TALES FROM THE TRAILS PART TWO: Aches and pains, but it was worth getting moving after grueling first day

Day 2:
The sun was up.
I heard voices.
I grumbled and rolled back over and went to sleep in my tent.
Who cares about walking across Manistee County? I thought to myself. What a dumb idea.
I did not spring up Sunday morning raring to hit the trail. Far from it.
My body ached like never before. My legs were burning. My shoulders hurt.
When I fell asleep, I was telling myself that we probably wouldn’t be able to move the next morning, let alone get back on the trail with our heavy packs on.
We stayed the first night at Sawdust Hole where we had met my old man, a backpacking veteran. On this trip, he was our spotter in case things got, well, spotty.
They did.
When I finally pulled myself out of the sleeping bag and stumbled out of the tent, howling and hobbling, feeling like I was 93 instead of 33, I looked at the old man’s Jeep parked near our backpacks and had the fleeting thought of surrender.
Twenty miles was enough.
We could toss the packs in the Jeep, stop at the Taco Bell and get a Nacho Bell Grande and go sit in the air conditioning and watch “Air Bud.”
“So, what’s the plan?” I asked the boys, who had also just woken up and were making coffee around the picnic table.
“What do you mean?” Chris said. “We hike.”
I yawned and stretched. I didn’t think I could walk 13 feet let alone the 13 miles to the Six Mile Bridge area on the Little Manistee River.
Those were my shoddy calculations, though. Moldovan was going over the maps with his mad navigational skills. He determined it might be farther.
“Yeah. OK,” I said, not believing myself.
None of us were very gung-ho to get going quickly, though. We puttered around the camp for an hour or so. I drank some coffee and ate some Nutter Butters and felt better.
The plan was to hike as far as we could and call in the old man if we got too tired.
We begrudgingly strapped our packs on and hit the trail.
We walked.
And I’m glad of it, even if we did have to cheat to get through the day.




A FABULOUS MORNING

In our post-trip correspondence, the fellas and I have decided that the hike between Sawdust Hole and Highbridge Road was the best.
As soon as we left Sawdust, we were only in the woods a short time before the world opened up and we were in this wonderful meadow.
Birds flitted across the tips of the tall green grasses. Much of the trail was now a path of wooden planks.
We were in the land of the bayous.
There was a sign: “Sawdust Pile: In the early 1900s this bayou was the location of several sawmills. Lumber was hauled by narrow gauge railways and local merchants.”
Beautiful landscape and a sense of history. Who could ask for more?
The trail soon wound next to the river. It was wonderful walking.
My joints were loosening up. My muscles didn’t ache so much anymore. The sun was out.
Twenty miles yesterday didn’t mean a thing anymore. I was feeling up to 20 more.
The elation was short-lived. We were getting nearer to civilization now.
We stopped for a break at the spot where High Bridge used to cross over the valley. We pulled off our packs, sat down and ate trail mix while drinking from our water bottles. The roar of cars could be heard in the distance. We milked this break for at least fifteen minutes.
There were paved roads, cars and people to contend with soon.
We wanted to savor a fabulous morning while we could.




THE PAINS OF CIVILIZATION

We started to name our pains.
The red raw chafing on my, ahem, upper thighs -- which required an emergency trip to Kaleva Meats in the Jeep that morning for diaper rash ointment and Gold Bond Powder-- was dubbed Gary.
Chris’s shoulder pain was named Phil. He called his malodorous body stench Saginaw after the town near Bay City where we grew up.
I had two pains in my shoulders where my pack was strapped that I named George and Doris, after the fellow we saw failing to get his boat going at the High Bridge River Access, where we stopped for a break.
It started as another lovely respite from walking. I stripped down and cooled my raw legs in the cold Manistee River. I imagined smoke rising from the water as I dunked in my derriere.
“Ahhh,” I said.
We all waded in the river. Chris and Moldovan hadn’t slept very well because their air mattresses had leaks, so they blew them up and rolled them around in the water to find them.
Moldovan was walking up the very wide cement boat launch to patch the hole when “George” started backing in the motor boat hitched to his truck.
“George” had more than enough room to go around Moldovan, but instead basically forced him to move out of the way.
Moldovan restrained himself, walked up to the picnic table where our gear was strewn and calmly continued fixing his air mattress.
“George,” an average-looking middle-aged dude, plopped his boat in the water and parked the truck. His lady-friend was around the same age, with hopeful gold jewelry around her neck and wrists. She wore a sun hat for a day of boating.
While we went about messing with our gear and washing up in the river, “George” attempted to get the boat’s engine started -- and failed.
“Well, so much for getting out on the river,” he said to “Doris.”
He pulled the boat out of the river and they went on their way.
We had spent most of the last 24 hours in the secluded woods. Still, had “George” not tried to run Moldovan over, I’m guessing we would have hardly noticed them. Now, though, this seemingly minor incident and these strangers stirred our imaginations.
Wives and girlfriends sometimes ask what their menfolk talk about while together in the woods doing manly things. Here’s a (censored) tidbit of what our conversation may have sounded like as we reached the woods on the trail again:
“That guy was totally taking that chick out on a date. He borrowed that boat and couldn’t get the engine started.”
“She was totally a washed-up divorcee looking for some love.”
“He was planning on dropping anchor on a secluded bank and ravishing her.”
They suddenly turned into 1950s soap opera characters with deep, hysterical, exaggerated voices.
“Oh Geooorge! Take me!”
“Oh, Doooris. But what about my wife?”
“I don’t care about her, even if she is my best friend.”
“Oh, Doooris, you’re so bad!”
“Oh, Geooorgie! Naughty little Georgie. Kiss me now!”
So, when my shoulders started hurting later on that day, I named my pains after two people completely unknown to me who may have been brother and sister for all we knew.
But when you’re on the trail, creating such elaborate scenarios is your only entertainment.
Otherwise, you’re just thinking about what hurts.




