Hello Hikers!
Wednesday August 5
Harford Slaterville Road north into Hammond Hill SF
This is one of many obscure and little-used sections of the Finger Lakes Trail that start in the middle of nowhere — it makes for a lovely shady walk on a mild morning — but there’s nothing really distinctive about it — the most noteworthy thing is the parking — narrow shoulder, curving narrow roadway, high speed limit — in the past we’ve been careless about getting the hikers’ cars completely out of the travel lane, and some local drivers have yelled at us — we’ve got it down now — except for our people standing in the roadway in the curve
The other noteworthy thing about this hike is the beautiful boggy area where the FLT crosses the road — I really like the bright foreground paired with the dark brooding backdrop
This is another of our many trails where you hardly see the sun once you step into the woods, so I pretty much confined my photo-taking to the roadway area
Official head count: 14 hikers, two dogs
Norm is a dedicated native plant enthusiast and he plunged into the bog at the end of the hike looking for I don’t know what — I like the combo of the long beard and the grasses.
You can see six more photos by me online here.
You can see Annie’s online photos here.
Saturday August 8
Ravine Trail, Finger Lakes National Forest, Schuyler County
Great hike!
This is the parking lot for the Ravine Trail as seen from Picnic Area Road — wonderfully atmospheric, and it sets a terrific mood — but if you’ve never been here before and you’re the first to show up, you’ll probably never notice it and you’re likely to go off on a wild goose chase looking for the meet-up
This is a wonderful pine woods right next to the parking lot — also terrifically atmospheric — I skipped into it for a pit stop before we left for home and I was struck by the beautiful light
The scenery along the ravine that gives its name to this trail is fabulous — if the ravine section was longer, I’d make this hike one of my Top 12
We decided to skip checking out any of the horse trails — instead we walked south on the Interloken Trail — sometimes muddy but not bad this time, and always lovely
There’s a huge pasture where farmers can graze their cattle that I love to visit — unfortunately the cattle were off in the far distance this time so they didn’t provide any excitement — sometimes they’ll run right near us and I can imagine them stampeding.
Official head count: 11 hikers, five dogs
You can see eight more photos by me online here.
Sunday August 9
Abbott Loop east from Michigan Hollow Road, Danby SF
Lovely morning — marred by a very bad start for our hike.
The path into the woods starts with a drainage ditch that’s gotten deeply eroded — one of the hikers lost her footing descending and tumbled down head first, hitting her head with a thunk on a rock. After resting for a minute, she said she felt OK, and we proceeded.
Purely by chance, we had a visiting physician hiking with us — her help wasn’t needed, but it was very reassuring to have a medical person there.
A few minutes later, three ladies got stung — two of the stings were quite vicious. One of those stung was Tiger, at the base of her hand. By the tie we got home, her wrist and lower arm were swollen and very sore — she took a Benadryl, got extremely sleepy and slept all afternoon. Area still very sore and swollen this morning.
Otherwise, uneventful morning — this is yet another dark leady trail and the dappled light was gorgeous.
We didn’t hit any bees on the way back and by the time we got back to the cars, all was well.
Official head count: 18 hikers, five dogs.
You can see seven more photos by me online here.