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Newsgroups: rec.backcountry Subject: Re: Bill Irwin (blind hiker) completes AT Summary: In praise of trail dogs In article <9685@fy.sei.cmu.edu> ae@sei.cmu.edu (Arthur Evans) writes: >We agreed that the report gave inadequate credit to Orient. It's quite >clear that Irwin's ability to stay on trail as well as he did was >largely due to his well trained and intelligent dog. Of course, that in >no way detracts from Irwin's accomplishment. >This whole thing is quite humbling. It's something to keep in mind when >out in the woods in heavy rain, poorly marked trail, or other problems. >Yeah, it can be tough. But how would you like to be there without >sight? Wow! >Art Evans
The above extract from a post in rec.backcounty back in November 90 inspired me to start a trip report. It took a while to finish it as it fell to the bottom of the priority queue. Just after Christmas 94, Pepper, my faithful trail dog passed away. This is in praise of my trail dog.
My wife and I were finally getting a chance to get away. We've been going half-crazy. Raising four kids sometimes is no fun, especially when the oldest is only seven and the twin boys are terrible twos. But now we were going to get our chance. Five nights away. The first in a motel and the next four on the trail. Heaven.
Just before hitting the road, I pulled the latest long-term weather forecast from the National Weather Service via Compu$erve. Looked like we were in for some chilly weather, and a bit wet. Oh, and later on in the week, a "chance of snow." We always carry cheapo raincoats in our packs, but I added our regular raincoats to the packs.
It was late when we left the Detroit area, after 9 PM. Motel reservations were arranged for Grayling, near the trail head. We wouldn't have to put up camp in the wee hours of the morning. About 1AM, we reached our motel. We were looking for a good night's sleep before heading to the Pigeon River Country.
Pigeon River Country is located in the northern part of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. The Shingle Mills Pathway is a series of expanding loops, the largest is eleven miles long. The High Country Pathway is a large loop trail, seventy miles long. Our plans were to do the Shingle Mills and a bit of the High Country. We would start at Pigeon River State Forest Camp Ground (SFCG).
They morning dawned grey, with a trace of rain. We headed north, and had breakfast in a restaurant in Vanderbilt. We took our time, hoping the weather would clear. It didn't. Grey, dark and light drizzle.
We left our car in the Pigeon River SFCG. There werw about half-a-dozen camp sites occupied. My wife and I shouldered our packs and put the saddle bags on our faithful trail dog, Pepper. Our trail would head south along the Pigeon. Along the way, we stopped for a moment's silence at the P.S. Lovejoy memorial and thanked the man who did so much to preserve the "Big Wild" in Michigan. We met no hikers but did pass three mountain bikers and their dog. Two miles from the start, we reached the Pigeon Bridge SFCG and crossed the river. I had considered starting with empty canteens and filling them here, to save some weight for the first few miles. In the end, I chose to carry the weight from the start and it's a good thing. The pump was out of order.
The packs were starting to dig into our backs. Our city muscles were complaining. Now on the West side of the river, we headed north. The sky was so overcast that I could not judge the position of the sun at all. We had planned on staying at Grass Lake, which should be an easy one-day hike. Yet I was worried about making camp before nightfall. Neither of us had a watch. It looked so dark and dreary, I became convinced that the sun was about to set at any time. About three miles north of the bridge, we met the same mountain bikers. We stopped to talk for a while.
We learned it was about three o'clock. Plenty of time. The MTBers commented on what good time we were making. I had thought we were creeping along. Funny how disoriented your time sense can be without the sun or a time piece. The weather continued dark, with some drizzle.
We stopped at Grass Lake. If we stayed on the trail, we would go around three-quarters of the lake in a counter-clockwise direction. I led us clockwise to save some time. We went through an area that looked like a beaver playground. They had a network of mud slides running down to the lake. The many stumps showed where they had gnawed down trees.
It's a lovely little lake. There is a designated campsite there. It consists of a sign, a fire ring, a trail register, and a spot on the map. But what a beautiful spot. We're a bit off a finger of the lake but we have a view across the finger of the shore on the other side. Ah, there's the beaver lodge. That's where all the logs have gone after they've been cut and slid down into the lake. We can look up the finger into the main part of the lake. Or looking to the end of the finger, there is a Great Blue Heron standing motionless.
But it's still dark and dreary. And wet. The tent gets set up, the Whisperlite fires up okay and we settle down to dinner. Now it really is turning dark. I try to make a fire. But it has been raining up here for a week. Dan'l Boone could have done it. Or my Uncle Joe. But not me. Not in that wet stuff. I get kindling going okay, but I can't get even little twigs to light.
A coyote howls in the distance. The drizzle has stopped but the sky is still overcast. No stars, the moon is somewhere? But it's hard to tell where. Not so dark, with the clouds lightly glowing from the hidden moon. Lisa takes from her pack -- a six-pack of Molsen's! Sure it's heavy but it's something we usually do the first night out. Pepper settles down and goes to sleep as we open our beer.
