by Richard W. Kropf

As retiring PRCA Newsletter editor it suddenly dawned on me that I had done a poor job these past years in failing to call to attention to the work of our PRCA-sponsored summer interns.  This oversight particularly struck me during this year's open meeting on June 29th when Sarah Topp gave her report regarding her on-going, and it seems, with all the storms we have had these past few years, never- ending work in keeping up the maintenance of the various pathways and trails in the forest, as well as overseeing continuing work on the High County Pathway. 

She is also unique in several other ways. Although born in Rochester MI, she has lived most of her life in Gaylord, graduating from St. Mary's High School in 2009, giving her a unique perspective on the importance of the Pigeon River Country to those who are so lucky to live in the Gaylord area and neighboring counties.  Sarah also has the distinction of being one of the few PRCA-sponsored interns to serve in this capacity for two consecutive summers – a testimony as to how highly the governing board of the PRCA values her work and dedication.

Sarah will be returning this fall to Northern Michigan University as a senior, majoring in general biology, with a concentration on wildlife management (she is particularly interested in larger animals like deer, elk, and bear) and is hoping to make a career for herself in this area – perhaps after post-graduate studies.  We wish her success in years to come and are thankful to our loyal PRCA membership for helping fund our intern program.  We are proud to have helped further Sarah's ambitions.   

by Drew YoungeDyke

This Saturday, April 27, the Pigeon River Country Association is hosting a volunteer workday to clear winter storm debris from the Shingle Mill Pathway. Yes, I know it's the trout opener, but we're working from 9:30 to 2:30, so there's plenty of time before and after to get your waders wet. 

The work will be strenuous, as some fairly large trees were toppled onto the trails over the winter. If you have a chainsaw (and safety equipment!) please bring it along with a backpack to carry the lunches the PRCA is providing for volunteers. We'll meet at the Pigeon River Country Forest Headquarters at 9:30, have a short safety and orientation session, and spread out to do good work. 

If you can make it, please email info@pigeonriver.org so that the PRCA can get an accurate count for lunches and equipment. Some extra chainsaw safety equipment (hardhat, ear and eye protection, chaps, leather cloves) may be available if needed, depending on demand, but please bring your own if you have it. 

If you're still worried about missing a few hours of fishing, I'll share a personal story. Last year, I helped out Huron Pines on a volunteer project anchoring large woody debris into eroding streambanks on the Pigeon River. The next day, I went fishing on the Black River and caught my personal best brown trout. So if you help out the PRCA on Saturday and go fishing on Sunday, well, no promises, but sometimes when you give to the Pigeon River Country, it gives back.

Hope to see you there!

As reported by the Gaylord Herald-Times, a new addition of 160 acres along the Pigeon River could be acquired by the DNR for addition to the Pigeon River Country Forest. After originally withholding their required approval under a new state law, the Otsego County Board of Commissioners approved the acquisition after learning that other newer state laws guarantee Payments in Lieu of Taxes that the state must pay to local governments on public land. 

Read this Chris Engle article for more details: http://www.petoskeynews.com/gaylord/news/pnr-pigeon-river-forest-may-grow-by-240-acres-20130326,0,5902434.story (NOTE: The author contacted us to let us know that after the story was published, a private offer was accepted for the 80-acre Bryce Tract off Sparr Road near the southern forest. The 160-acre Skiba Tract, along the Pigeon River near the Song of the Morning Ranch, is still on the table.)

by Drew YoungeDyke

Some things just go together, like country-rap songs or chocolate chip cookies and Michigan IPA. Well, maybe that’s just me, but with fresh snow on the ground, a few days left of bow season and some time off work for the holidays, I couldn’t resist strapping on snowshoes and a backpack full of backcountry camping gear, grabbing my bow and heading out to the Pigeon River Country, never mind the sub-freezing temperature. 

Snowshoeing can be a challenging workout on its own, especially off-trail, and winter camping requires its own set of considerations. Combining these activities with a serious bow hunt wouldn’t be easy, but I knew it would be fun. I planned a two-day hunt over the last weekend of the season, just before New Year’s Eve. I didn’t start hunting until later in the afternoon because I went snowshoeing earlier in the day with my dad, but that was time well spent. 

