Category: hike reports

 

Hello Hikers!

 

Wed March 7

Snowmobile trail from Fisher Settlement Road east to Travor Road, South Danby

Official head count:  19H, three D

 

Sat March 10

Deputron Hollow Road and Gilbert Road, Danby

You get a wonderful sense of driving out into the country when you head up E Miller Road from 96B to this meet-up  —  the road climbs steadily past picturesque farms and broad fields, and the view to the south and west gets steadily more sweeping and dramatic

Deputron Hollow Road gets hardly any traffic, and I was very surprised to see  a churned-up mess of slippery ice, mud and frozen puddles when we arrived at the junction of Marsh and Deputron

At first it seemed like we would have to abort our walk  —  then people began to pick their way ahead carefully

We began to see extensive signs of logging and we realized the mess was created by this logging operation

This is the junction of Deputron and Gilbert  —  we were beyond the logging area and the footing was fine

There’s a really beautiful deep gorge that runs along the south side of Deputron for much of the way  —  it looked spectacular with the snow cover

This is what churned up the road  —  it’s called a skidder and it’s quite a big piece of equipment

Aside from the messy conditions underfoot, the walk was great

Official head count:  23H, five D

More photos:

Jack V

Me

 

Sunday March 11

Potato Hill SF, Caroline  —  Level Green Road SW toward Old 76 Road

This was the first time we walked for more than a short distance on this trail.  It’s a decent stretch for a hike, though a little tiring  —  there are significant uphills in both directions  —  made even worse by having to plow through the snow.  There’s a lovely stretch of uncluttered hardwood forest, and a lot of low scrubby growth that clearly used to be fields, and has a distinctive atmospheric feeling.  A good bit of mud and water, both streams and little rivulets running down the middle of the footpath.  The walk through Potato Hill SF on the other side of Level Green Road is easier and more varied  —  there are several areas of beautiful dark pines, for instance  —  but this direction has its charms too.

Official head count:  22H, six D

 

 

 

Hello Hikers!

 

Wed Feb 28

Willseyville Creek, Caroline

Our newest hiking doig, Pooka  —  not super-eager to jump into the icy brook to get cleaned of mud ….

Official head count:  22H, six D

 

Saturday March 3

Six Mile Creek  —  south side rim trail

The photos don’t capture the great beauty of the scenery  —  it was really extraordinary

Official head count:  24H, seven D

More photos:

Jack V

Me

 

Sunday March 4

Bock Harvey Forest Preserve, Enfield, east to Hines Road

Official head count:  23H, seven D

More photos:

Jack V

Me

 

 

Hello Hikers!

 

Wed Feb 21

Farm road walk  —  Red Mill Road, Malloryville

Fantastic morning  —  we caught the tail end of the two-day warm spell just as the cold front was coming at us

Upper 60s and a balmy wind from the south that started to shift while we were out on the road  —  beautiful pale sun as we set off ….

The walk covers the top of a large flat hill and it feels like you’re on top of the world when you’re up there.  After a while it started to cloud up very dramatically

From our vantage point, we could watch the storm coming at us from the northwest

It stayed mild and gorgeous the whole time we were out.  But by 1 pm, the temperature had fallen 20 degrees, and then it started to rain.

Official head count:  16H, three D

I got some extra photos that you see online here

 

Sat Feb 24

Jim Schug Trail, Dryden

I’d hoped we could walk through the woods on the FLT, but when wee got to the trail head there was considerable snow on the ground, so we decided to do the Schug trail instead  —  it was mostly free of snow

Five hikers missing from the group shot on Dryden Lake

Our regular hiker Roger built this dam years ago when he was a young man doing flood control construction projects  — dam  still looks great

Official head count:  24H, three D

Hopshire Brewery  —  this is a delightful place to come after a hike  —  first time we dropped in on a Saturday  —  we had the big room to ourselves

More photos:

Jack V

Me

 

Sunday Feb 25

Woodard Road east into upper Treman SP on the FLT, Enfield

The storm that began overnight and was supposed to hit us veered off  —  we just got some great atmospherics …. dampness and gloom

I was surprised at how much ice and snow we ran into …. some of it was  on the verge of being treacherous

This was the second time we used this upper route to get onto the FLT through the southern edge of the park  —  much easier than climbing up from Route 13  —  it only took me and Tiger more than 13 years of hiking here to realize we could start from the top

Official head count:  18H, six D

More photos:

Jack V

 

 

 

 

 

Hello Hikers!

