Mountain Biking on the Glacial Drumlin Trail

The last of the 2016 mountain biking layouts was actually the first one we did last year. My son and I rode 15 miles of the Glacial Drumlin trail one morning, and I created four scrapbook layouts for it. 

The papers on these layouts are a combination of papers from the Paper Studios "Murphy's Square" collection mixed with one sheet of paper with trees on it, and one sheet with gears on it. Even though they were not a direct match to the other papers, they were a close enough match and I wanted to bring in a little bit of nature and a little bit of a biking theme into the pages.

I left the photos in chronological order to highlight the different things we saw along the way and the things we stopped to look at. Often I will shuffle the order of photos around to create the best use of space, but these all seemed to work in the order they were taken, so there wasn't too much shuffling. Here are the final 4 layouts:

Thanks for looking! For more mountain biking layouts please click here!

Mountain Biking on the Badger State Trail

The second trail we rode this year as a family was the Badger State Trail. We drove to the trailhead in Belleville, and biked the few miles to the Stewart Tunnel. Several years ago we biked this part of the trail, but enjoyed it so much we decided to go back and do it again.

It is a straight, flat trail that has just a slight uphill grade as you go south. After just a couple of miles you approach the train tunnel. 

The tunnel is dark and a little eerie! Since you can't see the other end of the tunnel when you enter, flashlights are required as is walking your bike through. After the tunnel we continued down the trail a bit, then turned around to bike back to our vehicle, once again going through the tunnel. 

For these layouts, I again used a paper collection called "Murphy's Square" by The Paper Studio. I also used this on the CamRock Trail Page, and continued to use this for additional biking pages. Although it's not necessarily biking or nature themed paper, I liked the little bit rustic look and the colors lend themselves to an outdoorsy page. I've found that biking themed scrapbook supplies can be hard to come by, and it's often just adding little details like the gears that can make it theme specific.

I accented the page with some journaling cards by We R Memory Keepers Grayson Collection, some metal gear embellishments also by The Paper Studio, and some arrows created with paper punches or cut by hand.

Here are the final 4 layouts:

Thanks so much for looking! Our next biking trail is the Glacial Drumlin Trail.

Mountain Biking on the CamRock Trail Scrapbook Page

Last year we tried to bike more as a family, and one of the trails we rode was the CamRock Trail. This trail offers a traditional flat gravel trail, but also known for it's single track trails that branch off the main trail.

The single track is a challenging trail, and we had all biked on it once before several years ago. We all did better this time around that last time, and only had to stop and walk our bikes up or down the steep hills a couple of times.

For this layout, I used a couple of earthy fall papers, since it was late October when we biked this trail. The papers are from a Paper Studio paper stack called Murphy's Square, and the wooden gears, journaling card, arrow border and wooden-look frame were added to add some little details to the page.

I didn't take a lot of photos on this trail since we were busy biking it, but had enough to do one layout. Thanks for looking! Up next is the Badger State Trail and the Stewart Tunnel.

Hiking the Ice Age Trail Scrapbook Page

Early last spring we went hiking on the Ice Age Trail and hiked a short segment called the Blackhawk Segment. We only hiked a few miles of this segment since we had to backtrack to get back to our car, but it was a fun and scenic hike none the less.

We were pretty excited to be hiking on a National Scenic Trail, and the boys enjoyed looking for the Yellow blazes that mark the trail. Along the way, I took several photos of signs and markers on the trail, in addition to scenery shots and photos of the kids exploring the trail.

For these layouts, I used a collection of supplies called Outdoor Trail by Kaisercraft. I had originally purchased this in hopes of using it for one of our National Parks trips, but I ended up not using it for those and thought it would be perfect for these photos instead.

Since it was so early in the year, the photos are quite neutral a with a  lot of grey, tan and brown...there is not a lot of color. To add some color to the layouts, I accented with green and orange - using green background paper and accenting with orange where I could. Even with the little bits of color, the layouts are still pretty neutral and earthy.

Here are the final 4 layouts:

Thanks for looking!

Sunday Gulch Trail Scrapbook Page

If there is one hike you should definitely do at Custer State Park, it's Sunday Gulch. This trail has it all - rocky climbs, flat easy sections, great views, rocks, water, and woods. It is not a flat hike, but it's not too strenuous either and you'll be rewarded with great scenery and a wonderful experience.

We started our hike to Sunday Gulch late in the day, around 4pm. The trail picks up back behind Sylvan Lake, is a an offshoot of the Sylvan Lake Trail - it is clearly marked with signs, you can't miss it. There are 2 options for hiking Sunday Gulch since it is a loop - you can go either clockwise or counter-clockwise. We choose counter-clockwise (the opposite of what almost everything I read recommended), which saved the rocky gulch part of the trail until the end (we didn't want the kids to get bored after the "fun" part and complain the whole way back.) And we were glad we did, even though we had to hike up the rocks (rather than descending into the gulch) and climb our way out of the gulch, which was a little harder of a hike.

Going the direction we did, we began to climb the mountainside right away - it was a steep climb but steps in the rocks made it a much easier climb. After about 15 minutes of climbing, we reached the top and the views were incredible! By this time we were a ways off the main trail and away from the Sylvan Lake, and you really felt like you were in the wilderness. 

After the overlook, the crowds basically disappeared and we were literally on our own back there for an hour before we saw another family. We were starting to get a little worried since we had not seen anyone in so long, but they assured us that we were on the trail and almost to the gulch. As we continued on, we could begin to hear the sound of water and knew we were getting close. We reached the gulch after 90 minutes of hiking. Since it was August and the water levels were pretty low, it wasn't too wet of a hike and we didn't have any rushing water to contend with.

It took about 30 more minutes to climb the gulch, and the kids loved climbing over the rocks. There is a metal handrail most of the way to help guide you and help you not slip on the wet rocks.

This was such a fun hike and I'm glad we did it in the evening. Most reviews say that this is a very popular hike and can be very busy, but we didn't see anyone else even when we reached the gulch. We finished the hike at about 6pm. This 3 mile hike took us about 2 hours but we did stop often to look around and take photos.

I made 5 layouts for this hike:

If you are ever in Custer and thinking about doing this hike...DO IT! It's great.

Sylvan Lake Trail Scrapbook Page

Our first hike in Custer State Park was the 1 mile loop around Sylvan Lake. This beautiful lake offers amazing scenery and a fun and interesting hike over, around, and through some unique rock formations. 

As you begin the trail, it borders Sylvan Lake which you immediately notice for it's rock formations along the back side of the lake. The rocks seem to hold the lake water in.

As you approach the rocks, you can hop over some stones to an overlook on the lake. Back on the path the other direction, you will go through a narrow rock tunnel.

Once through the tunnel, you are on the back side of the lake and the big rocks, and the path continues over to the other side of the lake, where you can climb up on the rocks and get some amazing views of the lake. We took our best photos of the lake from up here.

As you follow the trail, you'll return back to your starting point by the parking lot and general store. This easy trail took us about an hour to walk, but we also stopped often to climb the rocks and take photos.

I created 5 layouts for this short hike, as it was so picturesque and we enjoyed it so much. 

Thanks for looking!