! Even more awesome that I slept nice and
warm all night! Yay!
Anyway, I found my booties and put them on, crawled out
of the tent and took my walk. It was still pitch black out, but it was really
nice. It was completely silent, and the stars were super-bright against a deep,
black sky. That explained why it was so cold! Everything in the forest had a
sparkly layer of frost on it, just like the inside of our tent -- every blade
of grass, every edge of bark on the trees and every fallen leaf. It was pretty
amazing. But... not amazing enough to keep me from crawling back into my warm
sleeping bag for another hour!
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Bear rope stash bag all frosty. |
After I got up again we had breakfast around the fire. I
tried something new, and that was fun – and successful. I mixed an instant
packet of Jell-O vanilla pudding in a bottle with 2 cups of water and a scoop
of protein powder. It was tasty and nutritious! I’ll be doing that again for
sure. I also had a packet of oatmeal, a latte and wouldn’t ya’ know it... a
couple pieces of bacon fell from the bacon tree right above us and landed right
next to me! That was a nice treat... it had been taunting us since all the
low-hanging bacon had already been scavenged.
Packing up the cold, frosty tent was a serious reminder
of winter. Snowballs of frost fell out as I stuffed the cold nylon into the
stuff sack with quickly numbing fingers. After the job was done, I ran over to
the fire to rewarm them and continue with the morning chores. It didn’t take
long before we were all packed up and ready to hit the trail again.
Things got really interesting right away Sunday morning.
Just a little ways down the trail was a stream. Our trail crossed that stream. The
outside temp at the time was a chilly 35°F, and the river water was even
colder. And there were not any places for a dry cross – no downed trees to balance over,
no rocks to hop across on... just a wide, low, running river. And it was wide
enough that there was no chance of jumping across. We had one choice. Wade.
Boots came off, pant legs were rolled up, and we all followed one another
across through the chilly water. The water was definitely a bit shockingly cold,
but the killer was the sinking mud on the other side. Our feet would sink down
into the mud just over our ankles as we quickly crawled ashore. By the time I
sat down I could not feel a single toe. I took a towel to them to wash the mud
off, and it may as well have been someone else’s foot altogether! I could not
feel a thing! Once I got the mud off I pulled out my booties and put them on to
try to get at least a little feeling back in my toes before putting my socks
back on. That worked pretty well.
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One of the trip's highlights was having to wade through a freezing cold creek and up a muddy bank! Awesome, but cold! |
I like to think I’m invincible, but admittedly, I am not.
I think my nemesis is cold feet, and walking through that freezing cold river
gave me flashbacks from my childhood. Whenever I went ice fishing with my
parents, they knew to bring along at least one set of extra boots, socks and snow
pants, because EVERY SINGLE TIME, I would step in an ice-fishing hole up to my
hip. Every time we went. At least once per trip... right up until my feet were
a little too big to get in the hole. Then I just tripped over them and fell onto
my face. I don’t know what it is with me and ice fishing holes. I am happy to
say I’ve gotten less clumsy over the years and haven’t stepped in one in a
long, long time. But how much do you want to bet now that I said that here, it’ll
happen this year!? That’s the way it goes! Hah!
Anyway... so once I got my feet dried, cleaned and a
little bit of feeling worked back into them, I strapped on my shoes and hit the
trail hard. Thankfully there was a hill right away. My feet warmed right back
up and felt normal within 10-15 minutes. Ahhh, yes.
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Fun scrambling rock bluff. |
The trail came to a neat overlook that had a rock that
jutted out over the forest, and it was perfect for climbing on. A few of us
scrambled to the top and snapped some photos, and then we hit the trail once
again until we reached another amazing lookout over the Kickapoo Valley. We ate
lunch there, and I discovered that I really love cereal for second breakfast! I
mixed my powdered milk with cold water and Cinnamon Toast Crunch and really
enjoyed that. It was a sunny spot, too, so the break felt great, and it was
warm! The next stretch was back out to the visitor’s center where the cars were
parked and the hike was over. We all met up at the Rockton bar for burgers and
drinks before heading our separate ways back home.
And, as promised, back to Smokey Bear – to top
off such a great weekend, I was really excited to come home with the story behind the famous Bear’s true name. This has been a conversation that
has come up quite a bit on past trips – in fact; it was quite the conversation
on a Pictured Rocks trip a few years ago when a group of guys were actually
conducting a survey to see what other people thought because they couldn’t stop
arguing as to which one was correct.
So, what is his true name? Is it “Smokey Bear” or “Smokey
THE Bear?”
It’s amazing what you can learn from a children’s
activity booklet! His real name is just “Smokey Bear,” and the confusion came
in when they added the word “the” as his middle name – get this – because they
needed an extra syllable for the “Smokey The Bear” song! There ya’ have it
folks. That’s the story! It was a serious revelation for us backpakin’ folk.
For reals.
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Here it is in writing! It's a big deal! |
“Hey, I just ate pizza grass.”
This trip was awesome. Bacon trees and pizza grass. What
else could you really ask for?