Spring is sitting around the corner. I can just feel it, can’t you?
Good thing, too. It’s time to start plotting out those great trips and vacations of 2006 – if, indeed, you have not yet gone on any.
This is the vision, the dream that gets me through the much-too-long days of winter lingering on. Searching online for possible destinations, lingering over maps and plotting it all into my schedule at the newspaper. (I truly do try to schedule around things as much as possible.)
Ahhh, so just what would I like to do in 2006? Here is the potential list:
Last year I heard a lot about the spectacular, isolated destination of Isle Royale. The island is part of Michigan, although its Lake Superior location is closer to Minnesota.
Most people I know have taken a ferry from some far-flung peninsula in Michigan to get there. However, a ferry also runs from Grand Portage. My vague plan is to first go to Grand Portage National Monument, which runs along the Canadian border. I want to backpack in on the 8.5-mile trail to Fort Charlotte on the Pigeon River, stay overnight, than hike back.
Then, I’d almost certainly continue with a ferry trip from the town of Grand Portage to Isle Royale for a few days. Maybe I’d get lucky and spot a moose or, better yet, a wolf, on the wild Isle.
Hmmm, I guess this also means I would finally make a trip to Minnesota’s North Shore. I’ve heard fabulous things, so it better not disappoint.
I’d like to get back out to Utah again, preferably in the Glen Canyon area, to see canyons that are opening back up due to a falling water level in Lake Powell. (I just had to pass on a trip Backpacker magazine set up for Glen Canyon in March due to other obligations. This about did me in, having to say no. They planned to map some resurfacing trails. And – could you imagine me on a trip with a magazine editor?!??! I’d be pitching freelance ideas like a mad man. Probably a good thing I can’t go.)
But I do want to get back out there. It’s a trip I feel is best “planned” – which means it’s not really planned – by sitting, waiting and getting some last-minute, cheap airfare to Las Vegas from the Twin Cities, hopefully followed by an equally cheap car rental. And so I wait….
Colorado is another place I’d like to return to. There are two vague plans for Colorado. One, my patented cheap trip, involves getting on Amtrak’s California Zephyr train at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, a location where you can park your car at no charge.
I’d ride that train to Fraser, which is just past the Winter Park ski resort, and get off with my backpack on and trekking pole in each hand – ready to start hiking immediately.
I’ve actually seen someone do that. And since I somewhat know the area, I know you can do that. Nope, you don’t need a car. A shuttle to a trailhead might be nice, but a person can certainly hike up the mountains to the east – including the Continental Divide and Rollins Pass – or to the west, including Mount Nystrom.
My other Colorado idea would include the same volunteer work I’ve done the past three summers, but a new location. Yes, the Passport in Time (PIT) project, where volunteers help U.S. Forest Service archeologists with tasks such as plotting and excavating a site, doing a pedestrian survey for artifacts of some type, recording rock art, and fixing up historic buildings (I’ve done the first three).
The Colorado projects this summer range from the preservation of an historic cemetery in the Collegiate Peaks (both favorites of mine), following a former railroad bed in the same area (trains are a favorite, too), and rock art recording/excavation work in the Comanche National Grasslands in southeastern Colorado (hey, we’ve definitely established I liked grasslands and rock art).
Now if I could hook a PIT up with a few days of sightseeing or backpacking? That would be perfect.
I’d also like to get back out to South Dakota once or twice. Already, I’ve made a trip out there for some geocaching around Mitchell (watch for more on that recent trip). I’d love to further explore and camp at Craven Canyon in the southwestern corner of the state, a spot I initially discovered through a PIT program last summer. And in the northwest, the forlorn Cave Hills call. (Anyone been there?)
That puts me close to North Dakota. I’d like to visit Theodore (can I say “Teddy?”) Roosevelt National Park and/or mountain bike the Maah Daah Hey Trail. Plus, I’ve been to North Dakota, eh.
It’s likely I’ll host a couple backpacking trips, possibly again at Yellow River State Forest in northeast Iowa and perhaps one in a Richard J. Dorer Memorial Hardwood State Forest unit. A canoe trip is also in the planning stages, quite likely right here on the Root River.
Additionally, I’ve heard of some backpacking trips on the North Country Scenic Trail in Wisconsin, as well as the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Mark Twain Reservoir west of Hannibal, Mo. A long weekend should suffice for those trips. (Yes, I do run out of vacation and take some unpaid days off.)
Plus, there will be hiking around here in favorite spots like Forestville/Mystery Cave State Park (will I take on the wild cave tour this year?)
Get out your maps and dream a little while you have time. Rough out some trip plans. It won’t be long now before robins chirp in earnest… and can pretty wildflowers be far behind?
Lisa Brainard is the news editor for the Republican-Leader and Chatfield News. She writes for the Phillips Bluff Country Publishing group of newspapers, which also includes the Spring Grove Herald, Bluff Country Reader, News-Record, and Spring Valley Tribune. She can be reached at: lbrainard@republican-leader.com
