Ice Age Trail Chequemegon Section Trip Report

[puddingboy]

Day One
We started out at the highway 64 trailhead at about 2. We entered the forest and every once in a while we would come to a clearing and cross a wet prairie. The trail was pretty overgrown. After about 2 or 3 miles we came to a dry clearing that had been made by a tornado. It was completely overgrown by raspberry bushes and we had to push through them, our machete got alot of work in this part. We crossed forest road 558 after 4 miles. We hiked two mile long jaunts through the woods, and we saw a porcupine climbing a tree, porcupines are really cool! We continued through the woods through some wet boggy like trail with roots everywhere. As we were taking a break we heard lots of howling, very near, we continued to go and we heard a wolf from behind and a bunch across a clearing. We walked some more and got to our campsite at lake eleven at about 8. It is a great campsite and we swam in the lake. The water is red and taste terrible. As we went to bed we heard the wolves howling in the distance. What an amazing day.

Day Two
We woke made breakfast and walked till about noon. We stopped and made lunch at jerry lake and heard the wolves on the opposite side of the lake. We hiked until we got to the yellow river campsite. The yellow river is not really a river more like a small creek.It started raining and we made camp there. We made dinner and it stopped raining so we packed things up and hiked another 2 1/2 miles. And stopped at an unmarked campsite. There are alot of campsite that are not marked on the map. We saw two hikers the first and only group.

Day Three
We trudged either along high eskers or in wet lowlands. The trail was still overgrown and the misquitoes were terrible. We walked until we came to the mondeaux flowage. We hiked another mile till we got to the west point campground where we met up with my uncle andy. We fished some and grilled the fish over the fire.

Day Four
We hiked till we got to the top of the flowage, where they had a lodge with food and showers. I ordered a bacon cheeseburger mmmmmm. We walked along the flowage where it was better maintained but as we entered the woods again it w quickly got wet and overgrown, We crossed over a beaver dam and we were at my uncles car by 2.

Overall we had a great time, and the trail challenged us. It was over grown in lots of places and some boardwalks were slanted. I would not recommend this to any beginning hiker but it would be fine for anyone who has done a couple backpacking trips.

[IceAge]

Excellent, glad you had a good time. I had no idea there were so many wolves in the Cheq.

What kind of fish did you catch?

[puddingboy]

my uncle caught a big bass, but after that all we caught was bluegill and small walleye (atleast i think thats what it was).
It was a good long section and it really had that deep woods feel.

[Medic!]

A fair number of wolves, and a LOT of coyote.

[puddingboy]

wolves , coyotes whatever they were it was cool, im gonna stick with wolves for now cuz it makes a better story

[turtle fast]

Was the trail that overgrown? Was the foot path noticeable? I imagine jungle like bushwhacking with the machete! Now the wolves...that is cool!!!

[puddingboy]

the only really overgrown sections were the openings that had been taken over by raspberry bushes, you had to push through the bushes and the thorns could cut you up.

[turtle fast]

Oh yes those brambles seem to snag on everything! I wonder how long it was since the last hiker went through. I had some of the same things on the North Country trail in the Upper Peninsula where I could swear that I was the only one to hike some sections in a while. I had once or twice where the foot bed had vanished to nothing! I had to circle to find markings. Another time I just went the direction the trail I thought it should go and found blazes several hundred feet away.