Tell a stranger in Sheboygan this weekend to “take a hike”, and they might just ask you where the best options are. That’s because several hundred supporters of Wisconsin’s Ice Age National Scenic Trail Alliance are meeting today through Sunday at the Blue Harbor Resort.
The Ice Age Trail Alliance is a nonprofit group of volunteers, staff and members all dedicated to conserving, creating, maintaining and promoting the trail that traces the edge of the last great glacier to cover much of Wisconsin over 12,000 years ago. The foot path stretches over 1,000 miles from St. Croix Falls to Sturgeon Bay.
Ed and Kris Abell are Alliance members from Sheboygan County who’ve done the whole route, and Ed told us that the Alliance is invaluable in their efforts to improve the trail for its hikers. “They’re doing it constantly, and they’re doing it through these sub-groups. The Lakeshore Chapter is the one that covers Sheboygan County and all the way up to Green Bay. Through the website you can find out where they’re putting in a new trail section, or if they have to put in a wooden walkway to get over a marshy spot, and they get volunteers to help out in different sections.”
Ed and Kris Abell spent 5-1/2 years hiking sections of between 80 and 100 miles at a stretch, and said it’s a wilderness experience that would impress anyone willing to spend time in the outdoors. “You can find the exhilaration of wilderness anywhere, and Wisconsin is no different. There are trails, there are natural forests, and there are places where only Ice-Age hikers go on the trail, because they’re just too remote for a Sunday hike.”
The Ice Age Trail Alliance meeting in Sheboygan plans on launching their convention by hiking the Greenbush Segment this morning, and spend the rest of the time discussing how they’ll promote and grow the trail that, as Abell puts it, has a promising future. “It’s always growing, and I would think that over time, it’s gonna be a trail like the Appalachian that doesn’t walk on any roads at all.”
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