A 1000 Mile Walk
on the Beach, Loreen Niewenhuis
In 2009, Loreen walked around Lake Michigan. We met through our Facebook Full Circle pages
and exchanged some good support. I am
not sure of Loreen’s age, she had two college age sons at the time of her walk
so I am expecting that she is in her 40’s (so young!)
We did not read this when it first arrived because we did
not want it to influence our book and we did not want any inadvertent
plagiarism. So now with our book in its
5th draft version I felt I could indulge in someone else’s adventure
and dream. In addition, I could learn a
lot about Lake Michigan. All three
objectives were well met.
Loreen did primarily a solo hike about 20% of the time she
was joined by sons, friends, supporters, but for the most time she was alone on
the shore – something that Kate and I would not have enjoyed as much as our
shared time. But this was her adventure
and she writes, “So it was decided. In
the fall of 2008, I told my husband, Jim, ‘Next year, I’m going to walk all the
way around Lake Michigan.’
“He paused for a moment, then asked, ‘Well, shouldn’t we
discuss this?
“I simply said, ‘No.’
“It has been decided.
It was the adventure I must have.”
Later she adds this note – “No, I didn’t want to discuss it
to death. He’d want me to justify it, to
have it pass his test of being ‘necessary’.”
She has good stories and insights along the way and her love
of the lake is really evident as she bemoans the terrible things that have been
done to the lake and the shores. She is
able to take in the natural beauty, but does not lose her sense of realism with
the finger of the lake dipping into the highly industrial south of Gary,
Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, and Chicago.
It was a big contrast with our hike and of course the contrast was what
most interested me.
She did counter clockwise like we did and did not mention
the disbelief that I faced with that directional decision. It must be different on that lake. He days were much longer than ours. She did many 20+ mile days – we came close,
but never did 20. Here walking surface
was primarily beach like ours was for much of the UP, but it did not have the
gravel and cobblestone beds. Her bedrock
was limestone where ours was a more ancient lava and continental shelf.
She did her 1000 miles in 64 days! Amazing.
She did not do the research, but still – that is incredible. It is a pace we would not have enjoyed. Even with the difference in terrain (she also
did not seem to walk in the water as much as we did) and her bushwhacking was
only on one occasion. But unlike the 8
days we took off during the journey – days with absolutely no walking – she
took off 103 days interspersed with her 10 hiking sections. She did not do public programs or research
along the way as we did.
She stayed in hotels, B&Bs and motels for the majority,
but did use a hammock tent for a few nights.
Her meals were in restaurants and Kate would be jealous of all her
Jacuzzi baths.
She suffered many more blisters than we did – we were amazed
at how few we had. Like us she found the
road shoulders boring and like Kate she tried garbage bags for waders (with
better success). One more difference was
that she skipped Door County Peninsula while we did the Keweenaw and other big
projections.
None of this diminishes her great accomplishment and her
book is a very enjoyable tale.
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