Chichaqua Trail Segment #2 8/20 sm

Chichaqua Valley River Trail (TAvRT segment #2)

Start	Bondurant, IA	N 41:42:28.02 W 93:25:28.87	N-S miles 8.25
End	Baxter, IA	N 41:49:37.26 W 93:09:06.82	Total miles 20

 






 

Ready to go. Rain is gone!


OK, I finally got enough done with moving to jump on the bike and ride a few north and south miles of my  trek across America riding trails separate from the roadways. The first segment of Traversing America via Rail Trails (TAvRT) was ridden with my sons, Chris and Geoff in April (see Maiden Ride post below). For segment two, brother Don (Maze boy #6), my bull fighter brother (see the recumbent bike post) and I cranked a 20 mile ride on the Chichaqua Valley River Trail which today is called the Skunk River Valley. Native Americans called the river "Chichaqua", which meant Skunk, or "smelly place". Some believe the river was named for the odorous wild "Skunk Onions" (or Skunk Cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus) which once grew along its banks. Being the first green plant to appear in the spring, it was sought by both Native Americans and pioneers. The good thing my smeller is defunct therefore I didn’t smell a thing. Of course with the midwest having a scorching and parched summer, just about the worse heat and drought Iowa has ever had, likely caused any odor to evaporate. The first settlers in the area of the trail came mainly from Indiana, New York and Pennsylvania. Later, Norwegians, Germans and Danes came directly from overseas and inhabited the surrounding lands. The Chichaqua bike trail evolved from the previous work of railroaders starting with the Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska Railroad in 1885. By this time nearly 4ooo folks settled in the area. Three other railroad companies owned the tracks until the Chicago Northwestern abandoned the tracks ninety-nine years later.

Don and me in front of 1800's cabose from one
 of the four railroads that ran throug Baxter

Polk County acquired the right away and developed the Chichaqua Trail after 1984. In 1987, the trail was opened to pedestrians, runners, bikers, skate boarders and so on. This is one of the few trails I have seen a sign stating “No Horses”. Usually equestrians are allowed on rail trails, if not for any other reason than to get support from these folks to help with the burdening costs of building and maintaining trails. Of course the trails could be opened motorized vehicles to bring in the dollars but how stupid would that be?! Motorized vehicles are forbidden on rail trails. I have come across a couple of snow mobiles and ATV’s while using rail trails, but none of the drivers were in shouting distance of my curse. 

Even though Iowa has been blistering hot this summer, with a drought to boot, we got rain the morning of this Chichaqua ride.  It rained all the way to the trailhead one mile northeast of Bondurant, Iowa. Lucky for us the storm moved, away from us, so no rain fell on our petite little bodies. However, the rain that had fallen eariler soaked some parts of the trail. The sign at the trailhead said, “Opening in the fall of 2012". We took that to mean if we were crazy enough to ride through repair areas, it was our doing and we would not be thrown in jail. Well we were punished anyway, because the first 3-4 miles of the trail was strewn with a ubiquitous sum of walnuts, branches and leaves. Then we came upon a trail mending project. A bridge was flooded out a year ago. There wasn’t any water in the creek bed, probably because it dried up due the drought. It looked a bit challenging for a couple of senior citizens, but big brother Don said, “We can do this”. And, we did; down the bank with our bikes, without falling on our butts. But we needed to get up the other side. That was the rough part.  The soil in this part of Iowa came from the Wisconsin Glacier during the last Ice Age.  A richly black soil called gumbo was waiting for us. What a challenge! When you took one step forward, you would slide back two. I have never seen or stepped in such a sticky mucky soil, even the muddy poopy cow lots of my youth were not as bad as this gunk. My guess is  this stuff could be used as an adhesive. Our bike wheels and shoes were mired in the heaviest crap. When we could no longer wheel the bikes, we had to carry them. The tries, brakes, spokes and any other part of the bike that touched this greasy black clay loaded the bikes down an extra ten to fifteen pounds. Eventually we made it through the black gluey muck. We used tree branches to scrape off enough soil to head down the trail. It felt like I added ten pounds to the bike yet the derailers and brakes worked fine.



Gumbo Glue. The trail tested us where a

bridge had washed out. We had to

negoiate nearly a city block of greasy

goop. What a workout!



When we got to Baxter, Iowa, the end point of the Chichaqua trail, we found a car wash and uncovered the original bicycles from their black gumbo stucco.  Even with high pressure, the goo fought removal.  Our wives, Mary and Connie, were good sports and came to Baxter and hauled us to the southern trailhead near Bondurant to pick-up my car. Don did the math on the GPS readings and figured Segment #2 gave me 8.25 north south miles. There is a long long way to go! Only 26 miles of the more than 1500 mile distance between north and south American borders are under my belt. Plenty to go yet!!!

The Maze Boys (#6 & #8) after the car wash.