After the fun we had showshoeing last weekend on the Putnam Park trail, we thought that snowshoeing this week was going to be awesome!! We would still stay local (withing 30 minutes of home) but would try to make it a full day of Splorin’. Mike had found a place last week where we might try snowshoeing, and we had some friends who FB showed us went snowshoeing near Eau Claire and we thought we would try that area too!
We decided to get back to two-thirds normal “Splorin’ Protocol” — meaning breakfast, Splorin’ then home instead of out for #SupperClubSaturday. We started off at with breakfast in Durand, WI at Perkz Cafe. The drive there was mostly OK, but there were some slick roads — but, hey, this is Wisconsin and it is January. We were hoping to view our usual older gentlemen’s coffee klatsch — as we pulled into our parking spot we saw an “older gentleman” walking across the street — we both smiled thinking we would witness this once again. But as he got to right in front of the cafe he got into his truck — we looked back where he came from and saw another person walking out of …. a bar. I guess he was attending a “beer klatsch” instead of a coffee one. ;-). Turned out there was just a two person coffee klatsch going on. Since it didn’t look like they were related, we decided that it counted!! We had our “usual breakfast” and as usual it did not disappoint. We may be boring, but we love it and that is all that matters.
We were then off to our first stop of the day — Guettinger Woods Nature Trail — just south of Eau Claire. This is a location that Mike found and thought would be a good place to go snowshoeing. We have passed this numerous times (in fact Mike used to drive past it every day on the way to work at Marten Transport in Mondovi, WI back in 1991 and 1992), but we never did anything more than ignore it. Of course, Mike had a plan — he researched this and found some maps of the trails online for this. So, he knew where the trail was and what was going on. The only possible glitch was that the parking lot for this was off a very small side road way out in the country. Mike was worried that it would not be plowed, but luckily his fears were exaggerated and it was plenty clear enough to park. So we got out and strapped our snowshoes on and were off in not time.
It was pretty obvious where the trail was, but it was also obvious since it had snowed the last 3 – 6 inches of snow no one had been down these trails. It was awesome to snowshoe on these “virgin” trails. We loved it!!! There were little sign posts with information about the trail every so often. We made sure to stop and wipe the snow off the sign as we got to it. We made it most of the way around one of the loops and Mike decided to check the distance that we had gone. Both of us were sure we had gone at least two miles — 0.62 miles is what Mike’s watch was telling us. Ugh — that can’t be right. Mike was also recording this hike for https://hikingproject.com and it said 0.61 miles. Wow. Ok so maybe snowshoeing wasn’t quite as “easy” as we thought!!! But we continued on — we were loving it!!!
We made our way up a very steep hill — whew, hills are much more difficult in snowshoes than just regular hiking. We finally made it to the top of the hill and then had a view of the downhill that we would have to go. We noticed a bench at the bottom of the hill that we figured was our target.
We made it to the bottom of the hill. Tammy may have fallen, but given Mike’s experience later in the day, he has decided that a picture of neither of us on our backside should appear on the blog. At the bottom of the hill was the spring — open running water in the middle of January. Given what we saw last week, we kind of expected to see Robins here, but alas there were none.
We kind of lost our way here a little. We thought we were on the trail (which we noticed was marked with orange plastic wraps on trees), but we obviously were forging our own trail for a little while. it didn’t really matter as Mike knew where we were and getting lost was almost impossible. Whether we were on the trail or not, we were having a blast!! We made it back to the car to see that someone else had some and started snowshoeing too. We were glad we were first!
We had planned on heading across highway 37 and doing some “freestyle” snowshoeing where there were no trails but still in Guettinger Woods, but it took us a LOT longer along the trail than what we thought it would and we were kind of tired, so we decided to forego that experience and move on to our next destination: the Lower Chippewa River State Natural Area. This would be purely “off trail” bushwhacking type snowshoeing. Mike had figured out a rough plan, but it was completely up in the air as to what we would do based on the conditions. We left the parking lot and immediately were in to some pretty thick brush. Tammy found her way to the ground again (still no pictures). But we were soon to Coon Creek that Mike wanted to snowshoe along. It was absolutely breathtaking! This small creek flowing through the snow covered woods was amazingly beautiful.
We made our way to what appeared to be an open field, but was most likely more of a wetlands that was a boundary for the creek. But with it completely covered in snow with the creek winding through the middle it was one of nature’s beauties that you only occasionally get to witness.
From this point Mike’s plan had our next destination being the Chippewa River. When looking at it on a map (and not on showshoes) it doesn’t look that far…but in reality it was quite a ways. We had about 3/4 of a mile to go to get to the river. Most of that was through wide open hardwood forest. Easy peasy snowshoeing. However, as we got closer to the river the underbrush became thicker and thicker. Picking our way through that brush with snowshoes and poles was difficult at best and very, very slow. However, we eventually made it to the Chippewas River. Mike kept asking Tammy if she was at the point that she just “wanted to be done”. She kept saying that she was still having fun and we could continue on.
After making our way to the river, the “plan” was to move along the river and loop back to the car. However, Mike knew that would mean about another 3 – 4 miles of snowshoeing. WAY too much. So, looking at Google Maps (how would you ever survive without this tool!!!) he thought he saw a way where we could go about a third of a mile and make it to an open field and have a much easier time snowshoeing. But, before we got to that open field we struggled through such thick underbrush that it was almost impossible to get through with snowshoes on. Tammy lost one of the snow baskets from her trekking poles. We made a valiant effort to find it but we never did. Shortly after this Tammy exclaimed after nearly losing an eye to the underbrush several times: “OK Mike, I am no longer having fun, let’s head straight back to the car”. Mike said “OK” (but was silently saying “THANK GOD!!!”). It turns out that the “open field” that Mike thought he saw on Google Maps was actually just an area with very thick brush but no bigger trees.
Right at the edge of the super thick brush Mike finally went down. Instead of going forward or sideways, he went backwards. He never felt more like a turtle in his life. Tammy, while trying to hold her chuckling in while Mike was swearing a blue streak, helped get him back on his feet (well, snowshoes anyway). We then made our way back through open forest to find the field where we came along the creek. We found this amazing tree that the woodpeckers were destined to take apart — it was pretty cool.
We made it back through that open field, some more woods and back to the car. Whew — we were sure ready to be done!!! We “only” made it 1.98 miles, but wow — what an almost 2 miles that was. We thought we were going to be snowshoeing fiends — what we now realize is that we will stick to marked and well traveled trails from now on!!! Yet another successful Splorin’ Saturday!!!!! LOVE THIS!!!!
Splorin' Saturday 