Barely eight months have passed since the Fond du Lac County Board said no (fourth item down) to winter ATV riding on the Eisenbahn State Trail. Yet the local ATV club was back this week asking for access. A former presentation before the parks and recreation committee is expected Oct. 3.
Updates are being posted on the Silent Sports messageboard here.
Proving Frazz is at least somewhat autobiographical for the artist, this is the strip that ran nationwide on Monday, the day Mallett swam the Straits of Mackinac.
Jef Mallett, the creator of the comic strip Frazz – which appears in some 150 newspapers and Silent Sports – swam the Straits of Mackinac on Labor Day.
The Lansing, Michigan-based triathlete and 49 other swimmers were fortunate to have warm and calm waters in the four-mile channel linking Lake Michigan to Lake Huron.
Jef and his wife, Patty, are all smiles before the epic swim.
Here’s Mallett’s account:
“The swim went beautifully. Even – and I don’t want this to come off the wrong way – easily. That’s not me boasting about my swimming ability, which is decidedly modest, but more a statement about the weather. It couldn’t have been better. The water temperature was a balmy 62 degrees near shore (probably upper 50s out in the middle), the air temperature was nice for the boat crews and the spectators, and there was no wind that I could notice. The current was still pretty strong, left over from the day before when there was a small-craft advisory (need I further emphasize the importance of luck?). But beyond trying to pull us off course, it only translated to rolling swells, which are a lot easier to swim through than choppy whitecaps.
“They sent us off at intervals in six groups of eight or nine a boat towing a smaller inflatable Zodiac boat and an orange buoy. The Zodiac was for feeding and emergencies; the buoy was our backside boundary. Everybody stayed behind the boat and ahead of the buoy. The pace was very mellow. The hardest part was stopping whenever somebody in our group lagged too close to the buoy or we were getting too close to the boat and swimmers ahead of us. That’s when you start feeling the chill, and that’s when you’re most prone to seasickness, behaving more like a passive cork bobbing in the water instead of an active participant in your own direction. In fact, seasickness was my only difficulty, and that dissipated as quickly as barf in a strong current. So to speak.
“But honestly, the swim was over before I knew it, and I dare say well before I was ready for it to be over. I finished feeling like I’d just done a low-intensity, medium-distance endurance workout. But one with a hell of a view! I’ve seen a lot of cool things and will see more, and some equal but none will ever beat looking up those towers, all 552 feet to the top. But right up there is looking up at the roadway, anywhere up to 200 feet above me, with Labor Day bridge walkers shoulder to shoulder whooping at us like we were some kind of rock stars.
“It was amazing. Even more so when you see that 24 hours on either side offered a small-craft advisory and thunderstorms. We finished in about three hours, I think. There was a lot of stopping, sometimes to keep our group together and sometimes to wait for the group ahead of us. But nobody was in a big hurry.
“Would I do it again? I guess that’s a moot point, since a mass crossing like this was a singular occasion. Up until yesterday, I guess fewer than 20 people had made that swim. And I can say that, given the right weather, the obstacles are much more governmental than physical. It won’t be repeated, which is fine with me. It would be tough to improve on it without going for speed, and there’s a lot of difference between swimming long (which I can do) and swimming fast (which I cannot). So, once is enough. Better than enough. Once is perfect.”
A Q&A with Mallett, conducted prior to his big swim, is included in the September issue.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service released in early August a preliminary report on participation in hunting, fishing, and wildlife watching in 2006.
The report, which is published every five years and will be finalized in November, is interesting, particularly because of the staggering economic impact of participation in these activities: 87 million Americans, or 38 percent of the United States’ population spent $120 billion in 2006. Of those, 71 million (or 31 percent) spent $45 billion observing wildlife.
Also noteworthy is the larger numbers of people who reported just watching wildlife rather than hunting or fishing said wildlife last year.
Not surprising, Michigan and Wisconsin were among the top five states with the most hunters, age 16 and older, with 756,000 and 698,000 respectively. In Wisconsin, 15 percent of the population hunted and 13 percent of Minnesotans hunted, according to the report.
