Straight Lake is becoming an old friend for Ice Age Trail Alliance (IATA) Mobile Skills Crew (MSC) volunteers. We’ve seen her in 4 different months, each one showing a different side. This time we were graced with an early summer date that felt like late spring (although the temperatures were a bit warm during the day). The trilliums were less than a week past peak, but the ticks picked up the slack and treated us to a strong showing. The Straight Lake finale entailed finishing up a few hundred yards of tread on a newly acquired parcel out to CTH I, constructing 200 feet of boardwalk in the tunnel channel, moving a boardwalk 20 feet and finalizing signage through the entire segment. We wrapped up the project late Saturday afternoon and celebrated with a few cold beverages (after conducting a covert mission to steal the beer cooler from the back of a truck).
Sitting at camp Saturday night, I realized that I was missing a great sunset so I literally sprinted to the dam. That was the most I’ve run in a long time, but it was worth it. The owls were hooting from one side and the loons would volley back from the other. This eternal game of tennis will go on as long as we don’t spoil the landscape.
The night ended as the first project had begun 2 years ago – with a night hike. No flashlights were allowed, but the well-built and designed trail guided our feet in the dark of the night (all right, there may have been a few stumbles and wrong turns). Under a blanket of stars, the faint glow of the distant campfire and the luminiferous fungus covering the ground was the only light we had. As the group was ready to turn back at the Nexus, Randy and I forged ahead, making it all the way to CTH I. Realizing we had a long way back through the woods, we decided it would be easiest to head back along the road. We made it back as the last campfire stragglers were heading back to their tents.
Sunday was a treat for an MSC project. The workers kept the tools in the trailers and hiked through one of the best (in my opinion, the best) segments on the entire Ice Age Trail – the Straight Lake Segment. The boardwalks, rockwork and top-notch tread make for en experience many will not soon forget.
The highlight of weekend came when we gathered Saturday evening to give our “snapshot” of Straight Lake. If all your memories of Straight Lake were pictures on a table, what would be the one snapshot you take away? People talked about the amazing transformation that the trail AND the volunteers have undergone in the past few years. It was sentimental at times (and rightly so) yet the overwhelming feeling was that of laughter. The fact that people can volunteer all day in the hot sun with no pay and then fill their stomachs and laugh the evening away is a sight to behold. We may be crazy among the common folk, but here we are normal.
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