Special MLKing Day hike to make up for the hike that I cancelled the previous Saturday.
South Danby Road west on the FLT to Curtis Road, Danby SF
Pretty morning, with fresh snow and lovely pale sunshine. But it was cold, and the snow was a bit deep, and quite tiring to walk throughThis is Curtis Road, our turn-around pointThis three-board mini-bridge is a bit tricky for most of our peopleNice walk, but my ass was dragging from the effort of handling the hills here in slippery snow
Official head count: 9H
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Wed Jan 22
Marsh Road and Deputron Hollow Road, Danby
Another cold morning (6 degrees at 8 am), more new snow ….This is the southern end of Marsh Road — there are a couple of houses; otherwise, it’s undevelopedMarsh ends abruptly, and Deputron Hollow begins equally abruptly, running at 90 degrees. I’m sure there was something of interest in the past that led people to create this road crossing, but it sure is deserted nowDeputron Hollow Road has a wonderful rural feeling — it’s hilly, and hemmed in by heavy tree growth on both sides. For some of the way a dramatic and deep gorge runs along the south side.This is the far end of Deputron Hollow Road, which ends at Coddington Road. There are a handful of houses scattered along the end, but it’s still very countryishWith the hills and the deepish snow, this was another fatiguing walk
Official head count: 12H
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Sat Jan 25
No hike — heavy rain
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Sun Jan 26
Stevens Suspension Bridge, Cornell golf course and Cornell stables, Forest Home
Shindagin Hollow SF — bike trails in the northern part of the forest
Official head count: 17H. Four more hikers arrived at the meet-up 10 minutes late, and failed to meet up with us as they hoped. We encountered them when we got back to the parking lot at the end.
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Sat Jan 18
No hike — bad weather
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Sun Jan 19
Hike and hot dog cook-out, Chestnut Lean-to, Danby SF
Very dark morning. The temperature was OK but there was a nagging cold wind, and the snow was wetAfter we reached the lean-to, the main group took off for a hike — a small number of us stayed behind to get the fires goingThese cook-outs always include smoke, because the firewood, which we scavenge from the immediate area, is always wet. Starting the fire always makes the worst smoke, but for whatever reason our fires always smoke a bit the whole time. The wind kept changing direction this time and you had to keep on the move if you wanted to stand next to the fire to warm up. This led to a mishap. A hiker stepped back when the smoke abruptly blew in her face, stumbled on a snag, and fell straight backwards, hitting her head. Luckily one of our nurses was with us and she was able to get a handle on the situation, but it was definitely a little alarmingIt’s impossible to keep the food neat or organized because the space to lay it out is so limitedWe had a second wood fire going in the back of the lean-to, and Tiger was grilling the hot dogs in a foil pan on charcoal (left side background)I wore waterproof hiking shoes but they got wet in the wet snow, and my feet got chilled from standing around. One of the hikers gave me some hot cocoa, which really hit the spot.People kept walking in and the pile of food on the table got bigger and bigger, and messierI have a decent camera which does a pretty good job of capturing scenes accurately. It really did look this dark in person. But I’d like to figure out how to make the scenes a little brighter — though that would change the mood.
It’s a lot of fun to find a new trail in a familiar area that you never knew about before — it creates a very pleasing sense of novelty and anticipation.I doubt many people are familiar with Owl Creek Trail, which runs through some very lovely scenery south of the park’s cabin area. It certainly doesn’t seem like the trail gets much use. I’m not sure there was even an official trail by that name until fairly recently.You reach the trail head by walking up the access road toward the campground — this is closed to traffic in winter and it’s actually a nice walk. I especially appreciate that it offers stable footing, compared to the generally ragged and choppy condition of the more popular trailsOnce you leave the access road you’re into a very picturesque area with some steep climbs, and a dramatic gorge carved by Owl Creek. Part of the trail is alarmingly close to the edge of the gorge for a while, but there is a work-around.The trail ends in Kings Cemetery, which lies along the edge of upper Stone Quarry Road. Very nice place. Seems like a good place to be buried.
