IAT 9-14-13 Milwaukee River Segment - Pike Lake Segment

Headed up with the family again.  They dropped me off at the parking lot on H where the old end of the Milwaukee River Segment is.  They headed off for Mauthe Lake and had a great time there.  I started hiking southbound.  Or tried to...  I forgot to cross over the bridge on H and couldn't find the trail on the other side of H.

I went straight here by mistake.

Eventually found the start of the new segment.

Eventually I found the new segment and really enjoyed it.  I didn't bring my camera so these are all taken on my cell phone, but I wish I had my camera on this trip.  The trail starts through some corn fields and then heads into the woods.  The it emerges with a great view of an open field.  They had already built one nice bridge and it looked like they were working on some others.

Started off through some tall corn fields.

After a wooded area the trail opens up.

Nice view along the trail.

This bridge was so new it still smelt good.

More bridges in the works.

End of the new segment.

After the new segment you hike a few feet on this bike path.

There is a turn off to the right that I almost missed.  Don't go over the wooden bridge on the bike path...

After that segment comes hiking through this ski area.  I could not find the trail for the life of me there.  Hunted around for awhile till I remembered the companion saying something about hiking up one of the hills.  Eventually I found a faded blaze on a telephone poll and made my way up the hill and found the trail again behind a little hut at the top.

Approaching the ski area.

Nice bridge along the way.

Getting closer.  Beautiful day out.

The trail marker at the entrance to the ski area.

Took awhile to find this blaze.  I hunted around for a while till I decided just to go up the hill and saw this.

Working my way up the hill.

The rest of the trail that day was rather uneventful.  Some good miles of trail though.  The connecting route down NN is terrible.  But other than that everything else was a good time.  I met the family for lunch and they headed down to Pikes Lake to hang out and hit the trails there.  They met me at the northern end of the park and we hiked over to the tower and then back to the lake.  From the lake there is still about 3/4 a mile left of trail in the Pike Lake segment down to HWY E.  I finished that up and we were on our way home.  The reviews of Pike Lake were not as good as Mauthe Lake.  But the kids did like the Astronomy trail there and the little worksheet they had.

Otten Preserve

Despite the power cables this was a really nice segment of the trail.

View from the other end of the segment.

Very cool portion of the trail.

Little mini waterfall.

Very cool area as the trail follows the water through the woods.

Cool bridge over swampy area.

Another ski area along a connecting route.

Speedway along the connecting route.

Heading through the town on the trail.

Not sure what was going on with this sign.  I think it was supposed to be covered.

Mileage marker in Pike Lake Segment.

Me at the end of the day

IAT 8-31-13 to 9-2-13 Milwaukee River Segment - Greenbush Segment

For Labor Day I got the kids and the wife and we headed up to KMSF North.  We stayed at Shelter 1 the first night and then jumped up to the northern end and hiked south.  We stayed at shelter 4 the second night and then shelter 2 the final night.  The shelters in the northern unit were not as nice as the southern unit.  Shelter 5 appeared to the best of the bunch.  It is set off the trail a few feet in a nice forested section.  There is a nice log bench someone made at the fire pit and privy on site.  We stopped here for lunch the first day.

Shelter 5 looked like a great place to spend the night.

Privy at shelter 4.  Best privy I have ever seen on any trail.

Shelter 4 is near Parnell Tower.  It is .4 miles down the IAT and then another .6 miles down a connecting trail to the parking lot and tower.  I know because we moved our car this day and I made that trip 7 times before we left the shelter the next day!  The shelter itself is set off the trail about 50 feet.  There is a brand new privy (pic to the right) that is down the trail another 10 feet or so and then around a corner.  We didn't even find it till later at night, but it looks brand new.  A little fly problem on the inside though.  Bugs in this part of the trail were BRUTAL.  Nearly ruined our trip to the point of wanting to go home.  The mosquitoes were just relentless.  The shelter has a concreete floor that adds to the clean factor.  There were two birds nests in the rafters - and the droppings on the floor to let you know - but they appeared to be empty while we were there.

Shelter 4

Shelter 3 was the only one I did not stop to check out.  It is about .75 miles off the IAT and I didn't feel like taking the extra walk just to check it out.  Shelter 2 is a dump.  The worst out of all the KMSF shelters.  There was about a 4 inch wide hole dug in the back corner of the shelter from God knows what digging in there.  A pile of rat poop on the benches inside about 3 feet wide.  And of course it rained while we were there so we had to get cozy in the shelter for awhile!  It was nasty there though.  No easy place to park or access to anything.  Skip shelter two if you can...

Shelter 2

Shelter 1

Shelter 1 is nice.  It is about .5 miles from the parking lot on HWY H.  There is a water pump about half way there.  There is a trail that leads from the shelter directly to the water pump, but it is a lot easier to find going down then going up.  The shelter was decent enough and we didn't have any problems there other than road noise that was very loud through out the night.

Shelter 1 Privy

31.6 miles - Sounds good!

The protector of shelter 4 I guess.  Someone left this there.

Spiderweb along trail.

Parnell Tower

The short staircase up to the tower.

View from tower

View from tower

Two hawks circling around the tower

Stream just south of Mauthe lake on trail

IAT 8-17-13 Monticello Segment - Montrose Segment

This was my second attempt at a bike and hike.  This time I did a little more reasonable mileage.  The bike portion came in around 16 miles and the hike was 21.4 miles.  This time I did take the bike path all the way and then hiked back.  I did have a problem with my bike with about 2 miles left of biking the nut that holds the front wheel on popped off while I was riding.  I knew where it happened and as I hiked back I managed to find the nut on the trail.  But those last 2 miles were filled with pedaling and trying to hold the bike down on all the bumps so I didn't lose the front tire!

The highlight of this segment has to be tunnel.  It is pretty cool to walk through.  I thought the guide book was just being over cautious by recommending a flashlight but quickly found out that a flashlight is not recommended equipment but REQUIRED.  The first time through the tunnel I had my bike and had to get off and walk the bike through the tunnel as I held my cell phone flashlight out to see even a foot in front of my face.  It was early in the morning and was pitch black within a few feet of entering the tunnel.  I have a great video of all black for 3 minutes, but I'll have to work on getting that on here.  But thanks to the sun shining in there in the afternoon there was more light, but it was still impossible to see.

The rest of the hike was pretty good.  The sections off the bike path are enjoyable.  Saw some fellow IAT hikers on a connecting route shortly after lunch so that's always nice to see.