I decided to seek a coniferous area of the forest since a storm had just blown through which would provide downed limbs for deer to nibble on. I scout often in the summer and early fall when I’m backpacking and fishing, and I thought of an area I’d hiked through near a small lake surrounded by hemlock and some small hills which would provide food, cover and water. A few summers ago I saw a magnificent bull elk on the other side of the lake, which had been the coolest thing I’d seen in the Pigeon River Country until four of them came within twenty yards of me while still-hunting during rifle season two years ago. 

The two-track running to the lake was unplowed, so I parked my vehicle and snow-shoed down the trail. I saw some tire tracks, but I didn’t want to risk getting my crossover SUV stuck and, besides, hoofing it was part of the adventure! A few miles down the two-track, the lake appeared on the right surrounded by the most beautiful snow-covered hemlock you can imagine. It looked like a postcard for what the north woods is all about and a reminder of why it’s important to protect places like the Pigeon River Country. 

I hiked down to the shore, set down my bow, took off my pack and removed my water bottles from the side pockets. I planned to get my water from the lake, so I didn’t pack much in. However, upon breaking the ice with my hatchet, the water was muddy and mucky from the shallow marsh rimming the lake. The ice wasn’t thick enough to walk on, so rather than drinking mud, I went to Plan B and decided to get my water by melting snow. But that would wait until I set up camp. I snatched some ice cycles off low-hanging branches and let them melt in my mouth for a water fix.  

The prevailing wind was supposed to come from the north the first day and the south-west the second day. I decided to scout northward of the lake on the first day and find a place to pitch camp, and still-hunt to the south on the second day, making sure I was always moving against the prevailing wind. West of the lake, going north, I discovered a highway of deer tracks, with entrance ramps coming in from the hills to the west. Deer used the trail to skirt the lake, so I scouted ambush locations for the next morning’s hunt.

I should add the caveat here that I’m anything but a prolific deerslayer. This was my second season bowhunting and I have yet to kill a deer with a bow, but I’ve been able to get closer to deer in the past two bow seasons than  I ever did while hunting with a rifle, even when I was successful. I prefer to still-hunt and don’t even own a treestand. I suppose I’m after more of a complete wilderness experience than solely a successful hunt, but I take the hunting very seriously. This trip would be no exception. 

By the time I rounded the lake, the winter’s short day was coming to a close. I wanted to find a campsite away uphill and northeast of where I planned to hunt, so that neither the shifting winds nor the morning thermals would carry my scent into it. I found a level spot at the edge of a hill where the hemlocks met some hardwoods. There were tracks here, too, but not as many as there were closer to the lake. I pitched my tent south of small stump mound between which I would build my fire. 

If you’ve ever tried to start a campfire in the winter, you probably know it’s not as easy as it looks on survival TV shows. I gathered tinder, kindling and fuel from down branches by the light of my headlamp as it grew dark and tried to use the fluffy insides of the decaying stump as tinder. However, it was frozen through and wouldn’t take a spark. I reluctantly sacrificed the back chapters of a well-worn Louis L’Amour paperback that I’ve carried with me to read on every winter camping trip I’ve taken, but I consoled myself that Louis would have approved (the book is about an American aviator escaping through Siberia by surviving in the wild). Unfortunately, though, the pages burned up before they could catch the tinder. 

The temperature was below twenty degrees – I didn’t know exactly how far below – but I knew it would be a long, cold night without a fire. Finally, I decided to forget starting it the traditional way and pointed my Pocket Rocket backpacker’s stove toward my tinder and tepee of twigs until they caught fire. I added more kindling and was on my way. The wind had shifted to a southwest wind by the time I was able to get the fire going, so it carried the sparks and smoke away from my tent.

