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Hello Hikers!
Wednesday Nov 11
Edwards Lake Cliff Preserve, Lansing
Ever since Tiger and I moved to Ithaca 12 years ago, Lansing’s been nothing but a boring set of busy roads where you go to the doctor or the mall. Then, recently, we had occasion to drive around it a good bit on the local streets, and I’ve completely changed my opinion. Now I think it’s a delightful place. I love the mix of sweeping open fields and high-quality houses and the newer gaudy mansions. And now we have a great Lansing hike too.
It appears this preserve has some special natural and geological qualities that make it stand out — I actually don’t care about any of that — I just find it really beautiful and a lovely place to walk.
If there’s a way to get down to the lake front from the high ground, we haven’t figured it out. But it’s completely satisfying to walk along the top of the bluffs — there’s a hugely deep gorge at one point, and several very pleasing views out over the lake.
We had some great atmospherics for the walk — it was raining shortly before hike time, and there was mist hanging in the air when we shaped up — it started to drizzle near the end and a little fog moved in — fabulous if you like that kind of stuff
Official head count: 11 hikers, one dog
There was one micro-burst of excitement — the others abruptly noticed my pants were festooned with stickers, I guess when I was wandering around through the underbrush trying to get photos. (Photo by Mary.) Tiger was a little distressed I’d messed up my pants so much — I said I’d pull them all off but Tiger ended up doing it because I was slow to get started on the chore.
You can see eight more photos by me online here.
You can see Jack V’s online photos here.
Saturday Nov 14
Roy H Park Preserve into Hammond Hill SF, Dryden
First official snow-on-the-ground walk of the fall season
Beautiful cool gusty morning, definitely with a touch of winter feeling. (Speaking of winter, here’s a somewhat ominous news article that’s just out.)
This was our second walk that took us into Hammond Hill SF within two weeks, but we took mostly a different route and there was very little overlap and repetition. We did hit a little mud going this way and there was some grumbling from the peanut gallery, which I ignored.
We’ve done this hike a number of times now and all along I’ve thought that the gorgeous stretch of woods from the end of the boardwalk to Hammond Hill Road was part of the Roy H Park Preserve. In fact, the Park Preserve ends right at the boardwalk, I now realize, thanks to our super-regular hiker Jack B. So this greatly raises my already high appreciation of Hammond Hill SF — and lowers my appreciation of Roy H’s estate a bit, I’m sorry to say. Love that stretch of woods!
Official head count: 27 hikers, five dogs
Here’s one more shot — I like the lighting
You can see nine online photos by me here
You can see Annie’s photos online here
Sunday November 15
Michigan Hollow Road SE to Curtis Road, Danby SF
Gorgeous morning on the trail after the weather flipped overnight from early winter to beautifully springlike
It was a little chilly at the trail head but by the time we got to the top of the big outbound hill, the coats were starting to come off — that’s Jack V, who’s very hot-blooded and is always among the first to strip down, and Margaret next to him with her coat off too — let me give a shout-out to the person on the far left, Julie — hasn’t hiked with us much in a while — she’s the one who created the Ithaca Hikers web site for me — for free — yay Julie!!
This trail is notorious for heavy sun-and-shade effects and we hit a good share of these even though all the leaves are now pretty much down. I like the effects in this shot, it has a slightly abstract quality and nice colors — if you blow it up, you can distinguish the details — Sue S is eating an apple, Roger’s looking at his phone, and June could be demonstrating how to strangle a snake while wearing gloves
On our way back to the cars the temperature was up over 50 and it was really lovely coming back down the long downhill stretch — only downside, it was a bit slippery because of dried leaf cover.
Official head count: 30 hikers, eight dogs
You can see eight more photos by me online here
You can see Annie’s photos here
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A quick word on our Thanksgiving get-together: We have enough people signed up for the hiker-roasted turkey, so that option is now closed. If you want turkey at the get-together, you can join in on a traditional turkey dinner from Wegmans that serves 10 to 12 people and will cost you $8-$9 for the turkey and a number of included sides. We have two people signed up for this already — I’ll send out a final call for this in a day or two. We’ll also push forward on our dish-to-pass option.