Fishing is even more popular among Minnesotans and Michiganders, with more than 1.4 million anglers in each state. In Minnesota, that’s 28 percent of residents compared to 23 percent of Wisconsinites who fish.
But both figures are trumped by the state percentages who reported “wildlife watching,” which includes observing, photographing and feeding wildlife. Forty-eight percent of Iowans and Minnesotans participated in these activities in ‘06. Only the people of Maine, Montana and Vermont did more wildlife watching.
The prospect of 60 miles of ATV trails in the Northern Highland-American Legion State Forest will be the subject of debate on Wisconsin Public Radio call-in show Route 51 this Thursday, Sept. 6, from 5 to 6 p.m.
Host Glen Moberg’s guests will include Northwoods Citizens for Responsible Recreation member Sue Drum, Steve Petersen of the DNR and ATVing advocate Mike Musiedlak.
The program will be broadcast on WHBM (90.3 FM Park Falls) and WLBL (91.9 FM Wausau). Listeners can call 800/780-9742 to ask questions and make comments.
Silentsports.net now has a messageboard to better serve and bring together its readers and enthusiasts of nonmotorized recreation in the upper Midwest.
Have a question about where to go and what to do once you’re there? Want to pick the brain of one of the magazine’s contributing editors/experts on bicycling, paddling, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, general health or nutrition? Looking for race results or trail conditions?
Ask away. Participation is easy and encouraged.
Help keep our parks and trails quiet by chattering here! Let’s get the silent sports community talking.
Traverse City, Michigan – home to the Vasa trails, so popular among cross-country skiers and mountain bikers, not to mention a base for great paddling in Grand Traverse Bay – is coming to grips with its identity as a “silent sports” destination.
The subject made the Sunday business section of the Traverse City Record-Eagle in an article titled, “‘Silent sports’ growing in region: Kayaking, biking and other activities popular.”
To get a sense for the greater regional trend, reporter Bill O’Brien spoke to the editor of Silent Sports magazine and looked at the latest findings of the Outdoor Industry Association.
In the five midwest states including Michigan, for instance, outdoor recreation generates close to $62 million in economic activity annually, close to 700,000 jobs and more than $7 million in tax revenue, according to the OIA.
The Darlington Cross-Country Invitational on Sept. 1 brought together runners from about a dozen high schools.
I love cross-country season.
I know. To most sports fans, this is football season. But I’m a runner, not a “ball sport” kinda guy. That’s been true as long as I can remember.
And if I remember correctly, I didn’t always love cross country, at least not when it was my time to run. I was one of those scrawny kids who had learned to high-tail it from fights I was doomed to lose if I stuck around. So by the time I entered high school, I happened to be a better than average harrier at distances of one to three miles.
Cross country never came easy, though. About this time of year, every year – after three weeks of hill sprints following three summer months of lounging about – I’d invariably have shin splints and a recurring upset stomach from not knowing how to eat and train. The anticipation and dread that preceded each Saturday morning race nearly left me unhinged. Nightmares of jostling for position with scores of other gangly guys all wearing long weaponized spikes on their feet made it hard to sleep the night before each meet.
Oh, but if only I had known then what I know now. Well, I probably wouldn’t have peaked as a freshman on varsity, both on the track and golf courses where many cross-country meets are held. Back then I didn’t appreciate that I was running as fast as I ever would. Now, as I near 40, I’m left to wonder “what if” I had run faster still.
Over the past three years I’ve attended several of my young brother-in-law’s cross-country meets, like the Darlington (Wisconsin) Invitational held last Saturday. I yell encouragement, take pictures and generally revel in the glory days I never actually lived.
After this weekend’s meet, my wife called me “a very passionate spectator.”
“Do I embarass you?” I asked, suddenly made aware of my self absorption.
“No,” she said. “But I manage to stay as far away from you as possible while the race is on.”
When my eyes stray from the runners rounding the flags, I see our two toddlers, emulating their uncle and dad by careening around the infield.
I love that they run. But I know I can’t live through their running. Maybe they’ll run in high school, if their old man is any sort of role model. But ultimately they’ll have to run of their own accord because they, too, get some perverse satisfaction out of the pain of running hard and fast.
– Joel Patenaude