I spent most of the night gathering dead wood and cutting it with my hatchet, thankful that I thought to bring the kneepads I bought for retiling my bathroom at home. I find myself kneeling so often while camping and still-hunting that I doubt I’ll ever again do either without bringing my kneepads, especially in wet and snowy conditions. While still-hunting, the key word is “still” and the kneepads help me stay still longer and more comfortably while kneeling behind a deadfall or young pines. At camp, they make kneeling to chop firewood or blow oxygen into the fire much more comfortable, especially in the snow. 

For dinner, I ate some freeze-dried beef stew rehydrated with boiling water and some Finnish biscuit made by my great-aunt that my mom gave me for the trip. I melted snow into water by skimming fresh powder into the pot with the lid, continuously adding snow powder as it melted (it takes a lot of snow to make a little water). I also made tea by boiling water with hemlock needles, which warmed me with a pleasant piney aroma and taste. 

The night woods are spooky in a good way; there’s simply no other feeling like it. The moon was almost full, lighting up the snow-covered ground though snow-covered branches. The contrast of midnight sky, moonlight glow, pine boughs and campfire created an aesthetic effect unrivaled by city lights. Orion showed up through a gap in the trees for good effect, as well Otava, Ursa Major, or the Big Dipper depending on your frame of reference, both good omens. Coyotes yipped in the distance: a welcome sound. Another one yipped a little closer to camp, which was a little less welcome. I threw a pine bough on the fire and let the wind carry the smoke in its direction.  

I put some firewood next to the tent and lay inside, leaving the fireside open and unzipped. I crawled into my mummy bag and covered with a surplus wool blanket for good measure. Despite the extra weight and bulk of having to tie to the exterior of my pack, it was worth it. I drifted to sleep, waking frequently to stoke the fire with my hatchet and add fuel, which I could do from my tent with the fire an arm’s reach away, which I only did with a steady wind carrying sparks away from the tent, except for one which gave my new tent a small hole. Despite the temperature, though, I was never uncomfortably cold as the heat from the fire warmed the inside of the tent. I awoke around 3am to find the fire down to an ember and did my best Les Stroudt impression bringing it back to life. 

The advantage of sleeping in the woods is the ability to wake and hunt, as well as knowing when it snowed during the night to more accurately age tracks. So I woke, tied on my boots, grabbed my bow and started hunting. I skipped the snowshoes for hunting because they’re louder than boots, but I was acutely aware of the sound my boots made compacting the snow under them. I altered the cadence of my walk to attempt sound like a deer, but decided it was just too loud for pure still-hunting. 

I moved to my first ambush location, a well-build ground blind made from natural materials that I suppose some rifle hunter made at an earlier time. It was within my effective bow range from the deer highway, and soon enough two mature does walked out from the south. They didn’t walk along the highway, though, but walked closer to the marsh behind the lake about ten yards further, which was out of my range (My New Year’s Resolution is to extend my range!). They rounded the corner and moseyed away. I didn’t risk going after them, sure that the sound of crunching snow would spook them. 

Two more deer emerged from the south, a mature doe and a small one that I assume had been her fawn this year. The mature doe took the same path as the previous two, while the young one nibbled on branches and meandered my way. It came within fifteen yards, an easy shot, but while I was willing to take a doe I didn’t want to take such a young one.  As the older one disappeared into the cover behind the marsh, the young one trotted off after it when it realized it was alone. 

After they were gone, I moved behind two trees that hid me from any deer approaching from the same direction as the others, but within range of the trail they had taken. After a couple hours with no further activity, I moved slowly south and found a clump of four hardwoods in which I could stand with cover and shooting lanes in three directions. Not long after, a small doe emerged from the hill above to the west, walking right toward me. There was no cover in between us, just a tree trunk from the clump behind me to hide my silhouette. Despite looking right at the clump, though, she gave no sign that she knew there was a human standing there.  I stood still as a statue as she nibbled on branches brought down by the recent storm until she was within five yards of me. By this time, I’d realized that she was also likely one of this year’s fawns, and I struggled with whether to change my selection criteria – after all, I could use the venison. I decided against a shot, though, hoping a bigger doe or a buck would come along and she could grow into a bigger doe next year. She circled around the clump, until she was standing on the footprints I left on my way to it. She must have scented me then, or caught my eyes following her (with a bandana over my nose and mouth, they were the only human part of me visible). 

