ithacahikers

Report to Hikers: week of Sept 10-Sept 16

Hello Hikers!

Special report this week: Meet our regulars!

We’ve accumulated a large number of subscribers to this web site — there are 314 as I’m writing this — but the number of people who actually hike with us is a lot smaller. That leaves a lot of subscribers who, if they look at the photos, probably don’t have any idea who’s pictured — they just see the same anonymous faces week after week. Today I’m going to introduce everyone to the real people in the shots, so you can get a better idea of who we are.

The hikers pictured below are the regulars who hiked with us on at least one of the three hikes we did this past week.

Photos from Wednesday:

(If you click the photos you will see a larger very crisp version)

Jim — deputy sheriff — Ithaca native

Stephanie — real estate investor and landlord — McLean native

Norm — independent native plants field investigator, specializing in moss and liverworts

Dick — retired chemistry professor SUNY Cortland — spends the winter in Virgin Islands

Judith — retired labor economics consultant in NYC — married to Dick

Robin — retired graphic artist who created the Silk Oak clothing and home furnishings line — later a special ed teacher — currently has a blog

Virginia — fine arts painter — retired art teacher at CSMA

Elizabeth — retired Cornell neurobiology professor

Regulars who hiked Saturday:

Casey — independent saw doctor (saw filer) to the sawmill industry — participates in organized go-kart and frozen-lake car racing

Linda — recently moved here from Memphis — retired clinical psychologist

Dennis F — retired math teacher — active stock market investor and trader

Moc — retired computer engineer — spends half the year in Venice, FL

Jack V — retired math instructor at IC — official Ithaca Hikers nature photographer

Bud — retired soil scientist for the US government, based in Ithaca

Eckhart — retired commercial horticulturist — retired part-time Cornell librarian — our most senior hiker

Leigh Ann — social psychology professor at IC

Dave R — retired librarian at SUNY Cortland — part-time labor organizer

Regulars who hiked Sunday

Dennis R — retired social psychology professor at Cornell — married to Elizabeth

Roger — owns a company that buys, leases and sells heavy construction equipment — native of McLean

Nancy H — part-time writing instructor at IC — technical writer — author of a 6-book urban fantasy novel series available at Amazon

Tiger and me — photo taken at Dryden Lake — Tiger is the official hike photographer — retired textile artist and fine arts painter in NYC — I was a civil engineer in NYC — moved to Ithaca 2003

There are other regulars — I’ll get to them sometime ….

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Hike report: Wed Sept 12

Ellis Hollow Nature Preserve

Official head count: 13H, two D

Hike report — Sat Sept 15

Woodard Road east into upper Treman SP on the FLT

Official head count: 25H, seven D

More photos:

Jack V

Hike report — Sun Sept 16

Layen Road to Bruce Hill Road and beyond, Danby

Camera shoot-out in the big field

We wanted to do a group portrait with Eckhart in honor of his 87th birthday, which is coming this week. It turned into an experiment. I lined the hikers up with the sun behind them, though many of them protested that they should be facing the other way.

Jack V was one of the people who said I had the lighting wrong. He turned the group around so the sun was shining straight on them.

What was the difference caused by the direction of the sunlight? Here are close-ups from each photo — judge for yourself.

Mine:

Jack’s:

Can you see the difference? Do you have a preference?

…. Back to the walk ….

We had some unwanted excitement. The walk includes a short but very steep hill that you have to navigate very carefully. Several hikers were stung going up the hill on the outbound leg — quite a few more were stung coming back down. Most people got stung more than once.

Official head count: 30H, five D

More photos:

Jack V

Report to Hikers: week of Sept 3-Sept 9

Hello Hikers!

