North Country Trail

I've been on the west side of the state the past few days, and I managed to find time to squeeze in a ride on the North Country Trail. I was in the Newaygo area, so I headed northwest from the Croton Dam, and rode about 24 miles on the trail. It was a great intro to riding in sand, and probably good preparation for Ore to Shore.

Rolling sandy areas were fun...

The trail meandered through the Manistee National Forest, which was absolutely beautiful in places! The terrain ranged from grassy open areas to thick pine forest. There were a few twisty spots, and some nice hills, but for the most part the NCT was sweepy and rolling. In one of the open sandy areas, I actually found cacti growing:

I was surprised to find these near the trail!

Some areas, like these pines, would have been hard to follow without the blue markers on the trees.

It was kind of difficult to even find the trail in the first place, and I would've liked better signage—while the trees along the trail were marked every so often with blue paint, there were a few areas that got me turned around, usually around road crossings. At one point, I got mixed up on some singletrack that a private landowner built to intersect with the trail, and I ended up in someone's back yard.

A few lessons learned:

1. Print out a map. 'Nuff said.
2. Bring a camelbak next time. Given that it was an impromptu ride far from home, I didn't have my camelbak with me. I took two bottles in the cages and one in a pocket, but a camelbak would have been much more comfortable.
3. Keep some Benadryl in the aforementioned camelbak. There was something out on that trail, some kind of pollen or spore that I'm not accustomed to, that gave me a ridiculously runny nose and eyes.
4. Set aside some time to go longer! It would be great to do some bikepacking along this trail and go further north.

This small creek was unmarked, but beautiful.