ithacahikers

Hello Hikers!

The weather could have been better, and almost no one went swimming, but we had another great cook-out anyway.

It started to rain around 2, hard enough to send some people home early and to prompt others to move inside — the rest of us stood around under the trees getting a little wet — the storm passed after a while and it warmed back up and the weather turned lovely.

Roger’s GF Gunilla is a big gardener and she’s done a huge amount of work on the property over the years that we’ve been having our cook-outs here — it looks like an estate managed by a professional gardener now.

Official head count: 67 hikers, six dogs. The turnout was on track to break 70 comfortably but then some people cancelled at the last second.

The cool nights we’ve been having kept the pond water in the 60s and only a tiny handful of people went in this year. Too cold for me — but I did arrange for my candid annual close-up that I’ve been dieting for — Hussain used my camera for the shot.

Our effort to raise money to cover the cost of renting space on a server for the hikers’ web site went very well — it costs me $120 a year to keep the web site on DreamHost — we raised $118.

You can see 10 more shots from the cook-out here.

Hello Hikers!

 

 

Wednesday July 15

Potato Hill State Forest, Caroline

Fabulous atmospherics for the second Wednesday morning in a row  —  cool, dark, foggy, drizzly, soaking wet from a storm overnight  —

One of our hikers who hates the winter cloudiness here said she’s gotten badly depressed this summer by the constant dark stormy conditions  —  I love it myself  —  I’m 3/4 Irish  —  maybe I’m genetically predisposed to super-cloudy Irish-type weather ….?

It’s my impression this Potato Hill SF trail isn’t one of the most popular FLT segments in the county  —  it has a wild and unused feeling to it  —  it’s not as dramatic as some of our trails but I always find it oddly satisfying  —  the high point is normally crossing several big fields with long views to the south into Pennsylvania  —  completely fogged in this morning but great fun nevertheless  —  if you don’t mind plowing through waist-high wet grass

Official head count:  10 hikers, two dogs

You can see eight more photos online here.

 

 

Saturday July 18

Bob Cameron Loop, Connecticut Hill Wildlife Management Area

Delightful hike amid some really weird weather  —  at 8 am there were strong storms showing on the radar and the NWS was warning of flash floods in the area of our hike  —  but when we stepped off it was lovely, no signs of a storm  —  a heat wave was sweeping in but it was very bearable under the trees

One hiker got stung three times, and both dogs were attacked by the bees  —  it’s tempting to dress in the lightest clothes on these hot mornings but I’d rather swelter a little in sturdy pants than get stung

There’s one hairy stream crossing on the Bob Cameron Loop (not the one shown here)  —  the point where the trail officially crosses was too tough for some of our hikers, and we had to do some serious bushwhacking to find an easier crossing point  —  really needs a bridge but that would be a major project

The trail was very neat and clean following the Cayuga Trails Club maintenance hike two days before.  But even at its best, this trail is harder to follow than most we do  —  luckily, hiker Gail had just been here five days before on yet another CTC hike, the popular Tuesday evening series  —    she saved us from doing the wrong thing a number of times.

Official head count:  Nine hikers and the two bee-stung dogs.

 

 

Sunday July 19

Hammond Hill State Forest, Dryden

This is a great place to hike on a hot day — the trails have a very pleasing shady quality, sheltered from the sun but not claustrophobically hemmed in, and there’s a beautiful dappled light on a sunny day.

This turned out to be the hottest day of the year to date, in the mid 80s during our walk, but it wasn’t bad at all in the woods, sweaty but not oppressive. I wore a thick cotton broadcloth Brooks Brothers-type shirt to protect against mosquitoes and bees — neither of which were out — instead we had nasty biting flies, which bit me right through the heavy shirt.

I’m always intrigued by this little pond in a pine grove — finally got a shot of it, not that the photo does the scene justice.

Official head count: 18 hikers, three dogs.

You can see six more photos online here.

Hello Hikers!

 

 

Wednesday July 8

Braley Hill Road at the Finger Lakes Trail crossing, Shindagin Hollow SF

We now have five different hikes to do in this huge forest tract  —  each one feels different and distinctive  —   all wonderful

Unfortunately, three of the five involve walking on bicycle trails, and we can only do these when the trail bikers aren’t around  —  they’re much too rowdy a bunch to share the narrow bike trails with  —  you can get an idea of their riding styles from their trail names ….  Ass Hammer 1 & 2, Widow Maker, Limp Dick, etc etc.

