Hiking Dude Blog

It's the time of year when baby animals are popping up all over the place. Furry, feathered, scaled, or slimey, they are everywhere and we need to be aware of them and give them space.

Yesterday morning, I walked 5 miles with my neighbor and we noticed this family as we crossed an overpass on our way home. Click the picture to see a larger view of where these geese were actually walking.

Right during morning rush hour is probably the worst time they could be taking the little ones from one pond to another on the other side of the highway.


As you can see, they did make it at least to the middle of the roadway. Did they make it across, or did a semi scatter their feathers everywhere? Well, click this picture to see a short, blurry video that shows the ending to their ill-advised hike.

Geese on roadways are a big problem around here this time of year. Some drivers slam on their brakes, swerve, and occasionally cause serious accidents. Be aware of the wildlife in your area and what particular challenges their young may create.

On my walk today, I found a huge snapping turtle making a nest in the sandy edge of the bike trail. I expect it will be fine there as long as no one gets curious and bothers it. Turtles are another road danger as they migrate to nesting areas.

My daily walks preparing for a backpacking week in Wyoming next month took a backseat to a fantastic Memorial Day weekend vacation.

We flew to Raleigh, NC to watch our son participate in the USA Ultimate National College D-1 Championship tournament. He plays on the University of Minnesota's team, called the Grey Duck ( @1duck1love #oneduckonelove ). This is the logo for their black uniforms - our son designed it. :-) It was easily the most popular design at the tournament.

After 4 days of games against the best teams from across the country, in blazing hot sun, torrential rain, and past-midnight games, the Grey Ducks were the last team standing - 2016 National Champions! This was the first time Minnesota has ever made it to the semi-finals, finals, or championship. I've been hoarse since Sunday night and am just now starting to sound less like a duck myself.



If you're not familiar with Ultimate, or have never seen a game, there are lots of videos on YouTube. It's fast-paced, exciting, athletic, and fun. And, on given day, any team can pull off a major upset and win it all!


Now, I'm back to hiking. But, my tracker is still on its way across the country, strapped to my other son's bicycle. He's gone over 1,000 miles now at BikingDude.com.

The animals along the local trails are so nonchalant about humans, it's scary. This deer couldn't care less that I walked by no more than 15 feet from it. I almost stepped on a rabbit before it decided to saunter, not hop, rocket, dodge, bolt, scurry, or run, but just saunter off the trail. Yesterday, two squirrels chased right across the trail, no more than 3 feet in front of me, just playing games and oblivious to my ominous presence.

People don't feed these animals, but the trail corridor is a nice green space for them and they are just used to humans walking by. Bicyclists also use the trail and I expect to start seeing some 'trailkill' soon as the little critters ignore the danger. Now, if a deer doesn't get out of the way, that will be something interesting!


This is a great time of year for seeing how many different kinds of animals you can find. I routinely count 10 different kinds every morning.

So, who has the right-of-way when a human, bird, and deer all want the same space? :-)


Keep your eyes and ears open for animals when walking, riding, or driving. The young'uns are growing quickly and exploring away from protective parents, so you might get to see some closer than usual - and maybe too close if you're not careful.

I returned from a week in Texas on Saturday night and headed back on the road on Sunday morning for northern Minnesota. First week was volunteering at a "Camp Noah" project, but this week is just vacation.
Today, I got to hike a new trail at Echo Lake in the Superior National Forest. I explored the trail with two brothers-in-law (any way two guys that each married a different sister of my wife - I think that makes them my brothers-in-law), and we were out for about 90 minutes doing a 5 mile loop route.

This eagle was in a tree along with about a dozen vultures, so I'm not sure if he thought he was a vulture also or what. Other than this, we saw only rabbits on the road and a bit of Moose sign on the trail.


The trail follows an old logging road for the first 2 miles with cut-offs for shorter loops along the way. Each cut-off was heavily overgrown and blocked with down trees, so we kept on. When we reached the outermost loop, it was thick, soupy marsh and very overgrown so we backtracked to the next loop path.

We plowed ahead through prime TICK country all the while being accompanied by small clouds of mosquitoes. The Deep Woods Off repellent worked just fine and I got no bites.

There were thousands of wild flowers, lush grass, and many birch, pines, and poplar trees. We ran into lots of small blueberry bushes and wild strawberry plants but it's too early for fruit yet.


