Enjoying a winter wonderland during the Winter Rendezvous.
[Photo by David Caliebe]
The 2017 trailbuilding season starter’s whistle is ready to blow; all that’s missing is you.
Please join us and choose from expanded Rendezvous options at beautiful Treehaven, a UW-Stevens Point facility near Tomahawk. Continue reading
Perfect fall weather created ideal working conditions for #TeamMerrimac and #TeamRibLake. Photo by Joanne Ellarson.
The 2016 Mobile Skills Crew “Stones and Ripples” tour ended in triumph at two project sites. Thanks to the combined efforts of 180 volunteers and a whopping 3,222 volunteer hours, a phenomenal amount of work was accomplished – and finished ahead of schedule.
A sense of community and collaboration formed between the two projects through a good-natured social media duel featuring each team’s creativity and trailbuilding skills. Continue reading
Photo credit: Dave Caliebe
What to do when the best laid plans hit a snag? As all seasoned volunteers know…with eyes forward, you shift on a dime and give it all you’ve got!
The planned Storrs Lake project in Rock County is on hold for 2016, regrettably. This change of plans, therefore, enables us to finish what we’ve started, which we strive to do. This mindset led us to organize two Mobile Skills Crew events which will run concurrently from Thursday, October 20 through Sunday, October 23.
The Sauk County event (Merrimac Segment) will build 3,600 feet of tread that was corridor cleared at the August event. The Taylor County event (Rib Lake Segment) will focus on finishing up work began in May on the Timm’s Hill Trail Connector. (The Sauk County project will be the larger of the two events.) Continue reading
Do you like to be recognized for the time and energy you spend on a project? If so, then you know how good it feels to bask in someone’s appreciation and words of praise (even if it feels as little embarrassing or awkward).
Now is your opportunity to turn the tables and heap a little admiration on someone else who has stepped up in a significant way in support of the Ice Age National Scenic Trail. Continue reading
Sunset on Straight Lake
Photo Credit: Rita Fox
Huge volumes of molten lava gushed through a split in the earth’s crust a billion years ago, forming the exposed basalt rock outcroppings we see along the Straight Lake and Trade River segments of the Ice Age National Scenic Trail. Toss in a continent-sized glacier 10,000 years ago, four Mobile Skills Crew events five years ago, steady love from local trail maintainers and — voila! — a signature section of the Ice Age Trail, the gift we and countless others enjoy today. Continue reading
The new 24-foot-long bridge, with lengthy approach ramps, for a total of 268 feet of boardwalk, now spans Parfrey’s Glen Creek. Photo credit: Dave Caliebe
August is prime time for community festivals big and small, celebrating the heart of each locale. Last week’s MSC event in Sauk and Columbia Counties rolled out the big top, anchored by four heavyweights of the Ice Age Trail – stonework, trailbuilding, woodworking, and most importantly, learning. These four anchors held the big top sturdy through high winds and downpours. These four anchors play a key part, every day, along the Ice Age Trail, expanding the big top to include more volunteers and hikers. Continue reading
Photo Credit: D. Caliebe – morning mist rising on Wood Lake
July is a month of celebrations. Picture puttering around the garden in the early hours of the day, or gathering with friends around a grill while enjoying the flicker of fireflies in the dusky hours of a long summer evening. On weekends, a great migration occurs as folks shuffle routines and voyage north to forests and picturesque lakes for peace of mind and adventure.
We hope you’ll join us for a mid-summer adventure of your own! Head North with us for our second Mobile Skills Crew project in Taylor County this year and fifth in the last 15 months; we’re tackling a whole lot of lumber, rock, and dirt across 50 miles of Taylor County. Continue reading
The Alliance’s Annual Conference and Membership Meeting was a success on many fronts. Guided hikes at the Plover River, Underdown and Dells of the Eau Claire segments, despite being blanketed in a late spring snow, provided the opportunity to recharge and enjoy a saunter with Trail friends from far and wide.
The Conference also featured new opportunities including daily raffles, a live auction and the final act of the Duff Bucket Challenge. The combined generosity of donors and attendees was overwhelming.
We would like to thank our generous sponsors and Trail supporters:
We also want to thank Dean Dversdall and Bob Lange for their donations.
