Hello Hikers!
Thu Feb 8
Upper Lick Brook to Upper Buttermilk at Yaple Road on the spur trail, Danby
Official head count: 13H, three D
More photos:
Sat Feb 10
Bald Hill Road and upper Abbott Loop to The Pinnacles look-out, Danby SF
I was taken by surprise this time — I just assumed someone would have come in and broken a trail in the three days since the heavy snow fell — but we immediately hit deep and slick conditions that were really tiring
I suggested we could change our plan and do a plowed road walk down Station Road instead but everyone wanted to keep going toward The Pinnacles, a much more exciting hike
By the time we reached the look-out, the group had shrunk — one hiker turned back with a knee problem, another had to turn back because his dog was having a problem, and a number of people had fallen far behind
The look-out had gotten badly obscured by overgrowth in recent years but the state sent a crew in last fall and did extensive cutting and pruning — the result was a dramatic improvement
Some of us were wearing microspikes — these developed big uncomfortable ice balls toward the end so it was like having a club foot must be — you can see an ice ball on Tiger’s spike right next to her left ankle
On the last leg, we were able to walk in the track we’d laid down on the outbound walk, but the snow was bumpy and this caused twisting in my ankles and knees that was very unpleasant
I found out later that the hikers who initially fell behind also made it up to the look-out, in two groups — here’s the larger bunch, who got a group shot
Sorry, this is an iPhone 5 shot by Nancy L and I don’t know how to get it to display properly — but you can twist your head and make it out
Official head count: 18H, five D
This was our most tiring hike in quite a while
Sunday Feb 11
I was very happy that only a couple of hikers failed to get my last-second hike cancellation notice and drove out to the trail head — I didn’t like waiting so long to make a final call, but I kept expecting the temperature would rise above freezing like it was predicted to do — in fact, it ended up still being 32 at 11 am at the airport, where the Ithaca weather readings are taken.
I now realize Feb 12 is not a holiday as I claimed yesterday, so I’ll include our Feb 12 hike in next week’s hike report