The North Country Trail is 4800 miles long and covers eight states, including Wisconsin. This trip covered seven miles of it (each way). It was primarily about shaking down gear on a relatively short hike to see what we had but didn’t need, and needed but didn’t have.
This leg of the trail is in the Chequamagon National Forest, and was a fairly easy walk. Filterable water is available from a few sources. It was only an overnight, so we packed our water in. We’ve been on portions of the trail before so know that bugs, especially flies, can be bad. We very intentionally made this a fall trip (September) to avoid the bugs. The colors were great. Overnight temp was in the 30s.
Meals by Mountain House. Coffee by Starbucks (of course). We set the tent up in a beautiful grove of pines. You have to be 100’ off the trail.
What did we learn? We should have taken our filter and filtered water instead of packing it in. Drinking it AND cooking with it AND making coffee put demands on our water supply. No one died, but we could have used a little more aqua.
My gear was a little archaic and I calculated I could shave about 12 pounds off my load by doing some upgrades; better backpack, lighter tent and sleeping bag…a little here and there will make the next trip a little less weight-intensive.