These gifts and collective energy generated at the Annual Conference make hikes and experiences on the Ice Age National Scenic Trail a reality, forming stories that shape generations. Thank you to our donors, sponsors and attendees for making these experiences. Don’t take it from us, though…let members, hikers and friends of the Trail tell their story. Enjoy our first installment of Storytellers:
The songs “Happy” and “St. Louis” used with permission by Widespread Panic.
In conjunction with the National Park Service, we are excited to share with you a new safety initiative designed specifically for trail volunteers called “Trail Safe!”
Trail Safe! is a very unique safety initiative, based upon NPS Operational Leadership training, where the human factor of safety is explored. Topics include things such as Stress & Performance, Situational Awareness, Effective Leadership, and more. NPS Operational Leadership training is typically a 16-hour classroom commitment, which is impractical for all Ice Age Trail volunteers to attend. Trail Safe! explores all of the core learning objectives found in NPS Operational Leadership training, but is made available to you in a series of eight short, self-study videos. Individual Trail Safe! video lessons run between 18 and 40 minutes long, and the entire series can be viewed in just three hours from the comfort of your own home.
In many of the lessons you’ll see your fellow Ice Age Trail volunteers (or maybe even yourself) in the featured photos!
To access the Trail Safe! video series, go to the National Park Service’s website for the Ice Age National Scenic Trail. On the main page scroll down to the Trail Safe! feature and click on the link. From there you will be able to open and play all Trail Safe! lessons. Please watch them in numeric order from Lesson #1 through Lesson #8, as the learning concepts for each lesson build upon the previous lessons.
IMPORTANT: After viewing each Trail Safe! lesson, please be sure to go back to the main web page to complete the Training Verification Roster which is found at the bottom of the Trail Safe! page just below Lesson #8. Completing the Training Verification Roster takes just a few moments and gives you credit for having participated in this important training tool. Once you have viewed all eight lessons and submitted Training Verification Rosters for each lesson, you’ll receive a Trail Safe! pin and other job aids through the mail from the National Park Service.
Thank you in advance for participating in Trail Safe! and for helping ensure other volunteers learn about this important safety initiative. Specific questions about Trail Safe! may be directed to NPS Volunteer Coordinator Daniel Watson at daniel_watson@nps.gov.
Work has begun on updating the Ice Age Trail Guidebook, Ice Age Trail Atlas, and Ice Age Trail Databook with the goal of publishing updated versions in 2017.
We are looking for dedicated and enthusiastic hikers and lovers of the outdoors to volunteer as Field Editors. That means you!
Field Editors will be asked to hike a selected segment of the Ice Age Trail, review and verify existing book info, and submit a Field Edit Report providing any updated, corrected, or new segment information. As a Field Editor you will receive all the documents and support you need to complete your assignment (hiking shoes not included).
You can complete your assignment as a Field Editor and submit your Field Edit Report anytime between mid-April and September 1, 2016.
Segments of various lengths along the entire Ice Age Trail are available. Field editors will also have the opportunity to submit photographs of their segment for possible publication in the updated books.
The interest in being a volunteer Field Editor is expected to be very high, so sign up right now before all the assignments are gone!
To volunteer (or ask questions) please contact Gary Hegeman, Volunteer Field Editor Coordinator, by phone (414-217-7626) or email (gmheg@wi.rr.com).
The best part of being a Field Editor is the rewards. This opportunity will allow you to:
“Mug Shot” – Lakeshore Chapter Volunteers
One of the most-used tools along the Ice Age Trail is the underappreciated duff bucket. It’s used to haul away dirt and duff, transporting signage supplies and, perhaps, it’s most infamous use, as a seat during well-deserved breaks.
To keep the buckets employed over the winter, we came up with another use – collecting pocket change. Duff buckets are easy to fill when working on the Trail, let’s fill them with quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies – even paper money works!
We’re collecting change to make a change on the Ice Age Trail. To help you join the cause, we will send you an Ice Age Trail mug to fill. We’ll be collecting mugs full of change during the Annual Conference in Rothschild, April 7 – 10. If you can’t join us for the Conference, please hand off your mug to a chapter member that is attending or bring it to the office in Cross Plains. Your contribution will help us fill a duff bucket, or two, or…
For a little fun, we’re encouraging people to take their “Mug Shot.” Take a picture of your progress! Post it on Facebook and challenge your friends. Take it out on the Trail for a few pics and laughs.
