A midsummer's walk through an insect infested swamp

June 29, 1:25 PMChicago Adventure Travel ExaminerTed Nelson

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   The kind of quality picture one takes while swatting hordes of deer flies from their face

When adventure traveling there are important intangible considerations to take in affect when planning a trip. The number one intangible is called common sense.  The book and movie Into the Wild is a perfect example of this dilemma. Sometimes you cannot just design a trip and buy your equipment and plunge into the wilderness. The main character in the book/movie did this, but when he decided he needed to return to civilization due to near starvation conditions, he could not make it because the river he crossed to get to his camp was flooded due to the spring melt.  This left him stranded and starving. This is why when beginning adventure travel one should consider a guided trip or a trip with someone experienced for their first couple of excursions.

I have been guilty of making similar mistakes a couple of times, but not nearly on the scale as in Into the Wild. I went hiking a couple of years ago in the Great Smokey Mountains and I had to drive all night to get there, so I knew I was going to be exhausted the first day. I choose an eight mile hike the next day, which I thought would be easy, but I failed to check the contour map to check elevation change. My eight mile hike consisted of three miles straight up to the Appalachian Trail, then one mile straight down, and then four miles straight up to another ridge. My easy first day turned into the toughest of the trip.

I again made a mistake this weekend in planning an easy excursion into Kettle Moraine State Forest in Wisconsin. I was driving down their scenic drive tour and decided to stop at Butler Lake and hike a little three mile loop. This three mile walk turned into hell as I was assaulted the whole way by hordes of deer flies and mosquitoes. I usually am not that bothered by bugs, but this was absolutely ridiculous. When hiking in the summer deer flies can be an annoyance as one or two may follow you the whole way, but on this hike I had five or six constantly swarming me.

When the trail veered into the woods the deer flies left, but then the mosquitoes attacked as I was tag teamed by this vicious combination. Usually when hiking you can out walk the mosquitoes, but these mosquitoes were large and fierce and were able to keep up with my walk (and I was sprint walking) and attacked and bit me relentlessly.

When I returned to the safety of my car I checked my map again and noticed that the loop basically circled a swamp. On a hot summer day it may not be best to take a hike around a marsh. Leave those hikes for spring and autumn. With a little common sense I could have found a much better path to take.

Hiking is probably not the best summer activity anyway unless you either go farther north or go hiking in the mountains where there are cooler conditions as you gain elevation. Adventure travel does imply some type of discomfort, but there is no reason to be in misery. Most accidents in the wilderness are done by adventurers doing stupid things, so I think it is useful to bring this up to be mindful of using common sense when planning a trip.  Some good did come out of the walk as being the only hiker on the trail (imagine that); I did see a deer and a wild turkey. There are some advantages to being the only human dumb enough to walk through a bog on a hot summer day.