We talk. It's nice to be able to talk to your spouse as an adult. Privately. Unhurried. It's romantic out here. When our conversation pauses, we hear sounds of wildlife. Spashes from the beavers. Frogs. More howls from the coyote. Something rustling in the undergrowth. Hours elapse and so does the Molson's.
We talk about the scent of Pepper keeping some of the critters away. We talk of raccoons, porqupines. Bears.
Bears? Lisa says. There are no bears here in the lower Peninsula. Sure there are. Bear, elk, deer all reside here. Not many bears but some. No, not here, she replies. No bears. Yes. No.
Yes, didn't you read your map? I ask. I copied the map and parts from the trail book and cut and pasted them onto a single page. Flashlites and maps come out. Soon my darling wife finds the part of the guide book. It talks of the marks that a backpacker may see on the trees from where the bears climb. And then she reads "The bears often sit in the forks of beech trees and eat the tasty backpackers."
Back at the office, I had carefully cut and pasted and enlarged and shrunk the sections together to make our maps. It took a little work, but one section of the trail guide which had read "the bears . . . eat the tasty beechnuts" had been doctored to read backpackers. With a good copy machine, the result was almost perfect.
Too good, for I have now planted an idea in Lisa's head -- an idea that has convinced her that we are surrounded by bears who dine on backpacker. When I planned the joke, I expected it to happen before the trip. But this joke has worked all too well. My wife is starting to get panicky. Faced with the prospect of breaking camp to the middle of a wet night to get out of backpacker-eating bear country, I confess my misdeed. She deservedly lets me have it. After she gets done, we laugh and head to the tent for the night.
Morning. Cold and damp but not rainging. Early November in northern Michigan is not camping weather for most people and I understand why. After some fresh coffee and hot oatmeal, we feel much better.
We head north. We stop and admire the Devil's Soup Bowl, a sinkhole lake. The day goes fairly well, the weather is dry. I worry about the "Bridge of Death", a footbridge that I have crossed in the past. On previous occasions, the bridge has been underwater due to the beaver dams downstream. But no problem this time. We don't pass anyone on the trail. The trail goes through one recently logged area. It's pretty difficult to find the trail through there. Just an occasional patch of blue paint on a downed limb shows the way.
We make camp at a another small state forest camp ground, Pine Grove. Just six camp sites. There is another backpacker there. He asks us if we've heard the weather reports. Apparently, the "chance of snow" on the third day is turning into a major storm. Some people dropped by the campground to view the river or check their traps. They stop and warn us that a major storm is about to hit.
We were able to gather better wood this night. Lisa is carrying an extra fuel bottle of kerosene for the Whisperlite. We won't need her fuel except for an emergency. We use it with the wood and build a nice fire. The other backpacker comes by our fire and we chat for hours. He's about 10 years older than us. We were talking about where we grew up. It turns out that his first home as a child was just one block over from mine. We went to the same school although not at the same time. It's a small world.
During the night, I find that I seem to have slid forward into the tent. My face is almost pressing into the tent wall. I slide down or at least I try to. But my feet are pressing into the tent wall. Huh? How did the tent get smaller in the night? As I gain conciousness, I realize that there is snow pressing on the tent, partially collapsing the tent. I slap to the interior of the tent walls and am rewarded by the sounds of snow sliding off the tent. The tent walls snap back to shape.
Our morning started with 3 inches of snow on the ground and accumulating rapidly. We rapidly make breakfast and have some hot oatmeal and coffee. By the time we finish, there is at least another inch of snow on the picnic table. The weather is reasonably warn, just at or below freezing and virtually no wind. There is an occasional confused breeze that swirls in all directions.
We break camp and turned back for the car. We take the bridge over the Pigeon River and then reach a small creek that we have to jump over. Yesterday, it wasn't a problem for us. Today, with the slippery snow underfoot, Pepper refuses to jump across. I can carry her but I can't jump over the creek with a 50-pound pack on my back with her 80 pounds (plus saddle bags). I end up picking her up and tossing her over. It works. We head south. If we go as direct as possible to the car, it's about ten miles.
The trail becomes more and more difficult to follow. The swirling breeze has covered all sides of the tree trunks with snow, obscuring the painted blue spots that mark the trail. The tree branches are heavy with snow, bending down everywhere. Moving a branch results in the snow shifting. Once the branch is relieved of its weight, it springs up, disturbing the branches above, and dumping a load of snow on us. I am reminded of Jack London's epic tale of the nameless man whose fire is put out by a similar snow fall. _To Build A Fire_.
I find a long stick, maybe 4 or 5 feet long. I use it to tap the snow-loaded overhanging branches. The snow dumps in front of me instead of on me. It's amazing. I joke that I'm a wizard with a magic staff. The slightest tap and a cascade of branches snap up, dropping their load. Most of the time it misses me. But the snow continues to fall. It's now over my boot. I am following Pepper. And Lisa is following me, stepping in my footsteps. But now Pepper and I are disagreeing on the trail.