How many can we fill? We’re hoping to need a bucket brigade to move all the duff buckets full of change! We’ll pack along the grip hoist just in case.
If you would like to participate in the Challenge, we’ll send you a mug “on the house.” Send a request to brad@iceagetrail.org or call the office at 608-798-4453.
Photo Credit: Dave Caliebe
Despite the frozen landscape of February, the first stone placed of the 2016 MSC tour rippled forth with refreshing change from the Treehaven education, conference and research center during the Winter Rendezvous. Trail folk from around the state celebrated the 2015 season, renewed fellowship with trail friends and looked ahead to the coming trailbuilding season. Amid snowshoe races, jigsaw puzzles and reminiscing about trailbuilding events of the past, a fire was lit in the very core of the Mobile Skills Crew spirit that will burn bright all season long.
Don’t worry if you missed the Rendezvous, the 2016 MSC Stones and Ripples tour is coming to an Ice Age Trail Segment near you. Next stop is in Rock County, April 27 – May 1 for Crew Leadership and Skills Training. If becoming a Crew Leader is not your fancy, join us at any of the other trailbuilding events. Check the schedule and register today. We look forward to making memories in 2016 that will kindle the fires of next year’s Winter Rendezvous.
photo by Tim Malzhan
As the calendar shuffles along toward spring and shadows get shorter our thoughts of trailbuilding are gaining momentum. Soon it will be time to slap new laces on steel toes, pick up a fresh pair of gloves and file a clean edge on the pick mattock. In a few short months we’ll be back in morning roundup and our tools of the craft will have a nice patina of duff and sawdust. Until these warm thoughts come to fruition, we’re planning on helping you scratch that trailbuilding itch with the Winter Rendezvous!
photo by Dave Caliebe
Just like the French voyageurs of the past, hearty souls will gather at UWSP – Treehaven in Tomahawk from February 5 – 7 to share stories of winter adventures, enjoy the landscape and rekindle fires. Please join us and catch up with old friends or make new, and find out what is in store for the 2016 Mobile Skills Crew season. There will be plenty of frivolity mixed in with x’s and o’s. No previous trailbuilding experience is necessary as all are welcome. You can register and see a full agenda here.
We look forward to seeing you at the Winter Rendezvous or on the Trail in the near future. Until then, we hope your thoughts of creating new Ice Age Trail experiences break up cabin fever and help you gain a spring in your step.
For decades Wisconsin citizens have rallied around the Ice Age Trail, from when the idea of a thousand-mile footpath was freshly born to when the first tread was built. The future of the Trail will rely on future generations to carry on vision. The Ice Age Trail Alliance is making a down-payment on the future with the Doug “Stickman” Sherman scholarship.
The scholarship is awarded to a college-bound young adult who has volunteered with the Alliance, in honor of the work of Doug “Stickman” Sherman, a longtime Alliance volunteer who passed away in 2014. Over a number of years, Stickman hand-carved hundreds of hiking sticks for students taking part in Saunters, the Alliance’s school program that brings kids onto the Ice Age Trail.
For weeks on end, students carried Doug’s creations all across Wisconsin – along the shores of the Wisconsin River, on towering bluffs overlooking Devil’s Lake, through the deepest northwoods forests, around the crags of Eau Claire Dells and across vast prairies.
The sticks provided balance, confidence and a helping hand. In essence, Stickman was with young hikers every step of the way as they explored the Ice Age Trail and took on a steady calm that only the solace of nature can provide. We are happy to carry on Mr. Sherman’s positive impact to tomorrow’s Trail supporters through this scholarship.
How to Apply
photo by Leah Bradley
The Doug “Stickman” Sherman Scholarship is a one-time $500 award and is open to young adults who are preparing to go to college. In order to qualify, applicants must have:
• A history of volunteering with the Ice Age Trail Alliance and/or serving as a Saunters mentor
• A love of the Ice Age National Scenic Trail and a desire to create, support and protect the Trail for future generations
• Future goals that include a degree in the environmental or education fields or a related field
Interested students should reference the application form [PDF] for complete instructions on how to apply. All submissions must be postmarked by September 30th, 2016.
