Lake Wissota State Park

 



 

Lake Wissota State Park

Chippewa Falls, WI

9/15/12

Approximately 6.5 miles, 2 hours 20 minutes

 

113 days to Africa

Each summer for the past seven years Deb and Greg have had the great fortune to go on an annual camping trip with a phenomenal group of friends.  This year we were fortunate enough to add two more to our group, pushing the number of participants up to eight.  Lake Wissota State Park near Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin has been home to the outing for the past five years.  At one and a half hours away, the park's comfortable confines are relatively close in proximity to St. Paul.

This year we took the opportunity to go for a training hike along some of the parks marked trails.  Unfortunately the trails were not very challenging or particularly scenic.  There is a 1.3 mile trail that runs the length of a bluff that overlooks the lake and if a person were to hike that, they would see the best views the park has to offer.  The trail runs directly past the campground (in fact just feet from one of our group member's tent) and was the start of our journey.

From the campground, we proceeded .3 miles down towards the beach.  From there, we veered off onto another trail for another .3 mile jaunt in an effort to reach the elusive Staghorn Trail.   We are pretty certain that the trail was not meant to be elusive, but nonetheless the lead navigator (Greg) managed to get us turned around a bit.  We chalked it up to experience and let our natural instincts point us in the right direction as strict adherence to the map was proving to be more trouble than it was worth.

After locating the Staghorn Trail, we followed it for two miles.  The trail wound around the woods a bit before opening to a prairie area and access to the Eagle Bluff Trail which we followed for approximately .5 miles until we reached the Red Pine Trail.  The Red Pine trail consisted of 2.3 miles of flat hiking along the edge of a red pine forest and led us to a Plantation Loop Trail that made a rectangle around more red pines before connecting us back to the the Red Pine Trail.  The Red Pine Trail brought us back to the Lake Trail, which is the trail that runs along the bluff that overlooks the lake.

As we hiked along the bluff, we ran into the other six members of our party and agreed that the best course of action was to make a trip to Leinenkugels brewery in Chippewa Falls to unwind from our hike and participate in a free beer sampling.

As the description of this hike might seem to suggest we were a bit underwhelmed with the scenery and challenge of our course.  Fortunately, however, it did give us plenty of opportunity to reflect on the experience and its relationship with our overall goal of getting in extraordinary physical shape for our Kilimanjaro hike and developing ideas and objectives to help us meet our goal of providing global service for the empowerment of others.

One reflection we made was in relation to the challenge within the Kilimanjaro challenge.  Thus far, we have been utilizing our training hikes as an opportunity to explore areas of our region that we might not visit on a regular basis.  Perhaps more importantly, we have also been working to physically prepare our bodies for the ultimate challenge of hiking to the top of a 19,340 foot tall mountain.  Mountain access in the Midwest is not exactly to be found around every corner, and there will be no substitute for the experience of hiking at altitudes that we have never experienced. 

We began to wonder to ourselves at first and then aloud to each other exactly how we will be able to sustain our training momentum as the weather deteriorates and our access to daylight shrinks with the fall quickly coming upon us.  It's true that gyms, home exercise equipment, and other traditional workout spaces will be available, but we are hoping to find other ways to stay active and keep the training fresh.  Greg suggested hiking the stairwells in some of the metro area's taller buildings.  Deb talked of cross country skiing and staying active with soccer.  We also brainstormed ways that we can continue to incorporate a regular strength training element into our training as it is a critical component to our success.  We both agreed that it was a dialogue worth continuing as we do not want the typical slow down of fall and the winter season to keep us from accomplishing our goal.

We also talked about the Kilimanjaro Challenge blog itself, discussed ways that we can best utilize it to let others read about our experience, and hopefully inspire them to join with us in both spirit and financial or material contribution towards our goal of global service for the empowerment of others.  With that on our minds, we concluded our hike, rejoined our good friends and got back down to the serious business of camping.  It was a great trip, as usual, and we are already looking forward to next year's gathering.