Tag Archives: Fife Lake

Fulltime RVing, Michigan

Fife Lake / North Country Trail

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On Saturday, we drove southeast about 45 minutes to the village of Fife Lake.  This is a town we have a long history with, as stated in an earlier post.  The Grand Traverse Hiking Club chapter of the North Country Trail Association was celebrating the designation of the village as a ‘Trail Town’.  They were also dedicating the completion of the 21 mile Fife Lake Loop on the 4,600 mile long North Country Trail (NCT), along with a one mile spur trail that connects the NCT to the village. The celebration included a 2.7 mile hike.  We were shuttled out of town and we hiked back in.

  
There were around 40 people on the hike.  The weather was perfect: dry, clear and in the low 70’s.

  
The point that we started from was about 1/2 mile from where Diana’s parent’s cottage was.  We used to cross country ski on this portion of the trail when it was just a local pathway through the woods, so it was exciting for us to see it being administered by the National Park Service now.  More than half of the North Country Trail is complete (2700 miles); an amazing accomplishment, seeing it was just established in 1980.

  
The trail is well marked with blue blazes on the trees.

  
There are also signposts all along the trail, so it is fairly easy to follow.

  
The NCT skirts through Spring Lake State Forest Campground.  Spring Lake is a little body of water that connects by a small channel to Fife Lake.  It is very peaceful in the campground, even though it is fairly close to US-131.

  
After we left the campground, we met Luke Jordan, a gentleman who has hiked the entire trail, even along the incomplete portions.  He is in the process of having his book about the experience published.

  
At one point, the trail crosses the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad.  These tracks are used maybe one or two times a week.  This is the route that Ernest Hemingway used to take on his trips north to Walloon Lake from Chicago.

  
We also traversed a newly completed bridge over a small creek.

  
When we were hiking on the spur back into town, we met Linda Forwerck.  She is the Fife Lake Township Supervisor.  We had a delightful conversation with her about all of the exciting things that are happening in the area.  Fife Lake was a logging center in the 1800’s, and at one time there were three sawmills on the lake.  Today, there are several businesses in town, all doing quite well.  The trail town status will bring even more business to the village.

  
Some are housed in century-old buildings.  Diana’s dad used this hardware store often.

  
The hike ended up at Fife Lakeside Park.  The North Country Trail Association had tents set up, handing out information about the trail and volunteering opportunities.  They also had food and soft drinks, along with a trio playing contemporary music.

  The park has a small beach, and is located next to the state boat launch.  Fife Lake is best described as one mile in diameter, and is fairly close to symmetrical.  There are two small islands in the southwestern portion of the lake.  This photo looks towards those islands, and the cottage Diana’s parents owned is just to the left of the islands and just to the right of the tree in the foreground.
  
The Grand Traverse Hiking Club had their trailer at the event.

  
Inside was just about anything they would need to construct a trail.  They are obviously well organized!

While we were at the park, we heard a commotion by the tracks.  We went over to investigate.

  
We saw these little restored railroad service cars coming down the tracks.  After a little investigation, we found out that they are part of an organization called the North American Railcar Operators Association.  They are all privately owned, and they take tours on local railroads.  This particular event had 40 cars and went on a round trip from Traverse City, through Petoskey and Cadillac.  It cost each car a little over $500, and that included two night’s lodging.  We’ve never seen anything like it.  Their air horns were particularly amusing!

  
After the event, we took the Escape out on the two-track seasonal roads south of town. We were curious to see some of the outlying portions of the trail.  

  
This is Headquarters Lake, which is a large wetland.  It is fed by Fife Lake Creek, which is the outlet from Fife Lake.  The water finds its way from Headquarters Lake into the Manistee River, then into Lake Michigan and eventually the Atlantic Ocean. The NCT runs alongside the creek and Headquarters Lake.

  

We used to snowmobile and ski along these two-tracks. It was a lot easier to find our way this time, as we had Google Maps to guide us!
  
At the southern end of the loop trail, we came to the Old US-131 State Forest Campground.  It is located on the Manistee River.  Part of our reason for checking it out was to find a kayak take-out point on the Manistee. The canoe launch looked like it might be difficult to use to disembark.

  
We did find this trail sign though.  Looks like an easy 2400 miles to go to get to the eastern terminus of the trail in New York!  Eventually, they will link it to the Appalachian Trail in Vermont.

After leaving the campground, we headed down to the rest area on the new portion of US-131.  There is a boat launch at the south end of the rest area, and it has a nice concrete ramp. We decided that this would be an ideal place to use as a kayak take-out. Plenty of parking to stage a vehicle also.  We talked to the owner of Missaukee Paddlesports at the ramp, as she was waiting for a group of paddlers to come in.  She tipped us off to a put-in a little ways up the river. Looks like a paddle day is in our future.

  
On our way out of the rest area to go check out the put-in, we noticed this sign for the NCT.  Looks like an easy 2200 miles to the western terminus of the trail in North Dakota.  There it links up to the Lewis and Clark Trail.

All in all, it was a tremendous day to get out in the woods.  What made it better was the fact that we were familiar with these pathways, and to see them being celebrated as a national treasure just made it that much sweeter.

