Report to Hikers: week of March 20-March 26

 

Hello Hikers!

 

Wednesday March 22

Road walk  —  Fischer Settlement Road south, Danby SF

Seems like we’ve had an unusually large number of bad-weather mornings this year on the days when we’re scheduled to hike  —  this one was especially nasty  —  low teens, wind blowing hard and snowing fiercely as we drove down 96B on the way to the trail head  —  I took this photo out the car window as we sped along  —  not a whiteout but felt like it was verging on one

Felt a bit grim at the trail head too as we first got out of the car.

But as usual, we all soon perked up

Two hikers arrived too late to be in the official group shot

It kept snowing for most of the walk but the trees were blocking most of the wind.  Near the end, the sun came out for a while  —  really beautiful

Official head count:  10H, three D

You can see Annie’s photos here

 

Saturday March 25

Road walk  —  Brown Road and Bruce Hill Road, West Danby

This was a new walk for pretty much all of us, and I was very curious about what we’d see

For the first 10 minutes or so it felt like a slightly downscale suburb, and there was some grumbling  —  then we came to a number of very upscale houses  —  then it turned quite countryish

By this time the walk had become extremely satisfying

It was an extremely dark day, with a dull grey sky and mist hanging on all the hills

This was the start of Bruce Hill Road, which climbs steeply from the inlet valley along 34-96 up to the top of the Danby hills

It got very strenuous immediately but our guys just blasted up the hill

It had been raining before the hike and there was rain in the area and the scenery was tremendously atmospheric

We passed a number of really interesting houses and barns  —  spoke to several people outside their homes, who said they’d never seen a big group of walkers on their street before.

Got some raindrops on the windshield on the drive home  —  soon, it began to rain and it rained steadily for a few hours in Fall Creek  —  we lucked out once again

Official head count:  18H, five D

More photos:

Annie

Jack V

 

Sunday March 26

Road walk  —  Woodard Road to Burge Hill Road, Enfield and Newfield

Talking about bad weather when it’s time to hike …. it was raining at 9 am at four of the five official rainfall loggers in the county …. you really needed to be an optimist to think it would stop soon  —  but it wasn’t raining any more by the time we got to the trail head

This was another walk on mainly new roads for me  —  so much fun to check new sights like these out

We’re supposed to have a rule that says we should always walk facing traffic  —  but when there’s no traffic the rule is completely ignored ….

For those of us who don’t mind this kind of damp dark weather, it was a great morning

Official head count:  24H, eight D

You can see Jack V’s photos here