Report to Hikers: week of Feb 27-March 5

 

Hello Hikers!

 

Wednesday March 1

Road walk:  Chicken Coop Road west from Grove Road, Perry City

Another 60-degree morning with a stormy cold front coming straight at us on the doppler radar, complete with thunderstorms this time ….

I’ve never spent any time in farm country but our meet-up felt just like what I imagine a country crossroads would be like  —  slight stink of manure in the air, rural buildings everywhere you look, completely quiet and peaceful

This is the home neighborhood of our nature photographer Jack V  —  his family has been here for two hundred years and he has relatives living all over nearby.

I told Norm I thought his old-style beard really fits in in a back-country setting  —  no, he said, in fact the college girls really appreciate his look  —  he lives in Dryden and he does a lot of research in the TC3 library  —  he said the young students there often compliment his beard

Not only did we not get any rain, but the sun came out near the end and it was gorgeous

We went by Jack’s house afterwards to have some wine and to check out the photos he’s planning to put up in his first photo show, coming in June to The Commons  —  that’s Jack’s grandson Winchester, nine months old, who lives next door

Official head count:  12H, five D

You can see Jack’s photos here

 

Saturday March 4

Forest road walk, Bald Hill Road from Station Road south in Danby SF

Quite a bit more snow on the ground at hike time than predicted  —  the roads weren’t fully plowed on the way to the trail head and we did some skidding in the car

I’d no idea what the woods road would be like but I didn’t expect what we found  —  much of it was underlain with ice

Several of the hikers left their foot traction home  —  one hiker fell down hard onto her leg shortly after we set off  —  after that, everyone was careful and we didn’t have any more falls

This walk’s always picturesque but it looked especially good in the gloom and snow  —  then the sun came out briefly a few times and that was really pretty

…. resumed snowing pretty quickly

The roads were all plowed by the time we headed home except for the last steep stretch of Bald Hill Road just before the meet-up  —   Tiger had to gun the car up this hill while it slipped around a bit  —  fun

Official head count:  NineH, one D

 

Sunday Feb 5

Lick Brook

Official head count:  15H, three D

 

Report to Hikers: week of Feb 20-Feb 26

 

Hello Hikers!

 

Wed Feb 22

Snowmobile trail, Route 79 in Slaterville Springs north to Midline Road and Irish Settlement Road, Freeville

Official head count:  17H, five D

You can see Annie’s photos here

 

 

Sat Feb 25

Six Mile Creek, south side rim trail

Big storm coming at us on the radar  —  would it hit before we finished the hike?

What a gorgeous morning to step out into the woods!

Wet and slippery in spots  —  several hikers fell down

Started to sprinkle a little about 20 minutes before the end  —  faint thunder in the distance

A couple of minutes after we drove away from the trail head, it started to pour  —  that was a squeaker!

Official head count:  27H, eight D

You can see Jack V’;s photos here

 

Sunday Feb 26

South Danby Road west toward Hill Road, Danby SF

We had a few little adventures this time, starting with the drainage ditch we need to cross right after we leave the cars  —-  the bridge across looked a bit icy and treacherous ….  0ne of our dogs who was wearing a jacket got knocked into the ditch by another dog in the excitement  —  he got soaked and had to go home early ….

The bridge across this stream had been knocked askew  —  it was tilted and sloping down in one direction  —  a number of us chose to go across on hands and knees, including me  —  very decent way to cross an icy surface

Our two nature photographers have a number of shots of us making the crossing ….

We got a snow shower  —  really added to the great gloomy atmospherics

We hit a good deal of mud and the dogs got dirty  —  one hiker was straddling this same ditch out at the road rinsing off his shoes when a piece of the bank gave way and he tumbled backwards into the ditch  —  he had a surgical bandage on one hand from a fresh carpal tunnel surgery but it didn’t get wet and he didn’t hurt the wrist while taking the tumble

Official head count:  27H, eight D

More photos:

Annie

Jack V

Report to Hikers: week of Feb 13-Feb 19

 

Hello Hikers!

