Seeing Something New

That’s Sunburst Winter Sports Park in the background, 6 miles to the southwest. (Nathan Patton photo)

Ever so briefly, in West Bend today we surpassed 32° for the first time since February 4. (The last 2.5 weeks weren’t just below freezing, they were way below freezing.) But the wind was biting today, and the absence of sunshine also made things feel much colder than the thermometer led us to expect. With a few days around 40° in the forecast, I might be riding outdoors sometime in the week ahead. Today was still too cold for that, but it was good enough for a hike on the Ice Age Trail in the Northern Kettle Moraine.

I did a 5-mile, out-and-back hike on a section of trail that I had not seen before, roughly from St. Matthias Catholic Church to New Fane. There was plenty of elevation change, plenty of snow, a steady hum of snowmobile engines, and a very unexpected encounter with a horse-drawn sleigh. It was a good workout and a good break from the home office, where I spent entirely too much time during the last week.

One of these days—a warm, snow-free one—I want someone to drop me off at a distant trailhead so that I can spend a whole day on the trail just walking home. There’s so much of it nearby and so much more for me to see for the first time.