Report to Hikers: week of Feb 25-March 3

Hello Hikers!

Wed Feb 27

Six Mile Creek, north side — Mulholland Wildflower Preserve to Potter’s Falls

Official head count: 13H, one D

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Sat March 2

Woodard Road NW to Hines Road and beyond on the FLT, Enfield

Official head count: 25H, five D

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Sun March 3

Bald Hill Road to the Abbott Loop and up to The Pinnacles look-out, Danby SF

The snow was a bit deep, and quite soft and slippery — luckily, someone had driven up the road and there was a nice set of compressed tire tracks where the walking was much easier
Heading up on the Abbott Loop — no tire tracks here — what’s normally a somewhat strenuous climb to The Pinnacles became very tiring
Five people are missing from this shot, two taking photos and three laggards. The view in the background is fantastic, but I can never figure out how to include it properly in these group photos
On the downhill leg of the Abbott Loop — this stretch is normally a breeze, but it was fatiguing this time because the snow was so slippery
Back down on Bald Hill Road — no one could face the prospect of retracing our steps up to the look-out, so we decided to walk south on the road for a while instead
After two days of slogging through soft snow, my ass was seriously dragging as this hike wrapped up — I was really happy we were done

Official head count: 19H, five D

Report to Hikers: week of Feb 18-Feb 24

Hello Hikers!

Wed Feb 20

Yellow Barn SF, Freeville

This is a frozen pond. Does it look like Steve fell in up to his knees?

Official head count: 10H and one D

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Sat Feb 23

Curtis Road and the Abbott Loop, Danby SF

Official head count: 24H, three D

More photos:

Jack V

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Sun Feb 24

Michigan Hollow Road east to Hill Road and beyond on the Abbott Loop, Danby SF

Did you notice Norm standing on the fallen tee trunk?
It wasn’t a very promising day for a hike — good chance of rain, and it was supposed to be very gusty — in fact, we got just a little rain on the way back to the cars, and the wind wasn’t noticeable under the trees — the snow was quite slippery and this gave all of us a great workout on the many steep parts of the walk. Delightful morning for those who like bleak winter scenery and gloomy atmospherics.

Official head count: 18H and three D

Report to Hikers: week of Feb 11-Feb 17

Hello Hikers!

Wed Feb 13

Stevens Suspension Bridge, Cornell golf course and Cornell horse barns, Forest Home

Official head count: 14H, one D

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Sat Feb 16

Danby SF: Fisher Settlement Road east toward the Tamarack Lean-to on the FLT

Official head count: 20H and ….

More photos:

Jack V

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Sun Feb 17

Potato Hill SF, east toward Blackman Hill Road and beyond on the FLT

The trail surface was on the borderline of being unwalkable — scattered frozen footprints — very hard on the ankles. But we decided to push on anyway. There was a stiff crust on the unbroken snow and I chose to walk on that
A lot of this woods is pretty scrubby, but it has a certain subtle charm
This is Blackman Hill Road — the scenery changes dramatically
You can supposedly see into Pennsylvania from this stretch
It was really fantastic to stand around in this huge open area in the gorgeous sunshine
By the time we headed back, the trail was nicely trampled down and it was much easier walking. We made it back to the cars almost 15 minutes faster than we did on the outbound leg of the walk. We were also sped along by something I never noticed before — I always thought this trail was flat, but actually there’s a bit of a rise going outbound

Official head count: 22H, two D

More photos:

Jack V

I realized I haven’t gotten photos of our newest regular hikers in a while for our photo ID page, which you can always access through the Home page of our web site. This is Jim, who joined us a year ago. He’s become our most rugged hiker, regularly going out in all kinds of horrible weather.

Report to Hikers: week of Feb 4-Feb 10

Hello Hikers!

Wed Feb 6

Two farm roads south of Mecklenburg — N Shuler Road and Morris Road

This is a very bucolic part of a beautiful valley that stretches from Mecklenburg south to Cayuta Lake and beyond. We were on the eastern flank of the valley, which was formed by the upper stretch of Taughannock Creek. There’s also a neighborhood on the other side of the valley that’s equally lovely where we hike.
The forecast wasn’t great — there was a good possibility of rain or freezing rain during the walk — and it was quite gloomy. But it didn’t rain after all until we got back home.
This is Morris Road looking east from N Shuler Road. I find this scene to be perfectly satisfying, and I feel like I could happily live out the rest of my days here, swimming in the ponds in the background, walking on the dirt roads, tramping through the fields and watching the seasons come and go. Of course I do realize it might actually be boring.
I love the way the evergreen windbreaks and field separations create a semi-abstract dark pattern against the fields — very nice pictorial composition
The southern end of N Shuler changes character from a dirt farm road to a paved casual semi-suburban road — interesting to look at the scattered houses but it doesn’t compare to the rolling fields.
We ran out of time and so we weren’t able to walk the full length of Morris Road, which disappointed me
This was maybe the most quiet road walk we’re ever done — there was either one or two cars that passed us, not sure which, but no more

