8 minute read
Walking tips for seniors
STEVE GRIFFIN For the Daily News
You can keep walking and hiking when winter weather arrives; it just calls for some adaptation.
Like adding traction assistance to your boots. Or enlarging your footprint with snowshoes. Or stretching your slide with cross country skis.
A first ‘step’ (pun intended) is simply adapting your regular hike to winter.
Creepers/crampons have become de rigueur, and they greatly expand winter opportunities. In various styles and configurations, stretchon or strap-on over regular boots or shoes, they bite into ice and keep the foot from slipping.
Pick a pair just aggressive enough for the conditions on which you’ll be walking: short spikes, perhaps, for normal winter walking, or rugged teeth for thick ice or lake tops. Many hikers own more than one pair, to match conditions. Poles provide additional balance and traction, by the way.
(Cleats did cause me an injury, two winters ago, when, while walking my dog around the block after a heavy ice storm, my feet left the pavement. I plummeted to the concrete, deeply bruising my hip. I landed on the cleats carried in my pocket, not worn on my boots! Lesson learned.)
Beyond cleats, there’s a major difference between the way we Midlanders walk in winter, and the way Michiganders further north do it.
Up there, snowshoes are a makessense way to get the mail, go ice fishing, or run a trap line, and cross November 2021 | Senior Scope country skis the most efficient way to hit the trails between from December well into March.
Here, to be honest, we snowshoe and ski not so much because we have to, but when we can. That can make the experiences even sweeter.
“Magic happens,” when winter and deep snow comes, said Jenn Kirts, Chippwa Nature Center director of programs, when we chatted by phone about hiking recently. I agreed. Snowshoes have always made that magic for me.
If there’s less than a foot of snow, there’s just not much reason to do the extra work that walking with oversize snowshoe ‘feet’ requires, especially if you’re the first one along your chosen path.
Snowshoes, after all, do not so much keep you on top of the snow as they pack it down into a path for those on snowshoes behind you.
On a foot of snow, they work. On two feet, they excel.
And when it’s your turn to follow, instead of lead, they’re wonderful fun.
Snowshoes come in different sizes and shapes to match users and uses, from running and racing to lugging gear through a wilderness.
Steve Griffin Borrowing or renting can help you find what’s best for you.
About that ‘webbed-feet’ thing: While traditional snowshoes had decks of webbed rawhide, and many still cherish them, many modern snowshoes have ultra-light frames and synthetic decking material and, especially with crampons added for traction on icy surfaces, they work great.
Snowshoeing is not inherently stressful, provided you match your gait to your ability and condition.
The Chippewa Nature Center offers great opportunities to try it out, with loaner snowshoes available. Watch the CNC calendar, and hope for snow! Kirts said its lands are open to off-trail snowshoeing whenever the snow’s deep enough for it.
Swifter and more strenuous than snowshoeing is cross country skiing, and modern designs and materials have made it simpler and more enjoyable than ever, especially where tracks are created by other skiers or grooming equipment.
CNC grooms its River and Wood Duck trails for skiers.
Midland County’s Pine Haven Recreation Area at Sanford offers exciting trails, 11 k for classic skiing, 3.7 k for skate-skis. Snowshoes pack winter snow into a more walkable surface — but the trailbreaker gets plenty of exercise!
(Steve Griffin/For the Daily News)
Like snowshoe paths, you’ll likely find ski trails carved into the snow topping area parks and even golf courses.
In most (read non-covid) winters, the Midland City Forest Winter Sports Parks has both trails and ski rentals.
Whether it’s by regulation or courtesy, skiing and snowshoeing (and fat-tire biking and other pursuits) don’t mix. Other users should leave ski tracks to skiers!
Winter outings aren’t limited to webbed feet or skinny skis, of course. The three paved trails radiating out from the Tridge are often walkable (as well as sometimes skiable, the Chippewa Trail groomed when conditions warrant). And, in winter as in the three more temperate seasons, don’t forget the thrilling option of the Canopy Walk at Whiting Forest of Dow Gardens. It closes only when the trail ices-over, and that’s relatively seldom and closures relatively short.
Steve Griffin is an outdoor writer and Senior Scope contributor for the Midland Daily News.
