Hello Hikers!
Wednesday July 22
Yellow Barn State Forest, Dryden
Lovely morning, cool enough for a light jacket for us thinner-blooded ones
Still fresh-smelling and damp from the violent storm that came in on the cool front 18 hours earlier
This place buzzes with snowmobilers in winter, but it seems pretty dead the rest of the year. It’s definitely one of our second-tier state forests — scruffy, overgrown — there’s supposed to be trails here but I never see any — the DEC web page describes it as “primitive in nature” — fine with me, I really enjoy walking on the decayed forest roads, huge puddles and all.
Official head count: Nine hikers, two dogs
You can see five more photos by me online here.
You can see Annie’s photos online here.
Saturday July 25
Treman SP on the Finger Lakes Trail
Tiger and I had to miss this hike in order to get things ready for the cook-out. All these photos are by Jack V.
I set the start time for this hike an hour later than usual — I tried to emphasize the late start but I evidently didn’t do a good enough job — two hikers showed up at the usual start time and did most of the walk by themselves
Jack reported the hike was beautiful. The group was clearly hightailing it — they covered a lot more distance than we usually do.
Head count: Seven hikers, two dogs
***************************************
After a few hours at Saturday afternoon’s cook-out, two of our regular hikers, Bud and Scott, set off to drive to Toledo, the first stage in a drive to Montana — they’re going to hike into the back country for 10-12 days of fishing. This will be a completely primitive camping trip near bear country. It sounds like a fabulous adventure, though one I would never want to actually do myself. I urged them to keep a journal so they can write a report for us when they’re back. You can see them here training for the hike last winter — Bud’s on the left with the huge pack, Scott’s on the right.
In more cook-out follow-up news, the following items were left behind: Two black umbrellas, one folding; a red jacket with liner; plastic serving dish with center dish; styrofoam cooler with bottle of champagne; and a nice slotted serving spoon. Contact me if one of these items is yours.
Sunday July 26
Michigan Hollow Road to Curtis Road on the Finger Lakes Trail
A little warm but very beautiful in this gorgeous Danby SF woods
A number of hikers and several of the dogs got stung, both on the outbound leg and heading back to the cars — the bees are definitely becoming a problem this summer — if you’re allergic to bee stings, be sure to bring your epi pen — if it gets worse, we’ll start doing our walks on the rural roads instead of the forest paths.
This trail is a little strenuous and we got sweaty but it was comfortable enough even in the mid 70s thanks to all the shade, and we had a great time of it.
Official head count: 21 hikers, five dogs
You can see seven more photos by me online here.
You can see Annie’s photos online here.
***********************************
Someone asked me to make up and publish a list of my Top Ten hikes — good idea — I’m going to do a Top 12 — stay tuned.