Volunteers made the first large-scale trailbuilding project of the season a great success! The Rib Lake Mobile Skills Crew project in Taylor County saw 2,000 feet of newly-constructed trail, another mile cleared and ready for construction and 190 feet of new stone retaining wall.
This was the first project in building and opening the 4.7-mile Rib Lake Segment. Volunteers will be back with another MSC event in September to keep the rolling stone moving forward.
Thank you to everyone who attended!
The next stop for the MSC program brings us to the Storrs Lake Segment June 24-28, just outside of Milton in Rock County. Join fellow volunteers for a day of being outside, working with your hands and enjoying good company!
The Milton Moraine left behind dry kettles settled by massive white oaks and shagbark hickories, and the event will delve into the heart of this landscape. Work to be done includes a half-mile reroute, boardwalk repair, signage upgrades, a full-blown attack on invasives andprep work to create…drum roll please…a new 1.5-mile section of trail to the north!
Celebrating you, the Ice Age Trail volunteers, at our 2015 Annual Conference, we announced one of our proudest volunteer recognition awards given by the National Park Service. Thelma Johnson of Cumberland, Wis. is the 2014 recipient of the George and Helen Hartzog Award for Enduring Service. Congratulations, Thelma!
Dan Watson, National Park Service Volunteer Coordinator for the Ice Age & North Country National Scenic Trails, submitted the winning nomination for Thelma for the 2014 award.
See a snapshot of Thelma’s dedication to feeding her fellow volunteers through an excerpt from Dan’s nomination:
“Drawing large crowds to fairly remote areas in Wisconsin for back-breaking trail work isn’t easy, yet the Mobile Skills Crew and 12,000 volunteers continue to make the Ice Age National Scenic Trail successful. The food may have something to do with that.
For the past 12 years, Thelma Johnson, now 80 years old and still going strong, has fed an army of volunteers along the 1,200-mile trail. She has donated more than 2,000 hours to serve more than 30,000 meals to hungry volunteers. She commands a crew of cooks to serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner for projects that run five days at a time.
Camping alongside the trail crews, she’s the first one up, setting up her mobile kitchen by flashlight at 4:30 a.m. She’s often the last to stop work in the evening, scouring pots as crews rest by the campfire. Finding food for the masses in remote areas may be difficult, but Johnson has kept it flexible and frugal, clipping coupons to keep the budget down.
Johnson’s selflessness and dedication have been noted by fellow volunteers. She is known to have dumped personal contents of her suitcase to fit more food for workers and to have sat in her car to keep her fingers warm in the frigid cold while peeling mountains of onions.”
Thelma’s positive attitude and constant smile add the extra touch to the hard work Dan described, and we’re grateful to have her as a volunteer on the Ice Age Trail!
As Thelma demonstrates, trailbuilding is more than swinging a pick mattock or using a chain saw. Join fun, welcoming and hard-working volunteers at a Mobile Skills Crew project this season and choose from a variety of jobs. You may even get to experience Thelma’s famous bread pudding!
The hills and forests around Rib Lake in Taylor County have a rich history. From the great Wisconsin glacier that shaped the terrain 10,000 years ago to men atop ice sleds hauling hardwoods to build Milwaukee and Chicago in the last century, our stories abound.
In the 1970s, efforts to create the Ice Age National Scenic Trail took root in the area. Join forces with volunteers young and old during a Mobile Skills Crew project to build a new section of the Ice Age Trail near Rib Lake!
The project takes place Wednesday, May 27 through Sunday, May 31. You’re welcome to join for any amount of time – even a few hours are a big help!
We hope to see you soon!
At the end of March, 23 volunteers gathered for the first-ever Crew Leader Retreat. This was a chance for those who lead fellow volunteers on the Ice Age Trail to spend time together in an environment of reflection, learning and growth.
Many of those who attended are certified as crew leaders through our Crew Leadership and Skills training, and others are on the path to crew leadership. Everyone contributed to an inspiring weekend focused on leadership on the Trail.
The volunteers moved through some team-building challenges, training modules and lots of idea sharing. The enthusiasm to continue improving how we do work on the Trail was infectious!
Thank you to all those who participated – this is a group of seriously passionate and dedicated people. If you know or work with a volunteer crew leader on (or off) the Ice Age Trail, send a thank you their way!