She focused her attention on me then, finally realizing I was not part of the clump. She snorted and stomped her foot, demanding to know what I was and what I was doing there. With no response, she huffed and ran off about twenty yards, then turned to me again. I still had not moved, and eventually she started feigning to feed while keeping an eye on me. She meandered north, then west, presenting me with a twenty-five yard quartering away shot if I reconsidered. I didn’t, and she walked back up into the woods from where she came. 

I didn’t see any more deer the rest of the day, so I packed up my camp and snow-shoed out of the woods. As a hunting trip, I came home empty-handed. As a wilderness experience, though, it was unrivaled. I can almost taste the tender venison that I let walk away, but I keep faith that my benevolence will be rewarded by the small gods of the woods who keep track of such things, preferably a reward with many tines and a little more meat on the hoof. 

By Chris Engle, Gaylord Herald-Times WILD Staff Writer. 

The smell of gasoline cut the stale air of the equipment barn where Sarah Topp was beginning her day topping off her chain saw with fuel.

On her way out the door, she grabbed up a shovel and pickaxe from the dozens of hand tools lining the wall of the 80-year-old building, an original structure at the Pigeon River Country State Forest Headquarters.

Topp, 21, started this August day just like any other — a crisp Michigan sunrise, travel mug of coffee and a backpack of water and snacks slung over her shoulder. While other Gaylord kids spend their summer home from college shining golf clubs and driving beverage carts, Topp is the sole caretaker of trails in the heart of the Lower Peninsula’s most expansive state forest.

“I’m glad I work out here,” she said, setting her tools into the bed of her work truck, an old Department of Natural Resources conservation officer pickup. “There’s just more freedom.”

That truck, still outfitted with a brush guard and spotlights, has already been through hell and back via the back roads of Northern Michigan. Now it’s living the “retired” life bumping along the Pigeon Forest’s wheel-jerking two tracks with Topp, a slender 5 foot 6, at the helm.

“I’ve put 9,000 miles on this truck this summer,” she said as tree branches raked down the side. 
That’s like driving from here to Sydney, Australia, almost exclusively off road.

As an intern of the Pigeon River Country Association, Topp is tasked with maintaining the forest’s 100-plus miles of trails, including the 11-mile Shingle Mill Pathway and the extensive, 82-mile High Country Pathway — a route that hasn’t officially been worked on since 2004.

Her first job on this particular morning was to fill in a pair of badger holes she had scouted out a day earlier. Topp steered her truck off a washboard gravel road onto a two-track, which practically disappeared into tall grass and ferns, then parked and grabbed her tools.

The badger holes, dug into the trail’s sandy soil, were deep enough to twist or snap a hiker’s ankle. Using her pickaxe, she hacked away at the ground, burying the tunnel with compacted sand, then repeated the job on two more holes.

Her scouting mission the day before had revealed her closest drive-up access to the job — a luxury that doesn’t always happen.

“I usually try to hike sections of trail first to see what work needs to be done and what tools I need,” she said, noting hike-in jobs sometimes require her to carry 40 pounds of tools and materials a couple miles into the woods.

Once, some insolent campers had destroyed a DNR sign and used it for firewood. The fix required a new sign, two 8-foot 4-by-4 posts, a 10-pound tamping bar, post hole digger and a two-mile hike carrying it all on her shoulders.

“They don’t realize how inconvenient it is for me to hike that in there,” she laughed.

But that’s how her job goes: She’s out there to remove inconveniences for trail users.

Downed trees that lay across the trail are no match for Topp as she cuts them in half with a chain saw. If she’s slapped in the face by a branch during a mountain bike ride in her off time, she seeks revenge the next day by returning to the same stretch of trail with a pair of trimmers. It’s hard work, and she has the scratches, bruises and sprains to show it.

Topp got into this field while working with a trail crew at Durango, Colo. last summer, a job that sometimes called on her to use explosives to clear rock slides.

