NCT conference in Marquette!

On Wednesday when Sandy got off, we headed east to Marquette MI to attend the annual national conference of the North County Trail.   You know how I love trails, especially the NCT!

This post shows the first 2 days.

We camped at the Forestville Trailhead.

This is part of the Noquemanon Trail Network.

They recently put in a camp ground. It was lovely!

We even got there early enough to cook supper over the fire.

 

No mosquitoes either!

Then on Thursday morning, we met up with lots of friendly
hikers at NMU.

We got special attention from Ray, our personal chauffeur.
We figured out, that Sandy works at the same place as his son Brian!

70 hikers showed up to stroll along the Little Garlic River.

It was quite a procession.

I don't know you, but I love any NCT hiker who'll rub me some.

We took a little break here.

There were 2 other 4-leggeds here besides me.

Up the spur trail we go.

We were headed to a nice water fall.
Trail mutts don't mind leading the way.

Once back to the trail head, we waited for our shuttle back.
We did about 7 miles today.

Oh good! A car load of little girls pulled up, just to see me.
You know I don't get to see many kids!

I got acquainted with many more hikers as we waited here.

In fact, I tried to get to know everyone.

Our chauffeur back was Mark, who wasn't a dog lover,
but I tried to change his mind.  Oh ya he did rub me good.

Back in camp, we found neighbors! They were friendly cyclists.

Roasted lamb! Ain't nuthin' like mutton.

What a glorious evening.

I even got groomed.

Friday morning, they had bacon and pancakes.

Then we all headed out from camp to hike the NCT,
located spitting distance from our site.

We hiked the NCT to a spur trail, which we took to see Lily Pond.

It lived up to its name!

In the afternoon, we headed back to NMU so I could meet
more hikers.

This fella led work groups to clear the Kek trail near Ely.
He was friendly, too! I hope we can hike the Kek this fall
when we go up there.