 

Wed Feb 18

Road walk:  Three farm roads just north of Perry City Road, west of Jacksonville

We’ve had a string of great atmospheric mornings for our Wednesday road walk series, and this one was outstanding  —  snow shower on the way to the trail head and a gorgeous dramatic grey sky

I generally choose our midweek road walks just by looking at the map, and there’s always the possibility they could have dangerously heavy or fast traffic  —  but so far I’ve been very lucky.  These roads were deserted except for one stretch about 300 feet long where we had to shift from one road to another

Official head count:  14H, three D

 

Saturday Feb 18

Bock Harvey Forest Preserve to Hines Road on the FLT, Enfield

Official head count:  21H, six D

You can see Jack V’s photos here

 

Sunday Feb 19

Potato Hill SF, Caroline

The snow was somewhat deep and very soft both weekend days, and we had to break a trail on the outbound legs  —  surprisingly exhausting

One of the hikers pulled the car a tiny bit too far off the road at the meet-up and it fell into a deep ditch that was obscured by snow  —  a coyote hunter in a big truck offered to pull the car out with a chain, but our guys got it out with some artful pushing and driving ….

Official head count:  17H, eight D

Report to Hikers: week of Feb 6-Feb 12

 

Hello Hikers!

 

Chestnut Lean-to, Danby SF

 

Wednesday Feb 8

Work group to collect firewood and check out the lean-to for our cook-out

We brought in two fantastic labor-saving tools for the first time ever, a chainsaw and a log-splitting maul

It was wonderful to see how these two tools enabled us to collect a huge amount of firewood in an amazingly short time

We hid the big pile of cut and split wood under some pine boughs and dead leaves a little bit away from the lean-to so no one else would see it and burn it up before we got back on the weekend.

Official head count:  15H, three D

 

Saturday Feb 11

Cook-out

This year’s fire team decided to have a smaller fire than we did last year.  We also decided to have a second fire in back of the lean-to so people could sit on the log benches back there and stay warm

The firewood we’d collected was wetter than we realized

Lots of food  —  I ate a weird mix of things, like what an unsupervised child might do  —  great fun but then after I went to bed for the night I woke up with heartburn

The fire in the back of the lean-to never really got going well and it didn’t attract much of a crowd

A couple of hikers arrived quite late and some people who had been thinking of going home decided to stay around with the newcomers  —  there was a nice variety of liquor on hand and as Tiger and I left people were sitting staring into the fire and sipping the liquor.

Official head count:  30H, nine D

More photos:

Annie

Jack V

 

Sunday Feb 12

Hike cancelled  —  rain

Report to Hikers: week of Jan 30-Feb 5

 

Hello Hikers!

 

Wed Feb 1

Abandoned road bed and adjacent fields, Mineah Road between Mount Pleasant Road and Route 13, Freeville

Official head count:  13H, three D

Impromptu roadside hair trim  —  Tiger worked for a while as a licensed hair cutter about 40 years ago  —  still remembers the basics

 

Sat Feb 4

Jim Schug Trail east into Cortland County on the FLT, Dryden

It’s 400′ from the base of this hill (where the open field ends) up to the top, as measured by Scott with a phone app.  As you can see just by looking, the distance in which you have to make this climb is pretty short, though there are switchbacks.  This is what gives rise to the grumbling.  The snow was a bit slippery this time, so it was actually a little tougher than usual.  A few of the hikers got part way up and then decided to turn back  —  they walked on the perfectly flat Jim Schug Trail instead.

The people on the left are a small group of local hikers we ran into in the home stretch  —  seems like they’d fit right in with us

Official head count:  18H, five D

 

Sunday Feb 5

Layen Road to Bruce Hill Road and beyond on the FLT, Danby

This is one of the hikes where I always like to stage a group lineup photo   —  I can’t resist the way the huge field curves away as a backdrop  —  a number of stragglers didn’t make it into the shot

Definitely one of our better scenic backgrounds ….

This is the infamous short killer uphill  —  the photo doesn’t do it justice  —  quite slippery so it was a real workout

Bruce Hill Road

Old quarry  —  interesting spot to stand around for about two minutes

Official head count:  23H, seven D

You can see Jack V’s photos here