By Joe Crain
It has been a rather long winter for us here in the far north of Wisconsin due to the early November cold and early season large snow falls. Still, there has been one aspect of this season that has 
made the long duration tolerable for some of us: we have not had a single day with a below zero high temperature reading! We came close several times but the mercury always stopped at one or two degrees above zero. Now to be clear we did spend plenty of nights under extra blankets enduring temperatures in the teens and twenties below zero but the mercury always managed to climb above the zero mark in the day. We normally see a week (or sometimes two!) with the mercury never clearing the zero threshold! And here we sit on February 28th without a single day time high in negative territory. So this winter has been long but not grueling, although I’m sure that for some of my neighbors the record breaking cloud cover in January was pretty grueling to endure! Thankfully that trend completely reversed itself in February and we were treated to plenty of sunshine throughout the month, as well as plenty of well above average temperatures, and have been treated to several days in the forties and upper 30’s. The month has also been very dry with only dustings of snow and very little accumulation.
Unfortunately all of the above average temperatures and sun this month have turned the roads and trails in the area into treacherous sheets of ice. The dog trails I maintain in my back yard for our micro-mutts have gotten so bad that I have been searching the internet for sets of micro-doggie ice skates! I think I have finally found the one thing you can’t get on the internet! On the fortunate side of things our snow base is so deep (we still have about 24 inches on the ground in most places) that though the groomed trails are hard and icey and the ungroomed back country trails are still very skiable. I have had the pleasure of several Sunday mornings spent on the North Country National Scenic Trail that passes through the Brule River State Forest just miles from camp. Trail heads of which are quite near some areas that should be quite familiar to camp alumni, Stones bridge canoe landing and the Winneboujou canoe landing on the Brule River. Though this trail is designed as a summer hiking trail, it is very skiable and very well marked with the NCNST’s signature blue blaze on tree trunks along the way. And with the aid of my phone GPS app navigation along the trail is a breeze. If you live in a northern tier state I highly recommend the trail, it stretches from New York to North Dakota and passes through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota along the way and is well maintained by hundreds of volunteers.
Around the camp shop the winter work that we filled the Wanegan with is almost finished. I am wrapping up a big Rec-Hall chair repair project; 30 chairs got new laminated curved backs that I built from scratch! Caretaker Andy rebuilt and repaired a half dozen big house screens and is currently repairing some of the old whirly gigs that decorate the Swamper Hill in the summer. And we are both hoping for an actual spring this year so we can finally get out of the shop and tackle many of the outdoor projects we hope to get finished before the buses role up to the front gate this June.
Encouraging you all to not wait for the warmth of summer to put your camp learned skills to work, get outside now and hike, bike, ski or snowshoe and explore your local trails, it’s Caretaker Joe at Camp
New-old chair backs