OUR CHEATING HEARTS

Five miles.
That’s the distance we covered the quickest on our trek across Manistee County.
But that’s because it was in the old man’s Jeep.
Five miles.
That’s all that’s keeping me from making a legitimate claim that I walked all the way across the county. Otherwise, I’d be standing up atop the Briny Building right now, shouting it out.
But, as I said in the Day One dispatch, we failed.
Here’s why: Gary had a blow torch, Phil had grown fangs, George and Doris had given each other hot, burning STDs and Saginaw was scaring away any wildlife we might encounter.
“Dude, my feet are en feugo,” Chris said at the Udell Trailhead, and for several miles afterward.
This is probably the only Spanish word he knows, by the way.
The stretch between High Bridge and Udell on the North Country Trail (NCT) is not quite inspired. It’s mostly walking past houses on roads. Several dogs weren’t too happy to see us coming.
So, we took a break at the Udell Trailhead, pondering our next move. We’d have to tackle a lot of uphill for the next couple miles. It was already late afternoon. As we sat on a picnic table comparing who had the angriest looking blister, it was decided: we’d call in reinforcements. The plan had always been to take the NCT through Udell Hills to Koon Road. Then, the itinerary had us walking about five miles down Koon and Skocelas roads until we got to the Six Mile Bridge area.
“Call the old man to pick us up,” Chris said. “Those are garbage miles anyway. My feet are really en feugo.”
We were all in agreement.
The hills were all uphill and very buggy. It was hot. My body was starting to feel the 20 miles from the day before, not to mention the 10-plus miles we had already done on Day Two.
It was a relief to reach Koon Road, pull out my cell phone and call the old man, who was there in about five minutes. We piled the packs inside the car and traveled the five easiest miles we had in two days.
I admit it: I cheated.
I’m glad I did.
So is Gary.

TALES FROM THE TRAIL: ‘Embrace the unknown’ Miscalculation ends up in epic 20-mile hike

We failed.
Or we succeeded with an asterisk.
It all depends on how you look at it.
We walked down a seemingly endless trail until our feet throbbed and our spirits waned. We walked until we started to hallucinate and tree stumps turned into trolls. We walked to the point of near collapse and still couldn’t officially make it.
We were beaten by the land, the hills, the very earth of Manistee County.
The goal was this: hike across the county from Marilla Trailhead to Stronach.
In this, we failed (see tomorrow’s Day Two installment for the details).
But we succeeded in so many other ways that by the end of the ambulatory journey no one cared.
I’ve never tried so stupendously hard at something. My body and mind have never been so pushed to the limits and tested for endurance.
I’m still around to write about it, so I guess I’m OK, though I’ll admit I’m slightly changed by the experience. There is no other way to know the land as intimately as this. You are not a spectator anymore. You’re part of it, moving at its speed.
I feel I’m now more joined with the land around me.
I’m also very tired.
In the end, we logged an estimated 39 miles in three days, most of them while carrying 30 to 40-pound backpacks. From the countyline around M-39 to the big lake down M-55 is approximately 28 miles. This is where the asterisk comes in. Had we walked the side of the road straight across the county, we would have easily made it.
Instead, on Day One, we contended with the hilly bluffs and ridges along the Manistee River valley. On Day Two, it was the heat, the bugs and the Udell Hills. The foe on Day Three was ourselves.
Our exhaustion. Our blisters. Our pains.
But it was all part of the journey.

