Shindagin Hollow SF — bike trails in the northern part of the forest
Official head count: 17H. Four more hikers arrived at the meet-up 10 minutes late, and failed to meet up with us as they hoped. We encountered them when we got back to the parking lot at the end.
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Sat Jan 18
No hike — bad weather
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Sun Jan 19
Hike and hot dog cook-out, Chestnut Lean-to, Danby SF
Very dark morning. The temperature was OK but there was a nagging cold wind, and the snow was wetAfter we reached the lean-to, the main group took off for a hike — a small number of us stayed behind to get the fires goingThese cook-outs always include smoke, because the firewood, which we scavenge from the immediate area, is always wet. Starting the fire always makes the worst smoke, but for whatever reason our fires always smoke a bit the whole time. The wind kept changing direction this time and you had to keep on the move if you wanted to stand next to the fire to warm up. This led to a mishap. A hiker stepped back when the smoke abruptly blew in her face, stumbled on a snag, and fell straight backwards, hitting her head. Luckily one of our nurses was with us and she was able to get a handle on the situation, but it was definitely a little alarmingIt’s impossible to keep the food neat or organized because the space to lay it out is so limitedWe had a second wood fire going in the back of the lean-to, and Tiger was grilling the hot dogs in a foil pan on charcoal (left side background)I wore waterproof hiking shoes but they got wet in the wet snow, and my feet got chilled from standing around. One of the hikers gave me some hot cocoa, which really hit the spot.People kept walking in and the pile of food on the table got bigger and bigger, and messierI have a decent camera which does a pretty good job of capturing scenes accurately. It really did look this dark in person. But I’d like to figure out how to make the scenes a little brighter — though that would change the mood.
