{"id":209685,"date":"2019-04-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/?p=209685"},"modified":"2019-04-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T00:00:00","slug":"first-forest-hike-of-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/?p=209685","title":{"rendered":"First Forest hike of 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.48″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.19.18″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”]

Friday and Saturday: March 28-29, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Five Mile Road in Newaygo County to Cleveland Drive Just North of Nichols Lake<\/h3>\n

Total miles: On the trail total mileage was 12.8 miles.<\/h4>\n

I walk the roads of Greater Grand Rapids, rain or shine, hot or cold, sunny or rain<\/g>, chalking up ten plus miles a week. This was my first hike in the woods in 2019. \u00a0Jeff and I spent two days in the Manistee National Forest. \u00a0It was an experience of anticipation. \u00a0There were still patches of snow. \u00a0The lakes and ponds were still iced over although melting along the edges. \u00a0The only thing green was Winter Green and lush green moss along the trail. \u00a0The forest was somber and sleeping. \u00a0There was no movement. \u00a0Silence! \u00a0Solitude. \u00a0There was no wind, no sound of leaves blowing in the wind. \u00a0The trees and bushes were still bare. \u00a0It was a great time to really note the frequency of the frozen rusty brown ferns of the wetlands. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Newaygo County is full of small lakes, ponds, and wetlands. \u00a0Since 1850 over fifty percent of all the wetlands in North American have been filled in. \u00a0The wetlands act as<\/g> a sponge absorbing heavy rainfall and releasing water over time to the subsoil reservoirs. \u00a0It should not be a huge surprise that we have massive, never-before-experienced, massive flooding in some of our urban areas where the wetlands have disappeared.<\/p>\n

\"image1\"<\/p>\n

It was cool and cloudy. \u00a0The temperature was 42 during the day, dropped to freezing at night. \u00a0There was no bright shining sun. \u00a0No buds were popping out and yet, one could feel the anticipation of warmer weather. \u00a0Spring was not quite there yet. \u00a0Winter was holding on for dear life but knew it was all over. \u00a0<\/p>\n

I heard no birds tweeting or singing. \u00a0Several chipmunks and black squirrels exposed themselves briefly wondering who might be hiking at this time of year. \u00a0As Jeff drove off to find where the trail intersected a road several miles ahead, I walked west on Eleven Mile heading in the wrong direction. \u00a0I was a good mile down the road before acknowledging my error. \u00a0Maps are supposed to help navigate. \u00a0In my case, they seem to tell me when I am wrong. \u00a0<\/p>\n

We made camp about 7:30 camping in the Benton Lake National Forest campground. \u00a0We build a huge fire, cooked a meal, and put up our tents in the dark. \u00a0It was black as coal outside the perimeter of our fire pit. \u00a0We could see the towering leafless Red and White Oaks soliloquized against the dark sky. \u00a0We felt alone, vulnerable, content as we crawled into our sleeping bags protected against the cold and pelting rain during the night. \u00a0I loved it. \u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I walk the roads of Greater Grand Rapids, rain or shine, hot or cold, sunny or rain, chalking up ten plus miles a week. This was my first hike in the woods in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":209686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_block_theme_hide_title":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-209685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-founders-corner","9":"with-featured-image"},"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/image1-549x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/image1.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Paul Kortman","author_link":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/?author=4"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=209685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/209686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=209685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=209685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=209685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}