Hello Hikers!
Saturday Jan 23
Lloyd Stark Loop, Connecticut Hill Wildlife Management Area
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Something different. — I asked several regulars if they’d like to handle the photography for this hike report — not that I’m tired of photographing the hikes, but I thought it would be fun to give others a chance — so all the shots in this report are from Mark, who’s been taking photos for many years and who has an impressive collection of classic film cameras on display at his house — I took just one photo, an up-to-date mug shot of Dave G, who guided us along this confusing trail.
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Maybe we didn’t get any snow from the blizzard to the south, but I wonder if the big storm affected our weather in some other way — I thought it was unusually raw at the trail head, and it continued even after we were in the woods — wore my face mask the whole time — very roasty-toasty except it made my nose run vigorously the whole time, and there was some steaming up of the eyeglasses.
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Dave G almost had to skip leading us on the hike — he was doing a last run-through of the trail the day before on skis when he took a nasty fall and hurt his foot — there actually wasn’t enough snow for skiing, which caused him to crash — luckily for us, he felt OK by morning. This is not the smoothest trail in the world — we hit lots of frozen leaves and crusty thin ice that kept collapsing underfoot — not that great for the ankles if you’re not careful.
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Don’t know if it was due to my dire warnings, but no one fell behind and got lost — just a little standing around waiting for everyone to catch up — the going was somewhat slow because of the poor surface
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The temperature never climbed above the high teens but there were enough uphills and we all warmed up before too long — we had two new hikers, steered to us by Norm — this is Dave — he got a huge “like” from Katharine …. not too hard to figure out why if you know her — there are two fantastic overlooks on this trail, both of them at their best with snow cover and gloomy light
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Official head count: 16 hikers and Yoda
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Sunday Jan 24
Kennedy State Forest, Virgil
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As many of you know, I’m a huge fan of evergreen forests — if you feel the same, this walk just beyond Dryden is definitely the one — I was really struck this time by how long we were able to spend walking through fantastic stands of hemlocks, and how dramatic and satisfying the evergreen scenery is. There are stretches of hardwood forest here too, but I’m pretty sure this walk contains the largest stretch of evergreens in our roster.
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It’s even more fun because much of the trail is a bit challenging — narrow, bumpy, rising and falling, roots in the path — the snow cover was quite slippery and there were hikers with less grippy soles on their shoes who actually had to crawl uphill in a few spots
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I like the ruggedness of the trail myself but it’s harder than usual for me to get action shots of the hikers, because I’m so busy trying to keep from tripping or falling, there’s no way I can keep turning around to photograph the people behind me. I really need to be able to stop and stand still.
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Much easier to get shots on the non-hemlock parts of the walk — the beech trees with their pale leaves add a nice luminous touch.
Super-regular hiker Brenda recently got a new hat — she said she loves hats and she always has a car full of them — very jazzy and I like the way it brings a touch of style into the woods.
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Some hikes have a high point, some don’t. Not everyone got to see this one, but I’d say it was definitely the high point — or low point, depending on how you define it
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That’s Norm — we were all steamed up when we emerged from the woods at the halfway point at Owego Hill Road, but he was the only one to tear off his clothes — I didn’t have to egg him on, either, it was his idea — pretty hairy guy ….
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Official head count: 26 hikers, five dogs
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