We had the forest completely to ourselves Wednesday  —  thanks to some fabulous atmospherics, it was one of the best hikes I’ve done in a while, cool, foggy, drizzling off and on, wet from a downpour overnight and a bit muddy  —  “I hate mud,” said one of our ladies  —  it turns out her mother had used a very harsh psychological trick to scare her when she and her sister got mud-covered when she was five ….

Official head count:  Nine hikers, two dogs.

You can see six more photos online here.

 

 

Saturday July 11

Texas Hollow SF, Bennettsburg, followed by a get-together at Eckhart’s house in Enfield

Beautiful walk in Schuyler County, except that three hikers got stung several times each shortly after we stepped off  —  walking on the boardwalk shown in the photo above  —  seems like there are bees living in the wood and they swarm up when someone walks across the boardwalk  —  we avoided using it on the way back to the cars

The areas under the trees are exceptionally nice here  —  many pine groves and picturesque terrain

Official head count:  22 hikers, seven dogs

We had a great time at the get-together afterwards  —  Eckhart’s house is near the top of a hill and there was a lovely breeze, and we were able to sit under the shade of some pine trees right near his deck.

Official head count at the get-together:  19 hikers

You can see eight more shots by me online here.

 

 

Sunday July 12

Lick Brook

Another beautiful morning on a fantastic trail, balmy but not hot, birds singing all along the way, not many insects

Lick Brook had surprisingly little water in it considering the amount of rain we’ve had recently  — this is the scenic lower waterfall viewing area

and this is the upper stream where we’ve had some hairy crossings in the past.  But there were signs everywhere of very high water, downed trees and big swathes of mud and gravel  —  there was obviously some major flooding going on recently.

Official head count:  21 hikers, eight dogs.

You can see eight more shots from this hike online here.

Hello Hikers!

 

 

Wednesday July 1

Bock-Harvey Forest Preserve, Enfield

This is a beautiful 50-acre piece of land that includes an old-growth sugar maple forest and was donated to the public by our own Dave B (in the red shirt below) and family in 2013.

This was out first hike out here and I was very curious to see it because of the great reputation the forest has in tree circles — Dave said it’s regarded as the best stand of trees of its type in the state.

I was vaguely expecting lots of enormous tree trunks but maples actually don’t get that big around  —  some of the trees here are 400 years old but you’d never guess it from looking at them.  I’m more of a pine tree person myself but this is definitely a wonderful place to hike.  I love the huge field that’s part of the preserve  —  Dave said he did haying here as a boy  —  there are wide mowed paths that make traversing the field a real pleasure.

Official head count:  23 hikers, six dogs.

A construction crew from Cayuga Trails Club had just finished a new lean-to and outhouse here and we were the first group to see them  —  we had a snack at the lean-to and I got a photo of the outhouse  —  it’s open to the sky, which I really like, since I imagine that will help hold down infestation by vermin.

This place is a lot of fun and we’ll come back here when the leaves are turning and have lunch and a fire at the new lean-to.

You can see seven more shots I took on this hike here.

 

 

Saturday July 4

Coffee get-together at Hilary’s and hike at Monkey Run North

I thought the rain that started before dawn would slip a little south of us by hike time  —  it did, for a little while  —  then it resumed  —  no matter, it was gorgeous out and we had a great morning.

One downside  —  it was probably the worst mosquito hike we’ve had  —  Tiger had sprayed bug spray directly onto her face before we stepped off, but apparently she’d missed her eyelids, and the mosquitoes bit her savagely there  —  one eye was greatly swollen when we wrapped up  —  I’m not so delectable  —  I didn’t use any repellent and I got just a few bites on my hands.

We made the hike into a loop this time by coming home across the huge fields  —  insects not so bad out in the open.

The sun came out as we were finishing up  —  for some reason, I associate July Fourth with midwestern cornfields  —  this corn patch across Hanshaw Road from Hilary’s house made for a perfect finale for me  —  looks just like a gorgeous morning in Iowa.

Official head count:  16 hikers, four dogs.  Six more hikers came to the coffee visit but didn’t hike.

You can see nine more photos online here.

 

 

Sunday July 5

Robinson Hollow SF, Tioga County

I wanted to be a farmer when I was a kid — the next best thing now is to hike off a road like Robinson Hollow where there are farm buildings and equipment and livestock — there are always chickens crowing at this trailhead and I love the mood that sets.

This is one of our leafiest, shadiest hikes in summer — we basically leave the sun behind as soon as we step off the road, and we don’t really see it again until we emerge from the woods two hours later.