The trail has been following a fire lane. Occasionally I've scraped the snow off trees until I found a blue mark, confirming that we are on the trail. But the fire lane is so plain, I've stopped checking for the blue marks. And now Pepper is turning off the lane into the trees where no sign of a trail is visible. I call her back. She takes a couple steps toward me, turns back and points with her nose back the way she wants to go. I call again and we go through this ritual a few times. I'm starting to get angry with her. Here we are, with 8 or 9 tough miles to go and she was to follow the scent of some rabbit.
I consider leashing her and forcing the issue. But I decide that perhaps there's more to this than the scent of some wildlife. I tap a few tree branches with my magic staff and rub snow off the tree trunks at the place Pepper wants to turn off. And find a blue mark.
Is she following the trail? How can she smell it, under what's now maybe 8 inches of snow? She's no bloodhound, she's a Bouvier/German Shepperd/Heinz mongrel who spends most of her time in the city.
I follow her lead, stopping to check tree trunks. Since only a few trunks are marked with paint, this is a slow process. Finding a mark confirms that we are on the trail but not finding one is inconclusive. After a few trees I find a blue mark. We continue on and find another. Pepper is following the trail in the snow.
The snow continued to fall. Pepper and I had a few more disagreements about the trail but now I was inclined to trust her judgement. I would follow her and check for blue marks. After she had proven her judgement several time, we just follow her. Except when we get to the logged out area. There, she is confused about the trail. Fortunately, I recall enough about the area to cut through it and find the trail at the end.
The snow is now midway up to our shins, much higher in the drifts. My pant legs are soaked. We would later learn that 14 inches was the offical amount of snow that fell. We trudge on, taking most of the daylight hours to cover five miles of trail to reach a road. We stop occasionaly to rest and snack. As the day went on, I noticed that we were quickly getting chilled during our stops. We were plenty warm on the trail, in fact sweaty. Thankfully we were wearing polypro and thermax undergarments. I was watching our condition and noticed that Lisa was complaining of cold feet. Pepper is saving us a great deal of time by leading the way. She leads, most of the time I follow and Lisa brings up the rear. When I get too tired, Lisa and I switch places. But Pepper always leads, breaking trail in the snow.
I wasn't even wearing my warm coat. That was stuffed into the pack. I had several layers underneath my rain coat. This was keeping me plenty warm. Only my gloves were giving me a problem. The snow was falling on my rain coat and melting off. My gloves were not waterproof and were getting continuiously soaked with ice cold water.
I learned that our city dog knew a trick or two about keeping warming in the snow. Every dog owner has noticed how a dog will circle several times, perhaps scratching at the floor, before laying down to sleep. Pepper did that circling trick, pawing at the snow, rapidly going around and around. She did that until she had dug a hole perfectly shaped for her. This must have been something that she knew by instinct.
I considered setting up the tent, firing up the stove and crawling into the sleeping bags. But the heavy snow was posing another problem. The load of snow on the branches was so heavy, they were breaking off and falling. This was occuring with increasing frequency. I was afraid that a branch would come ripping into the tent during the night. We pressed on, reaching the road around twilight.
I pulled out my map to review our course to the car. It was soaked and fell into pieces. Fortunately, Lisa's map was intact although slightly damp around the edges. I learned an important lesson from that. Now I use a product called Storm Proof to protect my maps.
On the road, there were some half filled-in ruts in the snow. It had been a while since the last vehicle had gone by. Pepper walks in the ruts. I step in her paw prints. Lisa steps in my foot prints. We head on, planning on flagging down the first vehicle that comes by. I was hoping to flag down a 4x4 pickup truck so we could climb in the back. No vehicle comes by.
In the dark, we reach our starting point, Pigeon River SFCG. It is deserted. We get to our car. The snow was too deep to drive out, so I set to working shoveling with my backpacker's plastic trowel. I am shoveling 14 inches of snow with a tiny piece of plastic. Progress is slow. We are stopped by a downed tree. During this part of the misadventure, a large branch falls next to the car. I back the car up, and drive down into a camp site to go around the tree. After much shoveling, pushing, and an hour or two of effort, we are past the tree. We stop here and spend the night in the car.
Getting the car back to civilization the next day was an adventure in itself but not part of this narrative. Pepper was a big part of getting us out. Without her, we would not have made it in one day. We might have gotten lost. It would have been more work without her breaking trail. We would have stopped far more often to verify trail marks. If we had spent that night on the trail instead of in a steel car, we might have had a branch fall on us. It's possible that she saved our life.
To paraphrase Arthur Evans' quote at the beginning, it's quite clear that our ability to stay on trail as well as we did was largely due to our dog.
Pepper covered some of the same ground in September 94, her last trip. Pepper and I went with Bryan, our oldest boy, eleven then. It was pretty rough on Pepper but we had a great time. Pepper, we miss you.
Any comments or questions are welcome, via electronic mail. Tony Wesley, tony@tonywesley.com on the 'Net.