Big D Continues His Hike Across Michigan

photo by Mike Dundas

Mike Dundas, aka “hiking fossil,” aka “Big D,” put on his boots and hiked from Battle Creek to Lowell this month. Last year, Mike began a hike of the North Country Trail in Michigan, and learned a lot about long-distance hiking. His plan was thwarted by a foot which gave him problems. But this year he completed another section on his quest.

The hike was timed so that he could walk into the North Country Triad meeting, October 8 & 9, where he learned more about trail partnerships than he had ever imagined. I was able to meet Mike at that meeting, and learned that he is a retired teacher. He has a history in theater and the sciences.

Excerpts from Big D’s blog, titled “Great Big Walk.”

Oct 2
"No rain despite repeated stretches of gloomy clouds with occaisional flashes of very welcome sun. The tiny thermometer on my backpack reads perhaps thirty-eight degrees. I have on three layers, but will have to take off the wind shirt as soon as I hike a ways. I was even a bit over warm with two layers in the windless woods. A forty-pound pack moves the metablism up dramatically."

Here’s an entry all hikers can identify with!
"I will, I think, sleep much more soundly tonight than last night. Careless map reading combined with fatuigue led me to go all the way west to Michigan Avenue, a mile past my Kalamazoo-River crossing point. I had to backtrack the mile. I then left my map in the backpack..."

Oct 3- some good news
"Today's hike started well. Once I got back to the blue blazes, they were very clear and timely. The first four miles of them went very quickly and picturesquely, mostly through the MSU Kellog 'tree farm'"

Oct 4
"The once-scarce sandhill cranes are everywhere hereabouts, gleaning the harvested fields. They fly like geese (rather ungainly ones) but their primaries are so long they curl up on the downstroke. They chat like geese as they fly except, of course, it's that characteristic grating chuckle."

Oct 5
"Ahh! Here comes the softest whisper of soft rain. Time to batten down a bit. The rain is intermittent as well as soft. The tree frogs are certainly not put off by it! Last night I heard - I think - two different kinds of owls at quite different points in the night."

See Great Big Walk, to read the complete entries.
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