Cowpatty & 83 miles on the High Country Pathway.

“Cowpatty organized a thru hike of all 80 miles of the High Country Pathway loop in the northern tip of Michigan’s lower peninsula which we commenced on Thursday afternoon, October 8, 2009 from Clear Lake State Park. From there we backpacked clockwise 11.8 miles to a spectacular but dry campsite on top of Rattlesnake Hill. On day two of our trip we saw three elk during our 18 miles of hiking until stopping slightly more than a mile north of Pigeon Bridge campground. On day 3 we hiked 18 miles to Dog Lake with a long lunch stop at Pine Grove Campgrounds where a trail angel served us four bowls of hunters stew, a plate of cheese and crackers, and two cups of mixed fruit. There were numerous grouse hunters at that campground, so I started wearing my blaze orange hat for safety. On day four, we hiked 15.4 miles to the Canada Creek shelter, arguably one of the best campsites on the Pathway. Hiking the northern sections of the Pathway was a little slower because of the narrow and slippery-when-wet boardwalks, and the rough ground going through the more numerous swamps. Because sleet and snow was forecast for latter in the day, we hiked 21.4 miles back to our car with many nice views of lakes and open woods.

The Association map was useful and accurate.
http://www.pigeonrivercountryforest.org/maps.htm

The rest of the trip report is told in the captions of the slideshow:
http://outdoors.webshots.com/slideshow/575089820eAWSaH”

“Very cool! Nice fall colors.”

“Nice pictures.”

“Excellent. Thanks for sharing.

I need to put this on my list for next fall.”

“Very cool---you guys did quite a few miles!
The fall colors pretty much exploded around here over the past week.


Hey prosecutor, we're expecting to see you (and anyone else wanting to make the trip) for at least one winter campout this year. I'm hoping to schedule at least two for this coming winter.”

“wow, covered some miles....wonderful pics of fall....thanks for sharing the north country views ....”

“Very nice pictures and by the looks of things, a very good trip with some fairly decent, dry, Fall weather. You guys were really putting down some boot leather for sure, so to speak.”

“On my to do list! Looking forward to the pictures.”

“nice and thank you for sharing! yo bear!”

“Nice trip,nice pics thanks”

“No time no see.”

“Nice! Thanx.”

“Thanks to Prosecutor for posting the report and photos for our hike, and for agreeing to this hike. My photos aren't on any website or you'd see some pics featuring Prosecutor instead of me!

The weather was typical northeast Michigan October weather and we were lucky to see fall color before the wind had all the leaves turned into fall color on the ground instead of on the trees. We saw so many grouse that we should have had a grouse dinner or two but for lack of a firearm. The rut appeared to be mostly over in the elk herd there in the Pigeon River Country State Forest as we didn't hear the usual bugling or see very many elk moving around in the cool weather. The rut here usually starts in late August and we had cooler than usual weather all summer. We didn't see any bears which surprised me as bear season there was just ending.

This trail is the longest loop trail that Michigan has and although I'd hiked all of it many times in sections, I'd wanted to hike it in one trip and this worked out well. I was able to cache water ahead of time on Rattlesnake Hill so we could easily camp there. On the second day, a rivet on my boot popped apart and fortunately my relacing efforts worked sufficiently as I had no way to replace a rivet.

This trail doesn't see much use or maintenance and keeps a lot of it's wild character. Walking through the cedar swamps on a somewhat eerie cool, misty, foggy morning brings to mind forester P.S. Lovejoy's name for the forest as he pushed for preserving the area: The Big Wild.”