Danby SF — Michigan Hollow Road SE on the FLT to Hill Road and beyond
The FLT crosses Smiley Hill Road here — just a few minutes from the trail head. The road, which runs uphill pretty steeply from Michigan Hollow Road to Hill Road, is actually very picturesque and interesting in its own rightThe FLT crosses Hill Road here, about 45 minutes into the walkCurtis Road, our official turnaround spotI decided to walk down Hill Road and Smiley Hill Road on the return leg, rather than go back down the FLT, which is quite steep in spots and was more slippery than I like. Hill Road had a thick coating of ice created by people driving on it, and it was a little tricky walking. It’s a much faster way back to the cars than returning through the woods. Tiger didn’t want to take the roads back but I more or less twisted her arm.
Bock Harvey Forest Preserve and Riemen Woods, Enfield
Official head count: 22H, five D
We have an additional nature photographer, Cian, who started hiking with us regularly in the fall. He’ll be posting his nature shots on Facebook, but he has it set up so you can see them without having to sign in or sign up. The link should take you to a page that says “See more of Cian” and then directs you to log in or create a new account. At the bottom it says, “Not now.” Just click this.
Don’t be mislead by the brightness of this photo — I used the flash. It was actually very dark and raining a little briskly as we stood around waiting to set offBy the time we got down to the bottom of the steep hill, the rain had pretty much stopped. We hadn’t seen such a volume of water going over the falls in a number of years.Some of our group’s best adventures have come while trying to cross swollen creeks and streams. Roger, who studied engineering at Cornell and served in Vietnam building roads and bridges, always enjoys the challenge, but he couldn’t figure out a way across this time. Two of our hikers, Hank and Eckhart, have unusually good balance, and they managed to cross the creek on a big fallen tree. But no one else wanted to follow them.Back up at Town Line Road. The rain continued to hold off.An upper stretch of the brook. Roger couldn’t come up with a way to get across here either.Once again, we ended up not getting hit with the amount of rain predicted, and we had a great walk. Really wonderful atmospherics.
Official head count: 13H, three D
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Sun Jan 5
Shindagin Hollow SF — rim trail along Shindagin gorge
Bald Hill Road and the Abbott Loop to The Pinnacles Look-out, Danby SF
The meet-up spot was in deep shade — I always try to get a shot showing the hikers waiting to get moving, but it was just too dark — the only other way I can think to come up with a photo depicting the meet-up is to pose everyone strategically so there’s enough light so you can see their facesWhile I was wrapping up the mug shots, the group dashed off down the road, leaving me behind. Normally I like to get a shot of the group bursting into action, like the start of a race …. and they’re off and running …. the road was really icy this time and I wasn’t able to catch up with the front-runners and get out ahead of them — I had to shout at them a number of times to wait for me ….…. and they’re off and running ….This was the first appearance of a new hiking dog, Lizzy, left, an eight-pound habaneseSome of the hikers chose to remain on Bald Hill Road rather than climb up to The Pinnaclesthe official way to do this hike is to climb up to the look-out from the north and keep going back down to Bald Hill Road on the Abbott Loop — At that point we turn around and climb back up to the look-out in the reverse direction — it’s a bit tiringOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe sun started to come out near the end —- pleasing lightGood workout and nice morning
Official head count: 18H, four D
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Sat Dec 28
Layen Road to Bruce Hill Road and beyond on the FLT, Jersey Hill, Danby
Several of the hikers suddenly noticed they had ticks crawling up their pants
South Danby Road east on the FLT to the Tamarack Lean-to, Danby SF
It was extremely dark as soon as we entered the woods, and I didn’t bother trying to take any photos — this is the first open area we come to, Travor Road, a narrow woods road. It starts and ends in the middle of nowhere but people clearly like to drive on it — it was completely iced in with a dense layer of ice caused by vehicles passing byTamarack Lean-to, our official turn-around pointI don’t think Luna the Dog wanted to get in the car and go back home. It wasn’t supposed to start raining until maybe around 1 pm, but we hit a shower a few minutes after we started home