No age limit on outdoor recreation in Midland
Opportunities for exercise abound in local area
STEVE GRIFFIN For the Daily News
“Take a hike” is a stern directive, when it’s someone telling you to leave. But as a recommendation for people of all ages to pursue autumn recreation and exercise, it’s hard to beat.
“There are a lot of treasures to see as the seasons turn,” said Jenn Kirts, Chippewa Nature Center (CNC) director of programs, in a phone interview. CNC offers a variety of hiking experiences, as does the wider Midland area, including some particularly fall-friendly ones.
“We all like to drive (cars) on color tours,” Kirts said, “but hiking is a way to experience nature at a slower pace, to take the time to see an individual leaf and its many colors, the shapes and colors of fungi, to hear the chatter of chickadees.”
“It forces us to slow down and enjoy the natural world with all of our senses.”
Kirts calls fall hiking “a little muddier, a little slipperier,” but then, too, there’s not the snow and cold of winter, nor spring’s frustrating, back-and-forth of ice, snow, slush and reluctant warm-up. One doesn’t guard against overheating, and too much sun, as in summer.
Fall is cool enough for comfort, but warm enough too. The colorful setting can inspire awe. Bugs are mainly a memory. Crowds have thinned.
Nowhere is all that more true than at the Chippewa Nature Center, which boasts 19 miles of trails open to the public every day, dawn until dark, traversing 1,500 acres of several types of ecosystems.
From the 0.4-mile, easy-access Dorothy Dow Arbury Trail to the three-mile River Trail and four-mile Chippewa Trail, there’s a path for everyone – and for just about anyone’s mood.
Hiking tips
• It’s always a good idea to carry water (and to anticipate bathroom needs). • Dress both appropriately and flexibly: a windbreaker’s a good idea, a raincoat better yet, but you’ll likely wish to wear less outwear, not more, once you get moving. Layers are the key. • Walking sticks can add balance to your step; many serious walkers and hikers use them. • Many trails have benches; there’s no shame in taking a break for a snack, a rest, a shoelace-tightening or whatever. Part of the pleasure of a hike is taking it at your own chosen pace! • Generally stay to the right on wide paths. Offer a “howdy” to those you pass, but remember that some people prize their solitude, or are tuned into music or a podcast. • “On your left” means that’s where a runner, skater or biker intends to pass you from behind. Resist the urge to jump! That just makes you more difficult to avoid. If someone does give you the alert, be sure to thank them! • Fall is hunting season: it’s a good idea to wear some Hunter Orange clothing when hiking beyond city limits. Except for the paved Arbury and Chippewa trails, trail surfaces are gravel, mulch, grass and or dirt. Most are flat; a couple have small hills. Most are shorter than two miles. Nature figures prominently, as trails lead along rivers, through meadows, wetlands and several forest types, even along and over ancient sand dunes. Some trails are very popular, others offer more solitude.
A novel aspect of CNC trails is the facility itself, its visitor center open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays (closed some holidays). There, naturalists can provide trail advice, updates on trail conditions, and answers to questions. Bathroom facilities are open during regular hours; heated bathrooms at the nearby nature study building are open from dawn until dark daily.
A trails brochure guide is available at www.chippewanaturecenter.org, (The CNC gift shop even offers a bandana sporting a map of the entire trail system!) Trail signage is consistent and clear. Vehicles, dogs, smoking, fires, alcohol, picking or collecting are not allowed; only on the Chippewa Trail, 3.5 miles long and paved are bicycles allowed.
More trail hiking options
The Little Forks Conservancy (www. littleforks.org) offers 10 miles of trails, open to the public, at its Averill Preserve near Sanford, Riverview Natural Area near Midland, and George and Sue Lane Preserve in Gladwin County.
At Averill, hilly spots have been leveled off, and other trails have been made more accessible and less hazardous. A new half-mile of trail has been created at the Lane Preserve. More boardwalks are planned for Riverview – both to keep dry the boots of hikers, and to preserve the natural wetlands they’ll cross. Details are available online at www. littleforks.org.
Extensive trail networks also lace the Midland City Forest (www.cityofmidlandmi.gov), and the Pine Haven Recreation Area at Sanford (www. co.midland.mi.us).
The 210-mile Midland to Mackinac Boy Scout Trail begins in the Kawkawlin
Cross country skiing is a popular activity at the Chippewa Nature Center. (Photo provided)
