trial trail hike on the North Country Trail

The 4,600-mile North Country Trail runs from New York to North Dakota, passing just about 20 miles from where I'm now based in Michigan. It is one of eleven National Scenic Trails administered by the National Parks Service.

It's a long way from finished. Many of the miles are simply country road walks connecting the patchwork of local, state, and national public lands.

But once I heard about it, I found an excuse to buy some nice gear and get outside. Of course I joined the local chapter of the corresponding non-profit association and bought some maps for weekend adventuring. It's always easy to dream about doing this stuff... but it's harder to actually do it. I figure sinking some money into it and talking about it helps me get outside.

Here are some pictures from my first hike, just 5 hours of quick walking on about 12 miles split between road and wood. Cutting through the Middleville State Game area. It sure helps (in terms of speed, and soreness, and generally enjoy-ability) not to be carrying a sleeping bag, tent, food, and such!

Oh - I did see a pheasant. And a piliated woodpecker (the really big kind).

someone afoot

keep to the blue blazes

deer bedding sites (?)

I was not the first on the trail that day.

who said it? #143 economic theory meets humanity

The irony was that the reason he'd survived was that he'd tried to lie. The two lies--his and hers--had canceled each other out, and Gabriel had inadvertently told the truth. If he had told Lenka's "truth," as she had doubtlessly expected, he'd have committed securities fraud and wrecked his personal portfolio. He'd have lost his job at Calloway. Lenka had lunged and she'd missed, because he was lunging in another direction. The lesson was fantastically cruel to everyone involved. He'd arrogated to himself a victory, but that victory had (fatally) been built on the assumption of her fidelity.

He'd always known that this was why game theory didn't survive studies of real people. Real people's motivations were too complex and flawed to be fathomed by any mathematics.

p. 252 of A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism: A Novel, by Peter Mountford (a novel set in La Paz, Bolivia)

who said it? #142 support the arts

If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.

Yann Martel, end of Author's Note in Life of Pi, one of the best novels I've ever read