She injured her back while attempting to move an 800-pound boulder with other people and on more than one occasion she rode out thunderstorms high up in the mountains during Colorado’s notoriously rainy August she called “monsoon season.”

“When you’re 10,000 or 12,000 feet up in the mountains, it’s pretty scary,” she said of thunderstorms.
Still, Topp said she’d rather work in a rainstorm than the 90 degree days she’s labored here in Northern Michigan and she feels it’s the most challenging days that bring the most reward.

“My highlights are definitely seeing places you can’t drive to,” she said, recounting long days where she’s spooked deer and coyotes.

She’s had a close encounter with a bear cub calling to its mom, has snuck up on elk, spotted a 9-point whitetail buck in velvet and once watched a loon circle Ford Lake on takeoff.

“You have to work to see these places,” Topp said. “There’s something special about that.”

For all her work, Topp wasn’t paid a wage. Rather, she received a scholarship through the Pigeon River Country Association.

“She’s a real hard worker and was a great student intern for the summer, there’s no doubt about that,” said Joe Jarecki, PRCA treasurer who helped orient Topp to the job. “Brush had pretty much made the trail a jungle to navigate through on some stretches. The whole trail is now much better from her being here this summer.”

Now, Topp is back at Northern Michigan University where she’s seeking a degree in a field where she can work outdoors permanently.

“I decided I had to be outside and I’ve always been fascinated with stories of animals being rehabilitated,” she hinted.

For her love of outdoors, she thanks her parents, who took her and her siblings camping often, usually in the Pigeon River Forest.

“When I was 7, I asked my mom ‘How do the trails get here?”’ Topp said. “She told me it was just from people walking. I thought it was really funny she sincerely thought that. It is an unbelievable amount of work just to maintain what is already there.”

Next year, she hopes another internship takes her to Washington or California.

“There’s always trails and always work to be done,” she said.

Ways you can help keep trails in shape

We can’t all be Sarah Topp, but we can all do our part to make sure Northern Michigan’s trails are kept in good shape for the next person. Here’s a few ways people can help, as suggested by Pigeon River Country Association treasurer Joe Jarecki.

• Take a bag and collect any trash you see.

• Use a knife or pair of snippers to clear any small obstructive branches reaching over trail at eye level or lower. Cut branches at their base.

• Move deadfall off the trail only if you are physically capable.

• Report any obstacles or obstructions, missing or damaged signs, missing trail maps, etc. by calling the local agency that manages the trail, such as the Department of Natural Resources.

• Join a trail user group that has volunteer agreements with the state, such as the Northern Michigan chapter of the International Mountain Bike Association, which has at least three volunteer days in the Pigeon forest annually and welcomes the help of nonmember volunteers. Get more information at imba.com or facebook.com/nmmba.

This article originally appeared in the Gaylord Herald-Times WILD special edition. Re-posted with permission. Click here to read other terrific WILD features, including a photo gallery of PRCA intern Sarah Topp at work on the High Country Pathway!

I awoke to see a loon floating on a mirrored glass lake at dawn. It was a beautiful sight to greet my eyes as I crawled out of my one-person tent. I had spent the night camped on the shore of Grass Lake, one of many small biologically abundant lakes in the Pigeon River Country, which spans
parts of Otsego and Cheboygan Counties in Northern Michigan.

The Pigeon River Country affords outdoor adventurers the opportunity to hunt, fish, hike, ride horses or spend family time camped at one of its rustic campgrounds. Its 105,000 acres range from lowland cedar swamps to hilly red, white and jack pine forests. It is a short drive from anywhere in northern Michigan and offers the best slice of semi-wilderness in the Lower  Peninsula.

I had recently returned from a wedding in North Carolina, though, where I had talked with two brothers who had taken four months after college to hike the Appalachian Trail. I lamented that I may never have four months to take such a journey; lately I have rarely had more than two days at a time. There are great opportunities for adventure in Michigan, though, and I have found that the 11-mile loop of the Shingle Mill Pathway is a great hike when I am short on time. 