EMBRACING THE UNKNOWN

The three of us started out with such noble intentions and high aspirations.
These were completely obliterated after Day One.
Before I get to our grueling first hike, let’s go through the cast of characters for this particular adventure.
My brother, Chris, is a construction guy from Detroit. If you ever get to the casinos down there, take a look around at the drywall and acoustical ceilings and it might just be the handiwork of the company he works for as a project manager. He’s the more experienced backpacker, having logged several more trips to Isle Royale than I have. He’s also tackled part of the famed Appalachian Trail.
A few of the trips he’s taken to Isle Royal National Park -- an island completely devoid of cars in Lake Superior -- have been with John Moldovan, his friend from the old neighborhood, Livonia.
I’ll use his last name to avoid any confusion with my own. Throughout our trek, my brother constantly had to say our full names.
“John Moldovan, do you have the water pump? Take down the tent, John Counts.”
That sort of thing. This will make it easier.
Moldovan is currently a PhD candidate in molecular biology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he works in a lab doing stem cell research. Before that, he served for nine years in the Air Force, where he was stationed in Kyrgyzstan, Alaska and Little Rock, Ark.
While he was in the Air Force, Moldovan was a navigator, which means the mapping duties should have been immediately delegated to him.
Since the cross-county trek was my harebrained idea and I was in close proximity to set GPS coordinates, it was left to me, though.
Bad idea.
But I’ll get to that.
The mood was downright jovial when we got to the Marilla Trailhead Saturday morning. The beginning of a journey is always filled with expectations: “What kind of strange, wonderful, scary things will happen to me,” you think.
Our mantra, as we headed toward the Big Manistee River through the woods, was: “embrace the unknown.”
By the end of the day, I was cursing the unknown.
What we thought was going to be about a 14-mile day to Sawdust Hole turned out to be a lot longer.
It would turn out to be the longest hike any of us had ever taken. Eleven hours. Twenty miles.
There was only one way to describe it when we finally did get to Sawdust Hole: epic.




AS THE CROW FLIES

The bluffs drop dramatically down to the mighty river. An eagle soars out of trees and over the water across the valley (we saw three of them). The trees reach heavenward toward a fabulously blue sky.
The Manistee River Trail is truly rugged and beautiful.
Much of the trail seems uphill both ways, but it’s worth it. We made our way across the suspension bridge and followed the river south, where there are fantastic views of the river and some very nice camping spots.
Around 3 p.m, after five hours of walking, we stopped at one of these sites for a rest. We’d run out of water already, so we pumped some from the river with a water filter. Chris pulled out a four-piece fly rod and made a few casts. Moldovan and I took a nap.
We should have stayed there overnight. Instead, after a half hour, we packed back up and ended up walking another five and a half hours.
My main mistake was relying too heavily on the GPS unit, which said it was around 14 miles to Sawdust Hole from Marilla, where we would have to get the first night if we wanted to walk the whole county.
But it was 14 miles ‘as the crow flies,’ not as the actual trail went. My first mistake was assuming that because our destination was listed as 13.5 miles from Marilla on the North Country Trail that it would be roughly similar if we hopped over to the Manistee River Trail.
Around 5 or 6 p.m., it was obvious we weren’t making the kind of progress we had intended.
We were tired and weary, but still had a long way to go.
That’s around when Moldovan told us the story of Lance Sijan.




REMEMBERING LANCE SIJAN

As part of his Air Force training, Moldovan was required to read a book called “Into the Mouth of the Cat: The Story of Lance Sijan, Hero of Vietnam.”
Sijan was a 25-year-old Air Force pilot when his plane went down over Laos in 1967 on his 52nd combat mission. According to the book, he suffered multiple injuries, including a fractured skull and a compound fracture of his left leg. He didn’t have any food or water with him.
He survived for 46 days in the jungle.
He was captured and then escaped after overpowering the enemy.
He died getting pneumonia in his weakened state after being recaptured.
“We have, like, a few more miles to go,” one of us said. “Sijan was in the jungle for 46 days with broken limbs, crawling around on rocks.”
It became our rally cry. Whenever someone started to complain or baby cry, someone would say, “You think Sijan would be bellyaching like that?”
And there was a lot of time to complain.
We hoofed for hours, dogged tired, through the forest. At times our conversation was very animated (and, for the most part, many of the words unprintable in a family newspaper), but by the end of Day One, it was a silent trudge through the forest. We left the river behind us and reconnected with the North Country Trail. Here the woods were a lush, fertile green. The trail seemed interminable.
When you’re quietly hiking in file down a trail, you aren’t looking around you so much as you’re looking at the boots of the guy in front of you. If you’re setting the pace, you mostly look down at the trail.
Then, around mile 18 with nothing but some granola and filtered river water in your gut, the trees start talking to you. The enchanted elves and fairies of the woods come out to greet you and lead you to an imagined land of Barcaloungers, cocktails and steaks. You don’t have thoughts as much as you have short, quick jolts of mental activity that don’t connect.
“Just take another step,” you think. “Take another step. Another step. Step. Step. Step. Step.”
Then, someone says, “This sucks.”
“I’ve got blisters on my blisters already.”
“My hips are killing me.”
“Dude, think about Sijan. He had broken limbs, crawling around in the jungle. Don’t be such a wuss.”
We pushed on and finally got to Sawdust Hole where my old man, who was spotting us with his Jeep on our journey, had been waiting for hours.
We quickly set up camp and ate. No one was up for too much conversation. I slipped into my sleeping bag half-delirious.
There were serious doubts about whether or not we’d be back on the trail the next day.