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NCT Plan
January 20, 2009
Randy and I are busy making plans for some significant hiking on the North Country Trail. The NCT is a premier footpath that stretches for about 4,600 miles linking communities, forests, and prairies across seven northern states between Crown Point, NY and Lake Sakakawa State Park, ND. Several sections of the trail are still in process, but nearly 2000 miles have been certified off-road. Additional miles follow shared paths and roadways. When completed it will be the longest off-road hiking trail in the United States. Michigan has the largest percentage of the NCT of any of the seven states — just over 500 miles in the Upper Peninsula and nearly 550 miles in the Lower Peninsula. The NCT trail enters Michigan at the Ohio border in Hillsdale County, runs up the center of the Lower Peninsula, crosses the Straits of Mackinac, heads north through the Hiawatha National Forest and then turns to the west, roughly following Lake Superior across the Upper Peninsula, leaving the state in Iron County at the Wisconsin border.
Along the North Country Trail
While I am not a long-distance hiker and it is doubtful that I would ever be able to cover the entire 4600 miles, I have set a goal to attempt to hike the entire length of Michigan trail (just over 1000 miles) in the course of my lifetime doing day and weekend hikes. Until now the miles we’ve logged on the NCT have been coincidental overlap of other trails, particularly in the Upper Peninsula, but we’ve recently stepped things up and have set our first real goal.
We’re hoping to cover the entire Manistee National Forest segment of the trail over the next 2 years. This 130-mile stretch runs from the Marilla Trailhead near Hodenpyl Dam Pond in mid-Eastern Manistee County to Croton Dam in Newaygo County. We’ve broken this up into 22 pieces averaging 6-9 miles each and will work our way from north to south doing primarily day-hikes. We may adjust the break-out once we get started if we find the distance is too much or too little. While 6-9 mile stretches seems a bit lite, I like to take a lot of photos and don’t want to feel rushed, so it should be about right.
One of the biggest challenges when doing a linear trail is how to avoid double-hiking since you end the day several miles away from where you left your vehicle. With two people it is possible to use two vehicles, positioning one at the start and the other at the end, but the thought of driving separately and using double the fuel, didn’t really appeal to us. Instead we’ve decided to take our bicycles, park our vehicle at the day’s end point, ride our bikes to the start point and then swing back and pick the bikes up at the end of the day.
Another challenge for us is our dogs. We have two pugs and we often hike with them, intentionally choosing trails that allow dogs. However, dogs are not allowed on the North Country Trail. Simply leaving them at home when we’re doing day-trips is fine, but the weekend camping/hiking trips will be a problem. We’re still working on this.
You can see our proposed trail break-out here and follow our progress here (once we get started). We’re tentatively planning to do the first few hikes in the stretch between M-55 and the northern end of the segment at the end of March.
Posted by Deb
Topics: hiking
January 24th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Dogs are allowed almost everywhere on the NCT. Pictured Rocks in the UP, Copper Falls SP in Wisconsin, and the Fort Custer National Cemetery in Battle Creek are closed to dogs… maybe another place or two. Not sure where you got your info.
January 24th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Hey that’s great about dogs! I was going on our experience in Pictured Rocks, but perhaps that was a park policy more than a trail policy. Thanks for the info!
January 31st, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Yes, that’s a park policy. When you get your plans put together more, you can probably get someone from one of the NCTA chapters to help you spot your car, even with dogs. Let me know.
I need to bookmark your blog. I forgot to last time I was here.
July 9th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Have you chosen to walk the segments of your NCT journey in a specific direction, for a reason? We are interested in doing some similar hiking which is why I’m asking. W.