JOLLY FISHERMAN ROAD
April in the Northwoods is often referred to as Mud Season. The lush rebirth of Spring is an unfulfilled promise and harsh winter a too recent memory. It’s best to load up your bike and some summer clothes and head south or west to put in some miles where the sun shines and not come back until Northern Wisconsin dries out and warms up. But this year (and last, come to think of it) April was a cyclist’s delight. Warm days and a lack of rain resulted in a month of mostly rideable days, even without booties to keep your toes from freezing. We had the daily opportunity to watch the delicate emergence of Spring from atop two wheels. The cycling season is off to a good start.

One of my favorite rides in barely Springtime is Jolly Fisherman Road on the north side of Nelson Lake about 6 miles west of Hayward off Highway 27. It’s a short 5 mile ride, but worth the trip. Take the scenic ride from town out 27 and County Road T, skirting Smith Lake and spinning through Cedar swamps to Nelson Lake Dam, or you can drive out to the dam, park your car and just do the 5 miles. If you ride from town and back, you’ll log 15 miles.

At the dam, Nelson Lake empties into the Totogatic Flowage, offering a fine vista to the west. Beneath the dam you can watch fisherman (most of them seem jolly) communing with the fish. Head north up Highway 27 and turn east in _ mile onto Jolly Fisherman Rd. Don’t be deterred by the first hill that will have you pedaling out of the saddle. It’s the price of admission and the backside descent is exhilarating. Smooth asphalt rolls and turns through hardwoods and swamps for 2.2 miles with glimpses of Nelson Lake shimmering brightly through the woods to the south. In a month the foliage will hide the lake completely. There are no houses or other developments to distract you. At the turnaround point you’ll come to a T intersection, beyond which the road quickly becomes driveways for cabins and houses on the lake. I seldom encounter a vehicle on this road, but use appropriate caution especially on the hills and corners.

The delicacy of spring is on display. My favorite time to ride here is in the late afternoon when the sun’s slanting rays backlight the tree flowers that grace the poplars and maples like a haze of pale green and red. These strikingly beautiful blossoms hang like a delicate veil of jewels in the forest’s crown. Pick one up off the road and you’ll notice they are as intricate in design as any orchid. In just a few days they fall and paint the road with colorful shadows beneath their parent branches. New poplars that sprouted last spring in the ditches and on the road banks grew to 8 foot stems in a single season without branching. Their new leaves oppose each other on opposite sides of the stem, giving them the appearance of long hair braids, tied up with tiny bows. The roadside ponds and swamps are home to Spring Peepers, bud-sized frogs whose urgent, shrill mating calls assault the silence. They seem especially jolly.

Also on display here is Nature’s awesome, terrible power. Sixty foot tall trees lie jumbled in the woods like matchsticks tossed to earth by a powerful blow. Late last summer, at 1 o’clock in the morning, a rogue wind roared through here and flattened random sections of forest, snapping off tree trunks and toppling whole trees, tipping up their roots and topsoil in fantastic, jagged shapes the size of pickup trucks. The trees’ underside jumble of roots, rocks and soil is somehow shocking, revealing an intact, intricate structure normally buried out of sight. The fallen trees, their heads come to ground, have leafed out their last time in a green, desperate act of denial. Because that’s what they do in springtime.

The Northwoods is a land of wonderful contrasts. The seasons change dramatically. Nature displays itself in delicacy and in power. It makes me jolly to be able to pass through and be a part of it, observing silently from atop two spinning wheels.

See you on the road. Ride safely.