Wed Sept 5

Woods road walk — Bald Hill Road, Danby SF

We set our start time for a half-hour early in an attempt to beat the heat — didn’t work, it was 78 and very humid at 9 and 85 and even more humid by 11 — in theory a woods road is a great walk for a hot day, except it was really pretty stifling this time — very pretty scenery, though

Official head count: 13H, three D

Sat Sept 8

Connecticut Hill Wildlife Management Area — Hike #9 — Boylan-Hulford — with Dave B

Great walk into a new part of Connecticut Hill for us — it required a little carpool ride for a few minutes after we met up because there was limited parking at the actual trail head — first time our group ever did a shuffle like this — piece of cake

The scenery in the new area was generally first-rate — the walk included a stretch on the Finger Lakes Trail, and I was interested to notice that the scenery here was quite dull, scrubby and ordinary compared to the other parts of the hike — the FLT is basically the only marked trail in the entire wildlife management area, so it’s the only view you can get of this big area unless you’re with someone who knows the unmarked trails, like we were

Dave B managed to stage and pace the hike so we finished in almost exactly two hours. We also had our freelance hike leader Dave G with us — he’s one of a very small number of people who know the unmarked trails here — he brought up the rear and made sure no one got left behind

Official head count: 16H, seven D

Sunday Sept 9

Lindsay Parsons Biodiversity Preserve, West Danby

Official head count: 30H, seven D

More photos:

Jack V

Our official hike photographer Tiger generally doesn’t take close-up photos of the hikers, but she did get a close-up this time that I thought has a very nice feeling to it:

Report to Hikers: week of Aug 27-Sept 2

Hello Hikers!

Wed Aug 29

Stevens Suspension Bridge to Beebe Lake, Forest Home

Tiger forgot to bring her camera, so we don’t have any official photos for this hike. You can see Jack V’s nature shots here, plus several shots of the hikers.

It was on the borderline of being too hot to walk — bearable only because the terrain was pretty flat and there was a good bit of shade — and we stopped at the Cornell Dairy Bar midway through the hike for ice cream.

Official head count: 18H, threeD

Sat Sept 1

Finger Lakes National Forest — Potomac Road trails

We had to abandon our original planned route after a few minutes when we abruptly came to a very large hornets’ nest dangling just about head height in the center of the walking path and swarming with bees — no way to circumvent it — Jack V had scouted the trail two days before and he said the nest wasn’t there then.

Our new route brought us to a long stretch of plank boardwalk — a number of the planks were missing and some had holes in them where you could easily break an ankle — made for some tense moments — but it was fun, in a way

Official head count: 20H, five D

More photos:

Jack V

Sunday Sept 2

Woods road walk — Curtis Road, Danby SF

Official head count: 30H, four D

More photos:

Jack V

Report to Hikers: week of Aug 20-Aug 26

Hello Hikers!

All photos in this report are by Tiger

Wed Aug 22

Buttermilk Falls SP — gorge trail, rim trail and Bear Trail

I don’t schedule group hikes along Buttermilk gorge because I figure everyone hikes here on their own escorting their own house guests and visitors up ans down the trail — then our group suddenly got two visiting guests of our own, and there we were with all the other tourists, gawking at the sights.

I think it’s always better to start at the top and get the first exposure going downhill — that way you’re not distracted from the scenery by gasping for breath or wondering if you might be having a heart attack

Of course the visitors were bowled over, but the rest of us had a great time too, even though this walk is probably very familiar to most people — it was a beautiful day and everything looked lovely

After we got back up to the upper level the group got fractured and there were hikers scattered everywhere for a while

We all bumped into each other at the end and it was fun to rejoin

This really is a fantastic hike even if it’s very touristic — definitely worth doing once in a while

Official head count: 17H, three D

More photos:

Jack V

Sat Aug 25

Woodard Road NW to Hines Road and beyond, Enfield

The first leg of the hike was extremely overgrown — and lots of poison ivy!

Official head count: 20H, six D

Sunday Aug 26

South Danby Road east to the Tamarack Lean-to on the FLT

Official head count: 28H, six D

Report to Hikers: week of Aug 13-Aug 19

Hello Hikers!

All photos in this hike report are by Tiger

Wed Aug 15

Bike trails, Shindagin Hollow SF — before the mountain bikers are out

Official head count: 17H, three D

More photos:

Annie

Sat Aug 18

Hammond Hill SF, ski trails

For the second Saturday in a row, it began to rain shortly before hike time when it wasn’t supposed to — we drove out to the trail head through a brisk sprinkle

We’ve learned not to expect much of a turnout on a rainy morning — but there’s a small but very faithful group that actually likes to walk in the rain