Three years ago, I went backpacking in Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming. It changed my life.
The trip was incredible. I loved being so deeply connected with Nature. Many things shifted that week. I came home determined to return the following year. I trained at the Y and hiked at Starved Rock every chance I got. In time, I knew hiking with a group in the mountains once a year wasn’t enough. I wanted something I could do regularly and independently. I hiked locally. I hiked near our cabin in Northern Michigan. I covered hundreds of miles. My brother told me about the North Country Trail, which is very close to our cabin and close to where we grew up, too. I squinted at the NCT. I realized it might be an important discovery. Discovery, no. It was more a realization, as I literally grew up hiking on the trail, though it wasn’t officially NCT until 1980. As a kid, I didn’t know the scope or importance of this system of trails. How many of my childhood friends know that the NCT runs through Yankee Springs?
The North Country Trail stretches 4700 miles from Vermont to North Dakota and includes eight states. It stretches across the UP of Michigan, changes directions at the Mackinaw Bridge, and continues 600 miles through Lower Michigan to the Ohio state line.
According to an REI article written in 2018, only 16 people are known to have hiked the entire trail end to end. I’m not interested in hiking the entire trail, but what about part of it? The idea gestated for a long time before I acknowledged it. It was longer still before I spoke the words to anyone. When I finally whispered the words to my kids and my dad, I had time, but travel to Michigan was impossible due to Covid. Since then, I have hinted and winked in some of my posts but never said it: I want to hike the Lower Michigan portion of the NCT. It’s a goal.
Deena Boyer-Hatch