Newer, Bigger Shuttlewagon

You know I'm always keeping my eyes open to see the adorable little switcher engine they use atthe Packaging Corporation of America, PCA, in Manistee to move rail cars around. See the link below for a pretty good picture of it.

It's often out of sight, and I don't go past there just every week.

But, looky, looky! They got a new one and it's bigger. It's still made by Shuttlewagon, but it's called the Navigator.

Note that the front is longer, which probably means more motive power, and that there are 8 wheels that run on the rails, while the smaller one only has four.

I suspect, because it can drive right off the tracks on those big tires, that this is kept in storage when it's not actively switching cars which is probably why I don't see it 8 out of 10 trips past there.

PCA is one of the main reasons that Marquette Rail still actively runs to Manistee. And I hope it keeps thriving. The main line is Grand Rapids to Manistee. The line than runs in back of my house is also Marquette Rail, but that is a spur to Ludington for Occidental Chemical.

Today was a bit fractured. I had a meeting in the morning, and cleaned a space for the Christmas Tree (yes, Om is getting in that mood). Managed to get a fair amount of my other things done, but nothing was in a block of time.

See Shuttlewagon

Scouting

Scouting, as in the meaning of the word... not Girl Scouting or Boy Scouting. "Scout" probably comes to English from Latin- ausculatare- to listen to carefully, through Old French- escouter- to listen or give heed.

These pictures aren't very exciting, and I can't even say where this is yet, but our chapter of the NCTA discovered that there is an existing easement that could get us off a portion of road.

Despite boring pictures, that news is better than sliced bread! Four of us went out to do a little early reconnaissance.

Most of the area the trail would need to go through is fairly open and level. The trail building will be the easy part.

There is one hill/bluff we need to get up/down.

Tomorrow we have a meeting to get this started. It will probably take two years minimum before there would be trail on the ground. Even with the legal easement in place, it hasn't ever been exercised, and there will be multiple agency requirements, plus the actual property owner has to be involved.

But what a fun way to spend the afternoon!

Miles hiked in 2025: 457.1

Bushwhacking and a little road walking, 2.5 miles.

See Planning a Re-Route

Frosty Morning

I was up early (for me) to get to Onekama on time for the vendor event. Very frosty morning with thick, tight frost on the car.

It went pretty well for me. Nicely run event.

Afterwards, I wanted to try to get in a hike. So when I went looking (yesterday, online) for a convenient trail on the way home that I haven't hiked recently... surprise. I found a trail I didn't even know existed! And it's been open since at least 2016, maybe earlier.

It's called the Manistee Non-Motorized Trail (not a romantic name, but hey. A trail by any name is still a trail). It has loops for hiking, bicycling, skiing, and snowshoeing. Trailhead is on M-55, 3 miles east of the junction of M-55 and US 31, on the north side of the road.

So I got there at 3:50, and it's the end of November. Not the very shortest days of the year, but getting close. So I wanted to see if I could hike all the trails that are for foot travel.

Because these are groomed for skiing in the winter, they are wide.

This is about the most level, natural surface trail I've ever seen. It was originally purchased by the city for an airport, but then the airport was built elsewhere). But that meant I could walk fast, right?

There is one section that is created for technical mountain bike skills. It has various structures.

Did I get all the loops? I think so. I think I didn't find the east side of the snowshoe loop, but the light was fading, and it wasn't obvious. Most of the intersections were well-marked though. Anyway, I had to return to the car, so I got the full distance.

It measured on my tracker as 4.01 miles in 1 hour and 18 minutes! Not bad.

We've entered the brown season, until it turns white. So pictures aren't really pretty. But I liked the shape of this stump.

And there was one little patch of mushrooms. Maybe honey mushrooms- not sure

I'll have to go back to hike all the loopy bicycle trails another time. There are supposed to be 5.6 miles of those. They are hikeable until they winter groom them for fat bikes. In fact, this is a good time of year to walk them because it's not a season that bikers are out as much. I just make sure I give them the right-of-way when I'm on their trails.

Miles hiked in 2025: 454.6

Manistee Non-Motorized Trail. All hike/ski/snowshoe loops. 4.0 miles

See Dumaw Nature Preserve

Dumaw Nature Preserve

I never did tell you the other place that Ellen and I went on November 7. This is a fairly new Nature Preserve just east of Pentwater. It was created in 2023.