That makes for great hiking in warm weather, but if you prefer trails with views or at least an open feeling, you might find this one a little confining. I like the deep-woods mood myself — there’s plenty to look at up close, the dappled light and the patterns of the leaves — there were birds singing away the whole time — I don’t bother trying to take photos in the gloom, it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Here’s one action shot I got.

The extreme sun-and-shade effects make the camera do weird things — here’s a shot of two of our ladies coming out of the gloom — Iris is in focus — Liz, just a step or two behind, looks like a Picasso painting.

I was looking through the photos afterwards and I noticed this fashion moment I’d completely overlooked on the trail — Leigh-Ann and Jeff look like they coordinated their hiking clothes — I’m 99% sure that didn’t happen — but Leigh-Ann is a social psychology professor so there’s a 1% chance she did orchestrate this as a psychology experiment,

Official head count: 21 hikers, four dogs  —  almost no mosquitoes.

Hello Hikers!

 

Wednesday June 24

Ellis Hollow Nature Preserve

Wonderful cool dark morning after three days of oppressive warmth  —  any summer morning where you need to wear a jacket is wonderful by definition, in my book  —  you can see Virginia in the background also wearing our newest fashion item, the EMS insect veil  —

….  and here’s the full-body version (that’s me inside)  —  in fact it wasn’t actually buggy this morning so I didn’t try out the suit in action  —

The walk through this nature preserve is in heavy shade pretty much every step of the way, and it gives you a great deep-forest experience

But now we extend the hike by walking across Ellis Hollow Creek Road into a big field that leads us over to a beautiful meandering creek scene  —  I just love the moment of stepping into a field of early-summer tall grass and weeds  —  though I don’t advise it if you’re a big worrier about ticks.

Official head count:  17 hikers, eight dogs (better shot pf Virginia in her insect veil)

 

 

Saturday June 27

Treman State Park on the Finger Lakes Trail

Our hikers’ luck held once again and we managed to dodge a big rainstorm poised right over the horizon that was supposedly going to clobber us.  It was raining on the way to the trail head, but it slowed way down by the time we stepped off, and we could hardly feel any rain at all under the trees.  I left my camera in the car thinking it might get wet but I wish I’d brought it because it was gorgeous in the woods.  This is a beautiful trail and it looked really spectacular in the gloom  —  the green was intense.  Annie left her big camera behind too but she got some shots with her iPhone  —  here’s one showing the greenery.  I firmly believe the best hikes happen when it’s getting ready to storm or it’s raining a little  —  this one was a perfect example.  Just one downside  —  very buggy, worst mosquitoes we’ve had this year  —  and I left my insect suit back in the car.

You can see all Annie’s iPhone shots online here.

 

 

Sunday June 28

Stevens Suspension Bridge, Forest Home

More great atmospherics after an inch of rain overnight, another intensely green beautiful gloomy wet morning

We hit lots of ponds and water, which I think is really fun to navigate  —  the golf course was soaked underfoot and we had it to ourselves

Fall Creek was really rushing by  —  as we walked across the suspension bridge on the outbound leg it was bucking like crazy, more than it ever has before, and I was worried it had been damaged, but it seemed normal when we crossed back on the return leg.

It rained a little toward the end of the hike but just lightly  —  some mosquitoes were out; they were biting Tiger every time we stopped but they left me alone.  The lighting was fantastic everywhere, especially on the golf course and in the pine groves, where it was almost pitch black.

Official head count:  21 hikers, four dogs

You can see seven more shots by me online here.

Annie used her iPhone again  —  you can see her shots online here.

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We now have more than 225 people who’ve signed up to get news of the Ithaca Hikers as e-mails from our web site. Most of these people haven’t ever actually hiked with us, so I’m always trying to give an idea of what to expect if any of them do decide to come out and join us. For instance, what do we talk about on the trail? Sometimes it’s birds and wildflowers and the grandchildren. But also weightier things.

This week we talked about why we’re so much worse than people in other rich countries at reading and grasping numerical issues,  Why is the younger set even worse than us older people?   (Results of the latest big international test here — I find them amazing.)

Is it bad teaching? (Lots of teachers who hike with us.) Are our teachers bright enough to do a good job? Is their pay too low to get better people?

Maybe it’s something in the nature of intelligence itself? Do you know what the experts say about intelligence, the psychometricians and cognitive scientists and educational psychologists? You might be surprised. Check it out — Wikipedia summaries of an American Psychological Association report, and a survey of 1020 experts with a 65% response rate.

On Sunday, we talked about the best way to kill yourself.