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Report to Hikers: week of June 24-June 30

Hello Hikers!

Wed June 26

Woods road walk — Bald Hill Road from Station Road to Michigan Hollow Road, Danby SF

Bit warm in the sun, but very nice in the shade — there was a lovely breeze blowing in our faces on the outbound leg, and birds singing away in the sun-dappled woods — very pretty morning!

There is just one spot on the whole walk where you can get a decent group shot on a bright sunny day — where we parked

Five hikers arrived too late to make the shoot

The group was in a pretty cheerful mood as we headed off down the road

The temperature had climbed to 79 at the thermometers around the county by 11, and the breeze was at our backs as we walked back, so it was a little bit of a slog — but bearable

Official head count: 24H, three D

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Sat June 29

Roy H Park Preserve into Hammond Hill SF, Dryden

Official head count: 25H, one D

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Sun June 30

Woodard Road southeast into upper Tremann SP on the CCC Trail and the FLT, Enfield

Official head count: 20H, seven D

Report to Hikers: week of June 17-June 23

Hello Hikers!

Wed June 19

Filmore Glen, Moravia — with Nancy L

This walk was coordinated and led by Nancy L, who wrote the hike report and took the photos (except as indicated otherwise)

Here’s who hiked:

Katharine, Steve S, Dennis R, Joel & Jane, Dick, Mary, Jim, Vicki, Leigh Ann, Eckhart, and Irene

The weather was good even though the forecast did not promise it. We headed up the North Rim trail passing by some workmen who were repairing the steps and graciously stepped aside. The trail was wide and the forest was shady and open with the grandeur of an old forest. Everyone gathered at a junction near the top of the North Rim trail where a trail down to the gorge was found. This is where we took our group picture showing the 11 hikers and 4 dogs (there was also me, the photographer). We proceeded down a steep trail to the gorge where there was a bridge across to the South Rim trail. On the other side of the gorge there was a nice lean-to and we stopped to talk to another group of workmen who were preparing to reconstruct the bridge below this one that was closed. It was our first chance to see the rushing water of the gorge. Next we climbed up to the South Rim trail and followed it all the way down to a picnic area with a pavilion on the South side of the gorge that is a short distance (5 minutes) from where we parked. A trail along the gorge starts from there. Several hikers headed that way. The rest of us went on down the South Rim trail (quite steeply on a series of treacherous steps). At the bottom we headed up a short trail to the “Cowshed” which is in accompanying picture. What I found was a beautiful waterfall. Everyone returned safely to their cars, on schedule.

Official head count: 13H, four D

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Fri June 21

Special out-of-town hike with Steve S — Green Lake SP

Here are some pictures from our outing to Green Lakes State Park. Me, Mark and Ellie, Mark’s friend Harvey, Norm, Irene and Leo and Nelson, Dennis R, Joel and Jane Leff. It was a super beautiful day and the area around Green Lake was crowded with school kids on class outings. Norm was wonderful finding all sorts of interesting things and identifying the various ferns and trees. He found a small garter snake as a class was passing us. He showed it to the kids which at first created quite a hilarious panic and soon the kids were very interested and vied to see who would get to release it. The outing took over three hours.

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Sat June 22

Six Mile Creek, south side rim trail starting at Crescent Place, South Hill

I knew this trail would be extremely dark, so I tried to get a clear shot of the hikers before we left the meet-up spot. But it didn’t work out for several different reasons — so here’s the best I could get — some of the group but not all ….

From this point in the walk on, it’s basically all in the shade ….

Official head count: 21H, three D

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Sun June 23

Michigan Hollow Road at Diane’s Crossing southeast on the FLT to Hill Road and beyond, Danby SF

It was quite wet and muddy in a few spots, and the mud was extremely slippery and sticky. On the last big downhill stretch on the way back to the cars, I suddenly skidded on a very muddy patch and toppled sideways. I went down a little hard and my head hit the ground, but my bicycle helmet completely absorbed the blow. My pants were thickly coated with the sticky mud in my right hip and thigh area where Linda is pointing.

The muddy pants would have made a horrible mess in the car, but I always wear long underwear on the trail and it was easy to pull off the muddy pants and ride home in the longjohns.

Official head count: 21H, seven D

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Left behind at the Spanish food get-together

Woman’s XS blue JJill pullover sweater. If it’s yours, contact me.

June 22 Spanish food extravaganza at Jack and Sandy’s

Wonderful get-together — massive amounts of food — gorgeous day in a beautiful setting

When I said there was a lot of work involved in preparing this year’s Spanish specialties, I wasn’t exaggerating. Helping with the final prep are Linda in the background, Robin in white top, and Katharine

You can see Jack’s paella in the round pan in the foreground — he was having a discussion about the subtleties of Spanish cooking with Nancy H, who walked through part of Spain on the *Camino*

There wasn’t a huge amount of shade once you left the shadow of the house — luckily, it’s wasn’t hot

The pond from the upper deck of the house — by 2 pm, only two people had gone in swimming

I don’t have an official head count — Sandy said 50 people RSVP’d — by the time Tiger and I left just before 2, the head count had climbed to the middle 40s and people were arriving steadily — Sandy and Jack cooked enough food for 60 people just to play it safe.

Our official nature photographer Annie was at the party and taking shots, but when she got home she discovered a problem:

“My photos were horrible and I finally figured out why. I looked at the lens and it was covered with some kind of “goo”. I couldn’t tell looking through the view finder but I sure can tell after downloading on the computer. Hopefully, lens cleaning did the trick. Sorry I can’t contribute to the hike report.

