Patty Loew:
If you've lived here a while, you know Wisconsin is home to many fabulous places to enjoy the outdoors. One of our best is more than 1,000 miles long, really curvy and one of only eight found in the US.  It's the Ice Age National Scenic Trail and it follows the leading edge of the last glacier that covered our state some 10,000 years ago. Construction of the trail is still underway, and it goes on year round. But it is no weekend bushwhacking project as reporter Jo Garrett found when she took to the trail with the project's lead designer.

Jo Garrett:
There are many ways to take in our state, and foot travel is one of the finest. And one of our finest and certainly our longest trail is the National Scenic Ice Age Trail. It winds for some 1200 miles across Wisconsin. Hiker Tim Malzahn of Lodi explains.

Tim Malzahn:
The shape represents the furthest advance of a continental glacier that only receded about 10,000 years ago.

Garrett:
What was left after that last glacier retreated is a geological bonanza. Wisconsin is one of the best places in the world to view the effects of glaciers on a landscape. It's the mission of the Ice Age Trail to showcase that amazing natural story. In addition, it provides a fabulous hike across our state.
Malzahn:
So I just wanted to explore Wisconsin. And I can't think of a better way to do it than with the Ice Age Trail. I didn't expect to fall in love with it and still be involved with it 17 years later. But so it goes.

Garrett:
Malzahn hiked the whole trail some 17 years ago. But understand that the whole trail is not all finished trail. The ultimate goal is to have 1200 miles of uninterrupted scenic trail. So far, they've finished around 600. In those places where the trail is not finished, they often route it along local roads. The goal of the non-profit Ice Age Park and Trail Foundation is to replace those road segments with real trail. To that end, they're always acquiring new land and building new trail to get to that 1200 mile goal which is where Malzahn comes in.

Malzahn:
Feels pretty good.

Garrett:
His walk about has become a kind of professional vision quest. For hiker Malzahn is now one of the foundation's five paid staffers and his primary job is designing new trail. We caught up with him on two very different places on the trail. This newly completed section in the Timberland Wilderness in Lincoln County and here in the heart of winter in the City of Baraboo where he's mid- designing. Marking, making the decisions, tons of decisions about where a new chunk of trail will go.

Malzahn:
Why now? Why winter?

Garrett:
It's important to note that there are only eight national scenic trails in the entire country. So Wisconsin's Ice Age Trail is in the same league as the powerhouse Appalachian and Pacific Crest trails.

Malzahn:
We're to be the elite of the national trails of what America has to offer for hiking trails.

Garrett:
So the standards are high. So what does it take to make this kind of trail?

Malzahn:
A rule of thumb is 100 hours of trail lay-out and design time for a mile of trail.

Garrett:
What does Malzahn see and what does he consider in creating trail?

Malzahn:
Everything from rain to rock, soils, geology, geography, slopes, off-site pressures. Other user groups with an interest in the property.  Are there commercial ventures, logging, mining, agricultural production.

Garrett:
Those are some of the myriad of elements Malzahn must contend with. But the most important element, of course, is to wind the trail past glacial landforms like this one. It’s a kettle lake in Kettle Moraine State Park. The challenge is to wind the trail past those landforms that tell the story of glacial action in Wisconsin and do it in a way to keep the walker looking at the landforms and not at their feet.

Malzahn:
My introduction to the Ice Age Trail was as a hiker. I'm listening to my feet in terms of how I'm moving through the landscape. Am I tripping over rocks? It's how the feet feel as you move.

Garrett:
Great trail isn't about the shortest distance between two points. It's about an experience and curves are welcome.

Malzahn:
Undulation and meander, those are key terms that help to provide variety, a sense of playfulness, surprise, mystery to a trail alignment and that's our movement through the landscapes.

Garrett:
The goal is to move the walker through the landscape in the most interesting way possible to avoid what trail designers call pud.

Malzahn:
A pud, it stands for a pointless up and down.

Garrett:
The goal is to find a variety of view sheds.  What’s a view shed?

Malzahn
A view shed is a scenic view. This is kind of a window here. One of the goals with trail alignment is to go through different rooms to vary the pace that users will experience. Just as you would move through a building, say if I'm coming over to your house and I come into the entrance room and that's one experience, and then say we go to the kitchen, that's going to be a whole other function.

Garrett:
The glaciers created more than just these view sheds. They also carved out our physical resources. And those resources have shaped our state's social history. That's part of the ice age trail, too.

Malzahn:
We have the glacial landforms and a very rich human history that has nestled into the land over the course of many years here to interpret.

Garrett:
Here is an example. This lovely bridge that ties into our state's rail and timber history. You'll find it on the Timberland Wilderness section way back in the woods. It was designed and built by Malzahn and volunteers.

Malzahn:
The trail route through here comes off an ice wall lake plain to forested hilly topography and meets with what is -- what we see is a former narrow gauge railroad bed that was used around the turn of the century to extract timber from this part of the northwoods. So if you can imagine teams of horses and men creating first this rail bed through the environment, the effort was mind-boggling.

Garrett:
To honor that history they handcrafted this bridge from logs harvested from the nearby forest. Extra effort to make the experience on the ice age trail just a little bit better.

Malzahn:
This adds a little bit more sizzle to it.

Garrett:
Nearly 20 years after he first traveled this trail, Malzahn is still leaving his imprint on Wisconsin's Ice Age Trail.

Malzahn:
It's an absolute gem. It is a treasure and it gives back to me more than I think what I can ever give back to it. So I hope to be involved in the Ice Age Trail for another 17 or 27 years or however long we've got left to walk.

Loew:
If you head to our website at wpt.org/inWisconsin, you'll find information about the trail, including maps. You'll also find a report that shows what it's like to be one of the volunteers who build the trail. If you'd like to help shape the trail, October 16-19 volunteers will be working on building the Baraboo section of the trail that Jo mentioned in her report. You can find information on how to preregister as a volunteer on our website.