A few weeks ago, adventure-walker Mike Summers passed through our area on his way to completing the first known winter through-hike on the Ice Age Trail (IAT). After starting on the trail’s eastern terminus at Potawatomi State Park on Dec. 22, he finished Feb. 18 at St. Croix Falls and its western terminus, almost a month ahead of schedule.

While meeting Mike for a brief lunch and an even shorter hike near Antigo in February and hearing him talk about his planned 20,000-mile, two-year trek on our national trail system, I realized I should stop dawdling myself.

Because the 1,200-mile IAT lies entirely within Wisconsin, and I’ve already had a number of wonderful walks on short stretches of it – often unaware of its presence until later – I began thinking last year about using the trail to get to know Wisconsin a little better.

And why not the whole thing? A guy’s got to have a goal, even if it’s a vague one.

Given that I’ve already been on developed trail portions in at least five different counties, from Langlade to Sauk, there won’t be a formal start to the effort.

There may be a ceremonial kickoff at Potawatomi later, but this past weekend seemed as good a time as any to pick a segment and just go.

Cast off your burdens on the Ice Age

Of course, any folly is improved with company, so I picked up friend and colleague Al Bond, and we headed for the New Hope-Iola Ski Hill Segment in Portage County around midday Sunday.

I’d already been on most of the other two county segments – Hartman Creek and Emmons Creek – that aren’t road stretches (approximately 30 percent of the entire trail still relies primarily on country roads to get hikers from one developed trail portion to the next).

In fact, roughly 12 miles of the IAT in Portage County is through forest or field, while the remaining 15 or so miles are on various county roads.

We parked on the shoulder of Sunset Lake Road, just south of the New Hope Pines State Natural Area, and headed southeast on a segment the official trail guidebook describes as “dramatic high-relief hummocky topography.” The trail winds up and down past a number of glacial kettles or potholes, where glacial remnants sunk the land and melted into small lakes.

Al, having been a geography major as an undergraduate, was a fine walking manual on the terrain. Besides the potholes, he also pointed out the glacial erratics, or apparently randomly placed boulders left by those epic Wisconsin ice sheets in places they don’t belong.

My own contribution was to look up and correctly identify a downy woodpecker, whose tweety song in real life was a clear match to the recording on my Petersen Field Guide to Backyard Birds app.

The New Hope segment’s thick pine, oak and birch forests intersperse with meadow and farm fields and make for excellent scenery and a peaceful walk. Several footbridges or short stretches of boardwalk crossed areas that are marshy in warmer weather, but we hiked almost exclusively in snow.

We spent four miles in conversation about our teenage boys and their schooling, places we’d been or wanted to go, and various topics that we thought we’d left behind in Stevens Point.  Those weren’t so bad when discussed at a distance and then discarded like so much glacial refuse.

After all, it’s always best to unburden yourself from the heavy stuff.

On two occasions our ruminations knocked us off course. The first was when we headed south instead of east on a short linking stretch of County Z; later, we detoured down a farm road to the east after missing a slight jog in the trail where it left a ridgeline field border and re-entered the woods.

Neither cost us many minutes, but by the time we emerged onto County T after wandering around several ravines near Severson Lake, we were more worn out from our four-mile hike than anticipated.  That latter stage, with more steepness and icy snow that required caution on slopes, made us reconsider our original plan to double back the same way to our car.

Instead, we headed north on T, taking flat, less demanding roadway. We almost knocked on the door of a friend’s house to bum a ride, but soldiered on.

Just as well, because I found out later the friend’s teenage daughter had her boyfriend over for a visit.

Partway back, we experienced our first bit of “trail magic” – those moments when “angels,” who are often other hikers or those who appreciate and support them, appear to save you.

Mark and Carol Ulrich of New London pulled up in a van and asked where the Krogwold Road trail crossing was, then gave us a ride to our car.

In turn, we followed them over to Krogwold, where they parked and we repaid the favor by driving them to where we had ended our hike, dropping them off.

Al, who shares my love of trail and travel literature, remarked on the timing of the Ulrichs’ arrival.  It seemed a fitting end to our day trip.

That was four more miles down, which added to the previous 15 or 16 I’ve done.  They leave me with about 1,185 more to go, but if they’re remotely as enjoyable as Sunday’s little segment, they will be well worth the effort.

If you go, be sure to get the pie

The best part about trail magic is when it leaves you with extra time for a late lunch, so we started toward Waupaca.

We had someplace in mind, but as we cruised down Wisconsin 49/Main Street in downtown Iola, the word “pies” practically jumped toward us off the window of the Crystal Café.  Still, we headed east on State Street and had just reached the turnoff to continue south on 49 toward Waupaca when we realized we were breaking a cardinal rule of trail hiking:  do not pass up pie.

We turned around. 

When it’s time to review 2017, this will likely be a contender for “Best Decision of the Year.”  The Crystal Café somehow escaped my notice as a state treasure, and I now have a lot of time to make up at this locale that is on its fourth generation of family ownership and operation.

Despite being after 3 p.m. and a rib dinner going on at the bowling alley, a decent crowd of six or seven parties occupied the restaurant.  No wonder, as the Crystal Café serves excellent, belly-satisfying fare at nearly old-fashioned prices.

Al had some massive burger, while I had the whiskey-marinated tenderloin on toast with fries and chicken dumpling soup (everything homemade).  We had to figure out whether Bud Light or Coors Light was the lesser of two corporately owned evils, but no beer can really be called an annoyance under such circumstances.

Furthermore, the café’s food is so good that I’d almost accept a federally mandated corporate-crime offset if it allowed Massive Polluter Inc. to buy me the café’s Door County cherry pie to make up for filling the Pacific Basin with sludge.

Yes, it is that good. Al says the chocolate pie was just as remarkable.

Walk, or run, down the nearest Portage County segment of the Ice Age Trail, and then reward yourself with some pie in Iola. It’s almost enough to make you do the entire 1,200 miles in a day.