A Mammoth Challenge
I hiked the Harwood Lakes Segment of the Ice Age National Scenic Trail. I did a bit over two miles out and back over an easy trail. In this case, easy meant a bit boring.
I later read about the Mammoth Challenge. It’s a challenge to hike 45 miles of the Ice Age Trail in October. There are only a few days left in the month, so I have no chance of meeting the challenge. Maybe next year.
The word Mammoth as used in the name of the challenge can have two meanings. First, it is a big challenge that would be tough for me even if I had the whole month. Second, it can refer to the woolly mammoth, which ranged south of the ice during the Ice Age. If you had been around 9,000 years ago, after the ice had retreated, you would have been more likely to see a mastodon. Mastodons were browsers, slightly smaller than mammoths, that preferred woodlands. Mammoths were grazers that preferred open prairies and tundras.
This is Plummer Lake, just down the road from the photo above. When I was college age, the family of a good friend had a cabin on this lake. All of the area is now part of the Ice Age National Scientific Reserve, and many of the structures that were once here have been removed. There was no trace left of my friend’s cabin. Also gone are the resorts and taverns that used to be in the area
More shots. The leaves have mostly fallen. The forest floor was littered with them. I looked for interesting colors and textures in the leaves.
“You will come across obstacles in life—fair and unfair. And you will discover, time and time again, that what matters most is not what these obstacles are but how we see them, how we react to them, and whether we keep our composure. You will learn that this reaction determines how successful we will be in overcoming—or possibly thriving because of—them.”
—Ryan Holiday, from “The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph”, p. 16