“As usual, that sure was a nice party at Sandy and Jack’s. They sure are generous people! We took some things home with us and will have them for appetizers.”

Report to Hikers: week of June 10-June 16

Hello Hikers!

Wed June 12

Shindagin Hollow SF — bike trails in the northern and western areas

As soon as you leave the parking lot, the rest of the hike is in deep shade, with two exceptions. The first is a beautiful pine woods that we reach pretty quickly — it was backlit with a beautiful glowing light this time — though I had to stop up and pose the hikers to catch the light properly.

The other spot on the hike with a bit of open light is on Braley Hill Road, which we cross at the midpoint of the walk. But as you can see, even though there’s a break in the tree canopy, the lightig’s not great for taking photos. I had to stop the group up again and pose them to get some usable illumination.

Not everyone made it into the group shot ….

Official head count: 21H, four D

PS — For the last year, I’ve been wearing a bike helmet and upper body armor every time I go into the woods. I started wearing the protective equipment after I took a nasty fall right onto my head that I suspect was precipitated by a balance disorder I developed a few years back. In any case, I plan to keep wearing the armor whenever I head onto the trail. You’ve no doubt seen me in Tiger’s photos. Probably some people have only seen me in the helmet and they otherwise have no idea what I look like. So here’s me without the headgear — Tiger got this shot Wednesday while testing out the light in the parking lot.

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Sat June 15

Willseyville Creek area, Caroline

Here’s who hiked today:

Nancy H, Virginia, Tommie, Mary, Dennis R, Tamara, Jim, Dennis F, Robin, Tiger, & Dick …..

….. Katharine and Brenda, Moc, Elizabeth, June & Nancy L. Not shown: Our nature photographers Jack V and Annie, me, and Leigh Ann and Eckhart, who arrived a little late.

There was a sign posted at the start of the trail announcing the first segment was closed because of flooding. So we had to follow a detour down Ridgeway Road and along the old RR right-of-way — not nearly as picturesque as the regular FLT route

Snapping turtle! We encountered a much bigger one years back, and I’ve been hoping for another ever since. This one was much smaller, but interesting anyway.

A good part of this hike now involves crossing some huge fields. I thought this added a great late-spring feeling — really lovely

Very lively ditch crossing at White Church Road

We’ve now extended the walk to take us up into the edge of Shindagin Hollow SF — steep climb, good exercise

We decided to try returning on the flooded section of the trail. It turned out to be very easy to avoid the flooded spot.

It had clouded up a bit by this time, which reduced the heaviness of the shade under the trees, and Tiger was able to get some very expressive shots in the woods

Official head count: 22H, four D

More photos:

Annie

Jack V

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Sun June 16

Bock Harvey Forest Preserve, Enfield

As predicted, it rained pretty much steadily for the entire hike, but it never rained all that hard and we stayed under the shelter of the trees, so the walk ended up being quite fun

The atmospherics were beautiful — fog and mist, very dark glowing light, super-rich colors. There was a brief lull in the rain just as we stepped off, so we were able to get these shots. I had to keep my camera in the raincoat pocket the rest of the time until we were just about back to the cars, and Tiger got this shot.

Official head count: EightH, three D

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You can see more photos from Jack V’s recent trip to Montenegro here

Report to Hikers: week of June 3-June 9

Hello Hikers!

Wed June 5

Six Mile Creek: Mulholland Wildflower Preserve to Potter’s Falls

Official head count: 21H, three D

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Sat June 8

Upper Treman SP and several nearby country roads

It was a beautiful bright sunny morning — but the conditions for taking photos were very poor. Out in the open the light was harsh and unflattering — under the trees is was sometimes so dark you couldn’t distinguish the hikers from the background — or there were disorienting spotted sun-and-shade effects.

After a while we came to an area of open shade — you can see that the individual hikers are not casting any shadows on the ground ….

….. I decided we should do a group shot, so we’d have a least one shot with clear light where you could see the people’s faces.
There was some griping that I’d made everyone stop ….

Too many hikers to fit into one continuous shot. Sorry some people are obscured — three hikers arrived late and missed the shot — and one person elected not to be taken

The three latecomers are on the right side of the front row — Norm is wearing a face shield and gloves against the sun

Just one car passed us during the entire time on the roads

Official head count: 31H, five D

PS — Here’s the kind of light I like for hike photography

I took this shot of Casey in the parking lot of Wednesday’s hike — this is open shade

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Sun June 9

South Danby Road east to the Tamarack Lean-to on the FLT

Another beautiful bright sunny morning — great conditions for our walk — but terrible for trying to take photos in the woods — and, since this is a photo blog, that’s my main concern

The only place along the entire hike route where you can hope to get a halfway decent photo on a sunny day in June is along the east side of South Danby Road in the few hundred feet between the cars and the trail entrance. I figured this was our only chance to catch the hikers so you could see them clearly.

Everyone made it into the group shot except Tiger, who was also taking photos

Tiger took a lot of shots in the woods on the way to and from the lean-to, but not one was usable. I’d rate this shot as borderline

When we last did this hike, in mid February, the DEC was in the middle of a big logging project and the end of the trail was closed because of impassable mud. It’s been restored and the mud in the area of the logging wasn’t bad this time.

Official head count: 19H, three D

PS — here’s Tiger’s version of the group shot I took at the start of the walk. I regard her as a better hike photographer than me — she has a better eye and steadier hands to keep the camera from shaking — but she didn’t get enough different shots of the hikers while they were lined up