The homepage is not a “live” feed as promised, but must be manually refreshed to get new items, unlike the old news feed which would refresh itself every 15 minutes or so. Furthermore it is just a big dump of status updates and clutter about people sending gifts and peeps and hatching eggs and finding treasure items… gone are many of the interesting and newsworthy things friends are doing — who they are now friends with, comments on other friends’ photos and links, etc. The filtering by friend list is nice, but this option was available in the old version, just not so obviously positioned. But gone is the ability to fine tune the filtering by choosing more or less about particular friends and/or activities. Now it is all or nothing — either you see every silly mundane thing your friends are saying and doing or you hide them and see nothing they are doing. And why on earth would I want my own activities (i.e. postings to my friends’ walls) to appear in *my* news feed? I am the one who posted it, I already know what it said… I have gotten around this by making a friend list of all my friends and filtering on that list instead of everyone, just to exclude my own activity (how backward is that?). The “highlights” sidebar is just a huge waste of space as it primarily shows stuff my friends have already posted which has previously been in my news feed, along with a few strategically placed ads — I suspect the volume of ads in this area will only increase over time. What happened to the convenient access to my bookmarks, applications, events and page updates? Those things were far more useful to the average user than the things FB considers to be “highlights.” I have no idea where I will find new friend requests or other notifications — either nobody has sent me any in the past 24 hours or I just haven’t located them yet.

The profile page is a jumble of he said/she said — no more distinguishing status posts from wall posts and comments by font size, weight and format — they all look the same now! And why on earth do I need or want to see my own little picture attached to everything I do on my own page? Not to mention the profile page is no longer chronological, rather is loosely grouped by activity type. Given that they have completely done away with the time stamps, it is now nearly impossible to follow activity in the sequence it happened. It is pretty silly when a comment I make about something appears 6 items *below* the actual posting of the original item. Another thing missing on the profile page is the ability to choose how much of a particular item you want to show on the page — one line, short bit or full story. Likewise with photos, no longer is there the flexibility to set a size.

As far as I can see, the new format adds absolutely no additional functionality, rather decreases functionality and user flexibility and is just an all-around bad design aesthetically, technically and functionally. What on earth was the point of this change?

Black Bear Population on the Rise in Michigan

A Change of Crayon
by Alice Moore, age 6

1. where written permission has been obtained in advance from the appropriate land manager or land owner, providing a specific timeframe and location for the activity, and
2. where proper care is taken to avoid damage caused by digging or trampling to vegetation, archeological evidence, trail tread or other fragile resources in the area.

While I certainly agree with the second condition as this is something I, and hopefully every letterboxer, takes into consideration whenever planting or hunting a letterbox. However the first condition is kind of counter-intuitive to the hobby and to my planned interaction with the trail. Having to obtain permission prior to planting a letterbox, giving location details and a set duration would require

1. that I am familiar enough with the area before I go there to be able to provide details of a specific location, and
2. that I am sure to collect the box precisely at the end of the specified duration

This would require me to scout out possible letterbox locations prior to planned hikes (far enough in advance to obtain the necessary permission before going back to do the hike and plant the letterbox), or to look for good spots while hiking, then seek permission and then make a return trip to plant the box. Not only does that seem like a lot of hassle just to plant a letterbox, but it would require me to begin keeping more detailed records on the letterboxes I plant — whom I negotiated with for permission, what our agreement was, when the box term expires, etc. Imagine doing that for 80-100 letterboxes! This is after all a hobby, not a full-time job. I would love to plant a couple of letterboxes, thus sharing my love for this public trail and encouraging others to enjoy it also, but it’s really more maintenance than I have time for. I may go through the approval process and plant a box or two, but certainly it would be minimal. There are many other places to plant letterboxes that do not impose this kind of restriction.

I’m just not sure that I understand the logic in allowing mountain bikes on the trail, an activity which is not only contradictory to the purpose of the trail, but obviously is having severe negative impact on the condition and stability of the trail and is often outright dangerous to hikers, but activities like geocaching and letterboxing are viewed as potential negatives that need to be controlled. It would leave one to wonder if the person making the rules is perhaps a mountain biking enthusiast. The NCT mountain biking policy is actually a bit of a joke.

One is actually very encouraged as they read this…

“The Trail is meant to provide and protect an experience that more and more is lost in our busy and growing world. Whether exploring wilderness or rural landscapes, for an afternoon or weeks on end, hikers should expect to fine peace, solace, insight, and a reconnection with the natural world as they journey along the North Country National Scenic Trail. Many trails offer the opportunity for exercise in a natural environment, but few seek to protect this type of experience that we feel is a crucial and growing need in human nature.”

This is after all, exactly the thinking of most who enjoy hiking the trail. Even the next sentence continues to lend encouragement…

“Part of the reason the Association discourages bike use is that it threatens to displace hikers seeking the type of experience for which the Trail is intended.”

But this is where the Association backs down…

“This policy does not represent a ban on mountain bikes on the trail, as the local managing authority has the final decision over whether or not to permit bike use. It does mean that the Association is on record as opposing mountain bike use in most situations.”

So basically, we realize and admit that biking is counter-intuitive to our purpose and poses threat to the trail and it’s intended user and we really wish you wouldn’t do it, but we don’t want to go on record as prohibiting mountain bikes so we will push this off onto the local trail managers…

This dispersed management of the policy is why mountain biking is allowed on some areas of the trail. The following excerpt is from the book “Following the North Country National Scenic Trail”, by Wes Boyd, and is in specific reference to Ed Talone’s observations and the biking policy along the Manistee Forest Segment of the trail (Ed Talone is the first person to do an end-to-end thru hike of the NCT):

“… Talone noted damage and erosion from mountian bike usage on the trail, which, though never formally opened to mountain bikes, was never offically closed to them, either — the trail had been ‘discovered’ by the mountain bike crowd, which pushed hard to officially open the trail to them. In a display of bureaucratic pigheadedness unprecedented on the NCNST, in 1996 the forest manager overrode conclusions of a study then in progress, and formally opened all but 30 miles of the trail to mountain bikes. The areas opened to mountain bikes were some of the most scenic and easily damaged sections of the trail. ‘If hikers don’t like it, they can go elsewhere,’ the decision statement on the issue wrote.”

… and they’re worried about a little ole letterbox?

All that being said, I have to admit that I am so geeked about hiking the trail that I really don’t care if there are letterboxes involved or not!

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.

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A few new journal pages…

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Snow on the Creek

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