Most of the trail was dry, but we eventually encountered impassable water and were forced to slosh through, everyone getting their feet wet.

Back at the trailhead, we checked for ticks. We each found about a half dozen. All mine were on my socks, into which I had tucked my pant legs. Absolutely no ticks on my pants or shirt - both have been treated with permethrin!

So, a fun, short, wild hike on a seldom used trail.

Well, tomorrow his wheel hits the Pacific!
My Eagle Scout son completes his Atlantic to Pacific solo bicycle ride from Boston, MA to Anacortes, WA. It has been fun following his progress from sea to sea, covering over 3800 miles, on his blog at BikingDude.com This is his starting photo and I look forward to seeing its twin posted soon.

I now understand a bit more how family back home feel when I'm out hiking for a month. It was a bit stressing when he didn't blog a few days after getting used to seeing his report each day. We were helpless to assist when he had mechanical problems. I could only imagine how much work it took to climb mountain passes, how hot it was across the prairie, and how close traffic came on narrow shoulders. It's a lot easier being the one out there doing the thing than it is being home.

The most enjoyable part for me was to hear how he met many friendly, helpful people just as I often do on my long hikes. A long excursion makes the world a bit smaller and shows that there is certainly a lot more good out there than we usually hear about.

He still has more road to ride. He plans to bike down to San Francisco to visit friends and then see what's next. You'll have to check out his blog to see what happens.

My next (much smaller) adventure starts tomorrow. I'll be leading a group backpacking in the Cloud Peak Wilderness of Wyoming for just a week. It is forecast to be a super week with great weather, fishing, hiking, mountains, wildlife, and as a special treat - my wife will be on the trek. She's not been backpacking in many years, so my fingers are crossed that she'll catch the bug to go on more adventures.

Heading into the mountains of Wyoming for a week of backpacking this afternoon. This is our campsite in Buffalo last night with the Bighorns in the background. A forest fire on the west side made us change route but weather should be great, so it's all good.

Our first day of hiking and camping was a great opportunity to get a rhythm going. We only covered about 3.5 miles from Hunter trailhead to Triangle Park, but we had a couple water crossings, tough trail, and dust. The crew found a very nice campsite secluded just in the trees with a nice view across the meadow. It's really hard to see that we are here.
Our first dinner and clean up could have gone better but it tasted great and Mrs. Dude and I did the dishes. That's Mrs. Dude crossing the stream, too.
Just a gorgeous day with a few puffy clouds, nice breeze, no humidity, and few mosquitoes this evening. A couple guys fished in a tiny creek. One guy helped fix my fly pole. :-)
Didn't see any animals except horse.
Early to bed and the temp is dropping so we should sleep well.

Our second day was great. I saw a couple elk near our campsite when I woke up. But before that I enjoyed a wonderful view of the big dipper over the mountains when I had to get up at 1:30am.
We got on the trail at 9:30 and had a few miles of pretty tough uphill to a beautiful lunch spot on the top of a pass. From there, it was a rocky but easy walk down to Elk Lake where we eventually found a decent spot to camp.
We saw moose in the lake and a herd of elk run by. The rocky mountains make for a wonderful backdrop across the lake.
Mac and cheese for dinner, but the chili ramen was spicy.
There was frost on the grass this morning but tonight seems much warmer even though we are 1000 feet higher at 9800 feet.

It managed to drop below freezing last night and get frost again. We're camping at the same spot tonight so there was no required hiking. One group hiked up a ridge for the views and I hiked to another valley for some fishing.
We hiked 1.5 miles to a mountain reservoir full of trout. We lost count of the fish we caught on flies and spinners over the 6 hours we fished. Mostly brook trout, but a few rainbows and cutthroat, too.
The group decided on an early dinner since storm clouds were building and rolling past. We never did get any rain, but it was nice to eat early.
Tonight, the mosquitos were pretty bad. We saw a fisher exploring our camp and a moose across the lake.

Our intrepid crew hiked from Elk Lake over a 10600 foot saddle behind Ant Hill then across a creek and up a hillside to the Seven Brothers area. This was our longest hiking day with the most elevation. On the trail, we passed both of our other groups going the other direction. Our new home is a VERY impacted site since this area gets heavy use. We had horrendous lightning last night.