Hello Hikers!
Wednesday July 19
Woods road walk: Bald Hill Road, Danby SF
Official head count: 15H, three D
Saturday July 22
Monkey Run Natural Area, south side of Fall Creek, Varna
Official head count: 21H, seven D
You can see Jack V’s photos here
After the hike, I got a message that one of the hikers had found a nymphal tick on himself, as small as a sesame seed, so tiny he could barely make out the legs through a 20-power magnifying glass. I passed on the news — one of the other hikers suggested there was a good chance such a small tick had never bitten anything yet — another hiker sent me this excellent info on ticks from Penn State U
Sunday July 23
Kennedy SF, Virgil
Official head count: 21H, five D
More photos:
The trail in Kennedy SF is always challenging, full of roots and snags and small rocks, and rutted and eroded in spots — but the area had clearly suffered extremely heavy rain runoff flows since the last time we were here, and the trail condition was worse than we’d ever seen — I caught my foot in a snag near the end of the walk and went crashing straight down face first — when your foot is suddenly trapped, there’s no way you can break or soften your fall — landed on one knee — couldn’t tell how bad the damage was — iced it at home and took an Aleve — it really stiffened up as the afternoon wore on — but when I got up, I felt amazingly OK
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Our nature photographer Annie spends part of every summer on an island in the Thousand Islands. Tiger asked her to put some photos from the island onto our hiker photo site. Here they are.