Report to Hikers: week of July 18-July 24

Hello Hikers!

Wednesday July 20

Shindagin Hollow SF — road walk on Shindagin Hollow Road

The most important thing that a road walk on a sunny day in summer needs —

Shade!

Notice the nice smooth road surface — it’s a real pleasure to be able to walk in a lovely setting without having to stare at your feet the whole time to avoid tripping

We drove down this road last Sunday for the hike to the Shindagin lean-to — noticed several areas of bright red flowers along the edge of the road — bee balm — went over big with the hikers — I’m color blind and I could barely make them out

This grim-looking spot is normally a beautiful swamp that our nature photogs love to get shots of — looks very unappetizing now.

Speaking of unappetizing — part of Shindagin Hollow Road runs right along the edge of a very high sheer drop, and we often can smell a rotten smell as we walk along, probably dead deer — this time the smell was about 4X stronger than I’ve ever smelled before, really dreadful

Official head count: 19H, one D

Both our nature photographers were back on the trail with us:

Annie

Jack V

Saturday July 23

Malloryville hike along Fall Creek with Bob B

Our first hike here — huge success — a number of hikers said I should put this one in our Top 5

The hike was put together by Bob B, who grew up here and lives here now — it included some private property and limited access property, so it’s not a walk the general public can do

Part of the walk took us along an abandoned railroad line running next to Fall Creek — I took this shot from the trestle crossing the creek — Annie has photos showing the trestle support structure, which looks very old fashioned

There are a number of unusual geological features that we saw — too technical for me to remember

Norm walked across the whole length of this fallen tree — he said he wasn’t nervous because the drop was so slight — but I think he could theoretically have fallen onto a sharp stick and done some serious damage