ithacahikers

Hello Hikers!

another gorgeous sunny mild morning  —  mud galore  —  a festive holiday spirit in the air  —

 

great walk up a fabulous trail!

I really love three things about this walk ….

…. one is the wet boggy glen full of little streams and wildly tumbled-up fallen trees where a tributary of Michigan Creek starts ….

….  another is the way you get an intense green glow year round from all the evergreens that grow here in abundance  —  especially beautiful when the sun is shining through …

….  and the last is the fantastic terrain all along the way, at its best when there are no leaves

official head count:  24 hikers, five dogs

as promised, it was extremely muddy  —  you need to be ready to fall at any time, and several hikers took big arsers   —  I like mud myself so I had a ball

on the way back we ran into regular hiker Katharine, who broke her spine in a dog-leash accident in early March and who’s been knocked off the trail since  — we were all so happy to see her back in the woods, although she had to proceed very slowly, especially in the mud.

Click here to see eight shots online of the stretch from Bald Hill Road to The Pinnacles look-out, including the obligatory group portrait.

Click here to see 10 shots of the stretch from Michigan Hollow Road to Bald Hill Road.

Hello Hikers!

gorgeous balmy morning along upper Six Mile Creek

an adventure!  the creek we always walk down was too full, so we had to climb the infamous steep hill right away, in a spot where it’s quite a bit longer and steeper  —  extremely slick mud under the perpetual dead leaves  —  I had on clunky stiff-soled shoes  — couldn’t get traction  —  periodically sliding backwards  — I ended up crawling on my hands and knees and clawing my way up by my fingertips  —  the toughest hill climb I’ve had to do in many years  —  fun!

official head count:  16 hikers, eight dogs

20 of us also hiked up this watershed Saturday, on the other side of the creek  —  walking here two days in a row really makes you realize what an amazingly varied, delightful, beautiful and wild place this is

Click here to see 10 more shots online.

Hello Hikers!

Fantastic morning along Lick Brook

we lucked out with the weather and hit a snow squall at the trail head  —  gorgeous atmospheric conditions while it was snowing hard

and the squall left just enough snow cover to really light up the woods and show them off at their best

There was some tricky ice along the trail  —  but it was doable with a little effort even without YakTrax

Official head count:  21 hikers, five dogs

As I’ve said, I love everything about this trail  —  and I’m a big believer that atmospheric conditions can really make a hike  —  I’d say we had a case of a perfect snowstorm Sunday.

Click here to see 14 more shots online.

Hello Hikers!

Another great Sunday morning along Fall Creek  — almost 30 degrees warmer than last week  —  a lovely gloomy grey light, and snowing gently most of the time

Official head count:  22 hikers, five dogs

This side of Fall Creek is a lot easier to hike than the north side, and it wasn’t very slippery, so we had a pretty casual time, with lots of relaxed standing around

The top photo shows you the high point of this trail, two completely undercut trees hanging over a sheer drop that’s at least 100 feet straight down  —  always a great challenge for our daredevils  — that’s Jack M in this photo

Everywhere you look there’s fabulous scenery along this walk  —  I’m always trying to get a photo that captures it, never succeed, but I like the challenge of trying.

Click here to see 12 more shots online.

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Weather permitting, we’re going to have a hot dog-marshmallow and beer cook-out on the fireplace at the Chestnut Lean-to in Danby SF next Sunday.  Stay tuned.

Hello Hikers!

Another great dry hike when we were absolutely positively guaranteed to get rained on.  This one was especially wonderful because of the atmospherics  — 60 degree temp, strong wind  high above in the treetops, deeply gloomy light, puddles everywhere, beautiful winter colors ….

Official head count:  10 hikers and one dog  —  it rained all the way from home to the trail head  —  it sprinkled while we were waiting around to start  —  but just as we stepped off the rain stopped, and never resumed.

I promised this trail looks especially good on a threatening day and it’s true  –  the scenery was just fantastic

everywhere you looked it was beautiful  —  the high point came when we abruptly hit a foggy area where it felt 20 degrees colder and the ground was covered with snow

a little later we came to an area of green ground cover  —  Take a photo, said Karin  —  I don’t do nature shots, I said  —  Fine, she said, fine FINE FINE …. and when I say ‘fine’ I don’t really mean fine  —  so I compromised and got our ladies to liven up the scene  — I hope you can see the green on the ground

later Karin asked me to take another landscape  —  this time I just did it

this trail has more than its share of narrow wooden bridges  —  very slippery yesterday  —  I’m of two minds about them  — they feel dangerous but they’re sort of fun too.  We had one mishap  —  hiker was distracted by talking and didn’t duck low enough under a fallen log  —  he smacked his head on a vicious little spur sticking out.

Click here to see 12 more shots online.