East Lake Segment - Ice Age Trail

Charlie and I took a road trip last weekend to scout out the area around Rib Lake for an upcoming project that I'll tell you more about later.  We ended up hiking part of the East Lake Segment and I totally forgot to write a post about it!

Last Saturday was one of those unusually warm sunny days that we don't get too often in April... temps reaching the low 80's!

The trees don't have any leaves yet this time of year, so there was no shade or relief from the sun and we quickly got too warm. Unfortunately I dressed for normal April weather and was sweating pretty good within our first mile.

Luckily there were plenty of watering holes for Charlie to cool off in during the hike!

The trail consisted of a lot of ups and downs, but it seemed we were doing a slow ascent which turned quite steep at one point. Upon reaching the top of the "hill," I found a sign that said Moose Mountain!

We took a long break at the top to play some fetch and then made our way back down to the trailhead since I was running low on water.

VIDEO (view from the top):

I typically get pretty grumpy in hot weather... 60's are my favorite temperature. There were times during the hike where I just wanted to quit and go back to the car, but I kept telling myself "we drove all the way here, the least we can do is get some hiking in."

Funny thing is though, once I started getting my body moving and we achieved a good rhythm, I stopped my internal whining and just enjoyed the ride. There were sweet moments when a cool breeze circled my body or a butterfly landed on a piece of birch bark or we stopped to listen to frogs in a pond, where the noisy chatter in my head ceased and all that was there was nature.

VIDEO (frogs in pond):

Busy jobs, errands that need to be run, relationship problems and family strife end up cluttering our brains with too many thoughts bouncing around... where you just can't stop the thoughts from eating away at you. But spending a couple of hours out in nature with your body moving is the best cure for this condition. By the time we got back to the car, I felt at ease and refreshed from the accumulation of brain-garbage throughout the week.

Spending time in nature really is the cure.