Hiking the North Country Trail to the Southeast of Herman

The last week was a bit of a blur due to three early morning swims ranging from 1,800 to 2,100 yards, having to turn over the cabin six times over the course of the week, and having two of my sisters staying with us and a third in the area. With that as a backdrop, we also got in some hiking boot shopping, had dinner with our friends Mark and Kathy, attended (and picked up pizza for) the monthly Chassell Lions Club meeting, put in some volunteer time at the Chassell Heritage Center, picked five pounds of blueberries at the Gierke Blueberry Farm, had dinner with family and friends at Nutinni’s in Hancock, went hiking at Maasto Hiihto with our friends Wolf and Carolyn, and spent time talking around an evening into night campfire along with my sisters at our neighbors Lee and Barb’s place. With all that, we still got in the all important North Country Trail hike to build the mileage toward our #hike100NCT goal!

On Thursday, Julie, Mark, Jennifer, and I headed down to the southeast of Herman to pick up the recently re-routed trail to the the northwest of the Lynch property where Mark and I had recently done trail work. Julie and Jennifer were interested in checking out the Manger-Lynch Shelter and I was interested in connecting footsteps to the Lynch property between the Celotex Road via the Little Spruce Lake Road. We started our hike just to the northwest of a gate on a road that would connect to the Little Spruce Lake Road. There is quite a bit of logging going on in this area right now, so the regular two-track beyond the gate has been bulldozed to accommodate logging trucks.

Along the bulldozed road we came across a huge granite boulder! It didn’t appear to have been moved in the course of the road work so we wondered if it might be a large glacial erratic.

The improved logging road veered eastward from a fork in the road placing us on a much narrower two-track through the forest.

Fall colors were clearly making their presence felt on this hike as we saw a fair amount of hard maples showing off deep red colors.

Once onto the Lynch property we found ourselves on a much narrower trail which required us to traverse a rain-slickened boardwalk and then a rock-strewn swampy area.

After just over three miles of hiking, we reached the spur trail turnoff to the Manger-Lynch Shelter. The granite outcroppings and old-growth forest make this spur trail a very special place!

We enjoyed lunch as well as an awesome view from the shelter!

We were soon making the over three-mile trek back to where we started as fog started to roll into the area.

You can see my GoPro video from this hike on the Remote Workforce Keweenaw YouTube channel at this link:

Blueberry picking at the Gierke Blueberry Farm in Chassell!

Do you embrace winter and have the ability to work remotely? Consider locating in the Keweenaw where you will find ubiquitous natural beauty, no congestion, and lower crime! Not sure? Come UP for a #workcation to check it out! Learn how at Visit Keweenaw at this link: https://www.visitkeweenaw.com/plan/trip-ideas-itineraries/workcations/ Visit Remote Workforce Keweenaw at https://remoteworkforcekeweenaw.com. Learn about those making the decision to locate here by following the Remote Workforce Keweenaw Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/RemoteWorkforceKeweenaw