There is about one mile of trail in the form of two loops connected in the middle by this bridge over Dumaw Creek which flows to the North Branch of the Pentwater River. The loops sort of look like butterfly wings with the creek as the body. At the very south end of the preserve, there is a curve of the river that passes through it, but this is not seen from the trails.

The north loop is about 0.4 mile and it stays down in the low area beside the creek.

This cedar trunk pleased me artistically.

Once you cross the bridge, the southern loop climbs and you are up on a bluff. This is the longer loop and about 0.6 mile.

Different vegetation there, of course. We enjoyed this Diphasiastrum digitatum which has so many common names it's ridiculous. Fan clubmoss, ground cedar, northern ground cedar, running cedar... All these plants used to be in one genus, Lycopodium, but some have been changed to Diphasiastrum. Generally, they are all club mosses. The ones that have been moved to this new genus have a different number of chromosomes.

I did learn a fun fact while I was checking what this is currently called. See the little tubes on stalks? These are strobili, which are the spore cases. That I knew. But the spores were traditionally collected and dried to make theatrical flash powder!

I'll feature this area on the Get Off The Couch blog soon, and get it added to the GOTC website. For now, just enjoy pretty pix. If you want to go there, take Hogan Rd east off 66h Avenue out of Pentwater (Park St past the school becomes 66th). There is a sign to the preserve about a half mile after you get on Hogan.

It was a semi-productive day. I worked on projects, but probably not enough. I went shopping- big mistake going on Friday. 4 of the 5 bottle return stations at Meijer were out of order for a while, and the place was packed. Anyway... it was a longer than usual shopping trip.

It was beautiful outside. Would have been a great day for a hike. But I did not do that, I'm sorry to tell you.

See An Excellent Day with the Original Adventure Buddy

Slightly Out of Focus?

Mentally, I was very focused today, but the foggy, misty weather made all the pictures a little bit fuzzy.

My "new" position with the Spirit of the Woods Chapter of the NCTA is Land Protection Specialist. So... I'm no specialist yet, but I'm learning a lot really fast. We didn't think there were hardly any landowners to deal with on our section of trail. So far, we've identified quite a few. The Forest Service knew about most of these, but the Chapter didn't. Some of what I did today related to a meeting with a landowner I had on October 27.

But first, the hike.

Six of us met at the north Highbridge access to the trail and hiked east along the Manistee River (which is actually trail west- because if you keep going in this direction you end up in North Dakota). They were looking for suggestions of where to hike, and I needed to get to this location before real winter sets in, so I asked if we could do this. Yup.

This is the picture everyone takes of the Manistee River in this section. Mainly because with the power line cut you can actually see the river.

I just like this because it shows how the bluff falls off pretty abruptly down to the river.

The valley was all foggy today. That's pretty too!

I'm pretty sure these are tiny yellow mushrooms and not a slime mold.

I walked part of the way with Loren and little Koa. This is on the esker, a favorite feature on this piece of trail.

So, back to my "purpose" for the hike, other than just a nice hike. We now have an agreement in writing that allows the trail to cross a small bit of private property. Because this is the end of a switchback on a steep hill, we really need this access. The owners agreed to put the agreement in writing, and we promised to get the blazing spiffed up yet this fall. We will get the correct signage up in the spring. The government shutdown meant we couldn't get the signs until just a few days ago anyway.

So, all I did was to freshly paint the non-standard arrows at the corner, touch up and add to the standard blazing near that turn. But the minimum hike in is two miles, and it's an hour from my house, so I hadn't gotten there yet. Now it's done.

This picture shows the uphill leg of the switchback. I added the "confidence marker" blaze- circled on the right- just after the turn. A confidence marker is an extra blaze soon after a turn that lets people know they have made the right choice. The circled blaze farther up on the left was already there, but I freshened it.

This shot is coming up to the turn on the lower leg. Those arrows have been there a long time. They aren't standard, and we will try to replace them in the spring. For now, I brightened them up. And the circled double blaze on the tree, I added. I also added a turn blaze coming from the other direction.

I also scouted out, by vehicle, another potential trail re-route that we just found out about. Can't say any more yet. But it was a very productive day at it relates to my new position.

Not much else happened. The morning was cold and damp, but not really raining. Hiking was a good outdoor use for a somewhat nasty day.

Miles hiked in 2025: 450.6
NCT miles hiked in 2025: 249.8

North Country Trail, Highbridge north parking to the esker and back. Total- 5 miles

A lot of these same locations in better weather are at the link below.

See A Test Along the Manistee