My trek began around 6 p.m. the previous night. I wanted to begin earlier but the realities of the world kept me until 5 p.m.  Despite the late start, I was confident that I could locate a site and set my camp with enough time left in the evening to photograph the wildlife that move around in the evening to feed, such as deer and elk or black bear and bobcat if I was lucky. I even had the perfect campsite picked out on the banks of the Pigeon River. 

Soon after I started, though, an unwelcome beacon on my camera warned me that my batteries were fading. Luckily, I was only a few hundred yards down the trail and had extras in my car. I am sure that I spooked every animal within hearing distance as I crashed through the ferns engulfing the trail in my rush to retrieve the batteries. 

The delay caused me to miss out on my intended campsite, as when I rounded the bend of the trail near it, I saw two tents already pitched. A man was picking up kindling sticks along the trail. “Hello,” I called, hoping not to startle him. He gave me a sideways glance and returned my greeting. I complimented him on his site
selection and asked if anyone had claimed another site further up the trail. He told me it was empty when he passed that afternoon and I was quickly on my way, hoping to reach the next site before someone else took that one, too. The battery on my watch has been dead for some time, so I guessed by the sun and the
time I had been on trail that I had little daylight left and a few miles yet to hike. I quickened my pace along the trail and jogged a little to shorten the gap.  

I had slowed down by Ford  Lake, scanning it through the trees and looking for watering wildlife when a flicker of movement caught my eye.  I stepped as lightly as I could, toe down first to feel for any branches that might snap and then easing down the heel, and crept from one tree to another.  My footfall rustled some dry leaves, though, and a pale young doe lifted her gaze toward me. She looked in my general direction first, and then snapped her eyes directly upon me once she located the noise she heard. I already had my camera in hand and carefully raised it to my eyes and snapped a picture through a gap in the trees.  I watched her for a few more moments before her unseen companions huffed and ran away, crossing the trail fifty yards ahead of me. 
 
Continuing up the trail, I carefully checked for deer or elk where I had seen them on previous trips, especially in the clear-cut field north of Elkhorn Road. Seeing no immediate sign, I moved as quickly as I could toward the Grass Lake campsite. When I found the faint side trail leading to it, my heart sank. A DNR registration card was hanging from a nearby tree, indicating that other campers had beaten me to this site, as well.  It would be another few miles to the site at the former logging camp of Cornwall, and dusk was fast approaching. 

There was a distinct absence, I noticed, of any of the other signs of a camp, though.  I peered through the trees toward the lake, but I couldn’t see any tents where the site would be. I walked toward the tree and read the registration card. It was from the previous weekend! I quickly dug my bivouac card out of my pack, filled it out with a knife-sharpened pencil and posted it right next to the previous one. I had my tent pitched in minutes and began gathering firewood and kindling, breaking dead branches by stepping on them and yanking the ends toward me. A wad of tissue paper served as tinder; a knife stuck to a magnesium fire-starter provided the spark. 

I sat on a log near the fire, drank the bottle of Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat that I had packed along and ate a granola bar. Light faded fast and I drew in a deep breath of pure relaxation. It seemed like a mad rush to get to this point, but I felt completely at home listening to the bullfrogs call throughout the lake and the squirrels chatter in the tree above me. I read a few chapters out of Jim Harrison’s Sundog before crawling into my sleeping bag. 

A loon’s call awoke me and I vacated my tent, snuck down to water’s edge and crouched amongst the weeds to get a few pictures of the bird. The sunrise cast a perfect glow upon the water and the trees on the opposite shore admired themselves through the mist in the lake’s clear reflection. A beaver swam laps in front of me and a duck flew directly overhead. I pulled my bear bag down from the tree in which I had stashed it and ate a granola bar for breakfast before packing up camp and continuing the trail’s loop. 

Though I was only in the woods for fifteen hours, it is short treks like these that keep me rejuvenated enough to face the real world for another week or two.  Backpacking in Michigan does not require a four-month vacation; just a few spare hours on the weekend and an appreciation for all that our outdoors has to offer. 
(by Drew YoungeDyke. Originally appeared in Woods'N'Water News, August 2007)