IOLA – When storms knocked out power across parts of central Wisconsin last week, Lara Pagel was still thinking about hikers.
Pagel, a volunteer with the Portage/Waupaca County chapter of the Ice Age Trail Alliance, helps coordinate and provide shuttles for hikers on nearby sections of the 1,200-mile trail. She’s one of many volunteers whose behind-the-scenes support makes the route welcoming to adventurers from around the state and beyond.
“It’s all volunteer, so everything you do really makes a huge impact,” Pagel said. “Without volunteers, there would not be a trail.”
The Ice Age National Scenic Trail, or IAT, roughly traces the edge of the last continental glacier across Wisconsin. From St. Croix Falls in the west to Sturgeon Bay in the east, the trail passes through forests, prairies and small towns, offering hikers a chance to experience some of the state’s most scenic areas.
In Waupaca and Portage counties, hikers follow a rolling, uneven route shaped by glaciers more than 10,000 years ago. Along the way, they pass hills and ridges, walk by clear glacial lakes, and encounter some of the largest boulders deposited by ice anywhere on the trail.
Choose-your-own-adventure hiking
Nearly 700 people have hiked the entire IAT, some as thru-hikers in one continuous trek, and some as section hikers, covering the sections of the trail in bits and pieces. The first recorded IAT thru hiker, 20-year-old Jim Staudacher, completed the trail in 76 days in 1979. Much of that route was on roads.
Over time, the IAT Alliance and local partners pushed more of the trail off pavement and onto private property and protected land. Today, about 60% of the trail’s 1,200 miles follow off-road paths rather than roads.
Pagel said hiking the IAT is a challenge that can be tailored to nearly any life stage, schedule or fitness level.
“Depending on what your capability of walking is, you may only do five miles at a time, or you might do 20 miles at a time,” she said.
Options include out-and-back day hikes that begin and end at the same trailhead, car shuttles with friends, and even creative combinations with bicycles.
“Some people use bike shuttles, so they’ll drop a bike off at one end and then hike to their bike and ride back to their cars,” Pagel said.
That flexibility is part of what makes the trail accessible.
“Hiking the Ice Age Trail is a choose your own adventure,” she said. “Some people, their choice is to use a shuttler to help them accomplish it.”
Bridging the gaps
The volunteers shuttle section hikers who leave a car at one end of a segment, allowing them to walk the stretch continuously, and also provide rides to thru-hikers. The volunteers are part of a broader network of “trail angels.”
“Trail angels, to a large extent, are the shuttlers,” Pagel said. “There are also people who will open their homes and let thru-hikers stay at their house for a night or so.”
They may also leave food and drinks along the trail. She shared an example from 2021, when Emily Ford became the first woman and black person to thru-hike the IAT during winter. When Ford dropped a piece of gear in the local segment, volunteers went out in winter conditions to find it.
Volunteers at work
Pagel said that in some northern chapters, where only a handful of volunteers cover long stretches of trail, storm damage can linger into the hiking season. She was among volunteers clearing winter damage from local segments of the trail early last week before the latest round of storms rolled in.
The Portage/Waupaca County chapter of the IAT Alliance has about 300 members, with about 70 active volunteers who build, maintain and support the trail locally. Statewide, 1,904 volunteers contributed nearly 115,000 hours of service to the IAT last year.
That support extends beyond trail work. Three new trail communities were announced last week: Iola-Scandinavia in Waupaca County, Cumberland-Barronett in Barron County, and Montello in Marquette County. They join 29 others along the trail that provide amenities for hikers, including lodging, dining and resupply services.
The villages of Iola and Scandinavia sections serve as a hub between multiple trail segments including New Hope, Iola Ski Hill, Skunk and Foster Lakes. A trail community designation ceremony is set for 10 a.m. May 9 at the Iola Winter Sports Club.
Finding community on the trail
For Pagel, some of the most powerful rewards are the people she meets, both while hiking and while shuttling.
“Everybody is so fascinating,” she said. “It seems like the people who take on the Ice Age Trail as a challenge are just very adventurous people to start with. So they always have interesting stories and other adventures that they’re taking beyond the Ice Age Trail.”
She’s met a hiker chasing a fastest-known-time record on a diet of Snickers bars and instant mashed potatoes with chocolate syrup. Others include a couple hiking in support of a friend with leukemia and a woman with cystic fibrosis who tackles the trail “sometimes two miles at a time,” but keeps “plucking away at it.”
“I’ve heard more of my hiker friends say, ‘I’ve met my people,’” she said.
“I guess I’d have to say a lot of it is giving back,” she said. “You get a lot from the Ice Age Trail, so it’s nice to give back.”
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