Do you have a favorite trail that you would like to share?  We would love to hear about it!

Fulltime RVing, Michigan

The Nuts and Bolts of our Leelanau Adventure

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With every destination that is reached in life, there is a spark or impetus that calls you to journey there.  With us, being on the Leelanau Penninsula for the summer can be traced back to the early 1970’s when Diana’s Aunt Ellen bought an old hay barn in the village of Fife Lake, about 20 miles southeast of Traverse City.  She turned that barn into a beautiful home, with an apartment upstairs for her sister Clara.  Upon seeing the area, Diana’s parents bought a cottage on the shore of Fife Lake a few years later.  Over the years, Dad renovated it to eventually make it their retirement home.  As a result, we have a long history in this region, having made countless trips up from downstate Michigan.  We made numerous day trips to Leelanau County, and ended up wanting to spend more time here.

Many people have asked us, “What is it that you will be doing at Wild Cherry Resort this summer?”  Well, how it works is like this:  We work two days a week, generally in a row, 9 to 5.

  
Diana works in the office, taking reservations, checking guests in, managing the office and alerting me to any guests that will be arriving that day.

  
I, in turn, make sure the campsites are cleaned and edged, and the firepits are cleaned out.

  
On the mornings I work, I drive the park, pick up the trash from each site and deliver the newspapers.

  
To start the season, I have been cleaning spillways of matted leaves and doing general cleanup. I’ll also be spraying weeds and driving the golf ball retriever on the driving range throughout the season, along with helping Rex mow the lawns.  So that somewhat sums up our duties.  In exchange for our work, we receive a free campsite for the season. Water, electric, sewer, and newspaper are included.

As you may remember, we had a dream laundromat that we used in Grand Rapids.  We knew that we were unlikely to find as nice a place as that again, but we at least wanted something clean.  There is a laundry in Suttons Bay that is decent, but it isn’t very large.  So on Monday, we set off for a place on the northern fringe of Traverse City.

  

The road to Traverse City, the infamous M-22, runs right along the western shore of the western arm of Grand Traverse Bay.  We stopped along the way at a roadside pull off to have a picnic. 🙂

  
Give me a bag of plain M&M’s and not only will I smile, but my jacket will also!

  
The laundromat was decent, but nowhere near as nice as what we were used to.  The view out the window made up for it.  🙂

I also wanted to pass along an update on the spring foliage.

 
We saw several Jack-in-the-Pulpit in the woods at the park.

  
The Trillium have also bloomed.  We saw these green and white ones, along with the all white varieties.

  
There are thousands of them in the woods in this area right now!

  
The sweet cherry trees are in bloom right now, and they smell amazing! 

 

And the sunsets have been outstanding.  This photo was taken from our campsite.

  
And turning to look behind me, the entire sky had lit up.  We feel so fortunate to be able witness this.

On Thursday night, we drove up to the tip of the Leelanau Penninsula, about 20 miles north of the RV park.

  
This view is looking back along the western edge of the penninsula.  The air temperature was about 80 degrees Farenheit, even at the water’s edge.

  
Grand Traverse Lighthouse has been protecting sailors from this point since the mid 1800’s.  They offer tours, for those interested.  Last time we took it, we thought it was very well done.

We also experienced an interesting phenomenon that occurs around a large body of water called a microclimate.  Within the 20 miles on the drive back home, the temperature fluctuated between 80 and 61 degrees Fahrenheit twice! Luckily, it finished up at 80.  🙂

On Friday, we took a day trip back to Grand Rapids to check on Diana’s mom.  While Diana was tending to her mother’s needs, I ran errands in town. We headed back north by mid-afternoon.  On the way back, we decided to stop at Fife Lake to see what was happening, as it had been awhile since we were there.  We stopped at the cottage first, which had changed hands twice since Diana’s parents sold it in 2007.  It had recently undergone a major renovation, so Diana wanted to knock on the door to meet the new owners and possibly see the renovations.  They were coming out of the home as we were getting out of our car and they invited us inside, once we explained who we were.  They had done an outstanding job on the place, and were very interested to hear about why certain things were the way they were when they first bought it.  They even retained many of the features that Diana’s dad had incorporated into the home, which brought tears to our eyes.  We were glad we stopped.  🙂

Next, we went by Aunt Ellen’s old property.  Being located on a busy intersection, it was recently purchased and the barn was torn down to make room for a Family Dollar store.  The garage was still standing, as it was further off the intersection than the barn was.  To set the scene, Aunt Clara was a flower gardener extraordinaire, and she had planted every flower imaginable around the property.  Of course, when a developer comes in, they practice a ‘scorched earth’ policy, so we weren’t expecting to see anything.  But, to our surprise, there along the garage…..

  
…Aunt Clara’s Lily of the Valley was popping up, a reminder of hers’ and Ellen’s will and determination.  We miss them both, along with Diana’s dad and Aunt Bernie…four hard working and strong siblings who were great examples to us of how to live our lives.  It is a great history to have as a family, and one I am proud to be a part of.  🙂