Official head count: 13H and one D

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Sat Feb 9

Bock Harvey Forest Preserve and Riemen Woods, Enfield

I love this view of the start of the walk, and I’d hoped I could get a photo like this of the whole line of hikers in miniature, but I couldn’t get out ahead of everyone and make it up to the top of the hill far enough in front. The people in the photo are four hikers who arrived late.
I thought there might be some ice but I was surprised at how much we encountered. Luckily it was covered by a light coat of snow and it was navigable without foot traction, which I left behind in the car.
I’m very glad we were able to squeeze our cookout in last weekend — it was 20 degrees colder this time and there was a strong wind — no one would ever want to hang around here for more than a few minutes in those conditions
We’ve reconfigured this walk so we now cross Porter Hill Road and walk through a relatively new preserve, the Riemen Woods
I don’t know the background of these woods but they have a different character than the other woods that make up this walk — I really like the feeling of this preserve
My only complaint is that the time in this woods doesn’t last long enough
We also hit mud and water as well as ice, but it was manageable

Official head count: 24H, three D

More photos:

Jack V

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Sun Feb 10

Willseyville Creek, Caroline

The hiker in the scarf waiting to climb down the side of the ditch is regular hiker Vicki, who was making her first serious hike since last June, when she suffered a major spinal problem. It was great to have her back on the trail with us.
This is the abandoned railroad right of way — there’s swamp on both sides but the scrubby growth obscures the view. The swamp was pretty much frozen solid.
We hit a fair amount of ice but almost no mud and very little water.
For the second time in a row, the huge pond on the other side of Ridgeway Road was flooded (this time it was also frozen) so we couldn’t get near it. From now on we’ll check the water level before we start the hike so we don’t waste time walking there only to be disappointed.
The flooded pond is just to the left where the car is stopped. The photo was taken about half way up to the cars.

Official head count: 26H, four D

More photos:

Jack V

Report to Hikers: week of Jan 28-Feb 3

Hello Hikers!

Wed Jan 30

Cornell arboretum and adjacent natural areas

We hoped to go across the Stevens suspension bridge into the woods — but the trail was so rough we had to fall back to Plan B and head into the arboretu
It was quite cold — 9 at the meet-up — but it didn’t feel cold and it actually seemed very nice out
Like so many other places we hike, the arboretum’s at its best on a snowy morning, IMO
Half way through the hike, Dave announced it was his 70th birthday
Started to snow — we headed east into the natural areas maintained by money left by the late media mogul Roy H Park — here’s the commemorative photo for Dave’s birthday
Another morning of great winter atmospherics

Official head count: eightH

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Sat Feb 2

Road walk in Danby: Comfort Road from Bald Hill Road to Gunderman Road

Not our most appealing morning for a walk — at 8 am it was still just 4 degrees, and I suspect some hikers decided to skip this one — though it did warm up to 13 by 9 a
The real action was with the work crew that walked in to the Chestnut Lean-to to get ready for Sunday’s cook-out — Tiger worked on packing down the access trail with snowshoes; Gopi brought her splitting maul. Jack V was part of this group — you can see his photos by following the link below
There’s a lot of nice scenery along Comfort Road but it’s a bit subtle, and I didn’t feel like trying to make the effort to capture it in photos. I especially like the open areas
Our hiking group is often weighted toward people with higher education, but I think this hike may have taken the prize — there were six of us …. one MD, three PhDs and two masters degrees — but you shouldn’t assume we talk about egg-head topics as a result
I love this bleak look. It hit 20 degrees as we wrapped up, but the wind was blowing a little briskly right in our faces.

Official head count for the road walk: 6H

Official head count for the work group: 8H, three D

Jack V’s work group photos are here

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Sun Feb 3

Cookout at Chestnut Lean-to, Danby SF

The weather forecast got it exactly right this time — the long cold wave ended abruptly Saturday and we had a lovely mild morning for our cookout
We didn’t have a whole lot of time to get this ready, since no one was willing to walk in and handle all the prep even as late as Friday, because of the horrible cold. But everything worked out great despite the last-minute rush
We were able to collect enough wood in a rush for probably three cookouts
The people in the work crew felt the wood looked decent when they gathered it in freezing weather the day before, but it had thawed by the time they started to light the fires, and they realized the wood was actually very wet
It was such a pleasure to stand around in 40-degree temperature
This was our sixth winter cookout. For the last few times, we had a very successful second fire going in the rear of the lean-to, and a number of people sat around on the log benches and sipped drinks. This time the fire wouldn’t really get going, apparently because of the wet wood, and the hikers stayed up in the front area. I helped smash the iron-like ice coating off the benches, and I was a little disappointed no one sat on them
The sun came out after a while and it was really lovely — 45 when Tiger and I got back to the car
One of the hikers arrived late and tried to save time by parking right at the trail head, but she didn’t realize there was a very deep ditch and her car slid into it
We tried repeatedly pushing from the front and the back — no luck — AAA came out and pulled the car right out in less than a minute

I was happy to see we were able to have such a good time even with such a short lead time. For the last four years attendance has been steady in the low 30s, which I think is pretty decent given the somewhat rugged setting. This time it was 32H and seven D

More photos:

Jack V