 

Monday Feb 12

This was an extra hike for us  —  I scheduled it in a mistaken belief Feb 12 was a national holiday

Yellow Barn SF, Freeville  —  snowmobile trails

Normally a snowmobile trail makes for an excellent walking surface when snow conditions are otherwise bad, but not this time.  The surface was frozen solid and treacherously slippery, and full of little ruts and bumps; there were even frozen deep horse hoofprints.

The group was very fragmented by the end.  Several people turned back early and others fell behind.  We came upon this beautiful dark pine woods almost back at the cars and I couldn’t resist trying a group shot, even if the group was small.

Official head count:  14H, four D

 

Wed Feb 14

Shindagin Hollow SF, Braley Hill Road  —  snowmobile trail heading west  —  followed by Valentine’s party at Steve and Diane’s in Ellis Hollow

The snowmobile trail was much more walkable two days later, softer on top and not so bumpy  —  we spent the whole walk in the thick woods  —  the scenery was slightly monotonous and bland, but very atmospheric

Here’s what passed for excitement:

I sent Gopi into the snow to get a shot of how deep it was  —  she began ragging on me and the hikers found it amusing

We detoured onto an active logging road for a while in hopes of seeing the site of the logging operation itself  —  this road surface was much worse  —   it turned into a bit of a grind so we turned back without reaching our goal.

One mishap  —  Vicki suddenly broke through the snow without any warning  —  she went sprawling but I didn’t choose to get a photo of that  —  here she is demonstrating the depth of the hole  —  probably could have hurt herself if she’d been unlucky

Nice walk, very low key and relaxed

Official hike head count:  16H, three D

We had a delightful Valentine’s party  —  I ate a very weird mix of things  —  my stomach was griping ominously after I got home

Toward the end of the get-together, there was an announcement that one of the couples was about to mark their 50th wedding anniversary.  Everyone knew about this beforehand except the couple, who’d been kept uninformed.

PJ, who loves to bake, made a huge commemorative fudge (in a cake pan), and the hikers gave the couple a $300 gift card raised from the group.

This is the long-enduring couple:

Those in the know may recognize Tiger (and that’s her mom).

Thanks so much to all the hikers who put money into the gift  —  it was much too generous.  We were very very touched

Official head count at the party:  22

 

 

 

Saturday Feb 17

Road walk  —  Hosenfeld Road and Carley Road, Odessa, Schuyler County

Official head count:  20H, three D

More photos:

Jack V

 

Sunday Feb 18

Farm road walk  —  Fairfield Road and Barden Road, Candor, Tioga County

We didn’t manage to escape slippery walking conditions after all.  The road at the meet-up hadn’t been plowed clean of the overnight snow  —  the Candor town crew threw down cinders instead of salt  —  there were lots of slick spots  —  one hiker who got a knee replacement in the fall turned back immediately out of caution  —  another hiker fell, but in a slow, controlled and graceful way and there was no damage

Bleak atmospherics but quite beautiful IMO

When we got back to the cars I walked into the woods for a pit stop  —  there was a solid sheet of ice with about two inches of soft powder on top  —  didn’t feel very stable

Later in the day I saw an e-mail on the nordic ski list-serv  —  near Kennedy SF in Virgil, one of our best hikes, there was 2″-4″ of new snow on top of 4″-6″ old snow  —  we’ll need to see a lot of melting this week before we can get back out into the deep woods.

Official head count:  22H, eight D

More photos:

Jack V

 

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:

Jack V

 

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