ithacahikers

Hello Hikers!

Another great Sunday morning along Fall Creek  — almost 30 degrees warmer than last week  —  a lovely gloomy grey light, and snowing gently most of the time

Official head count:  22 hikers, five dogs

This side of Fall Creek is a lot easier to hike than the north side, and it wasn’t very slippery, so we had a pretty casual time, with lots of relaxed standing around

The top photo shows you the high point of this trail, two completely undercut trees hanging over a sheer drop that’s at least 100 feet straight down  —  always a great challenge for our daredevils  — that’s Jack M in this photo

Everywhere you look there’s fabulous scenery along this walk  —  I’m always trying to get a photo that captures it, never succeed, but I like the challenge of trying.

Click here to see 12 more shots online.

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Weather permitting, we’re going to have a hot dog-marshmallow and beer cook-out on the fireplace at the Chestnut Lean-to in Danby SF next Sunday.  Stay tuned.

Hello Hikers!

Another great dry hike when we were absolutely positively guaranteed to get rained on.  This one was especially wonderful because of the atmospherics  — 60 degree temp, strong wind  high above in the treetops, deeply gloomy light, puddles everywhere, beautiful winter colors ….

Official head count:  10 hikers and one dog  —  it rained all the way from home to the trail head  —  it sprinkled while we were waiting around to start  —  but just as we stepped off the rain stopped, and never resumed.

I promised this trail looks especially good on a threatening day and it’s true  –  the scenery was just fantastic

everywhere you looked it was beautiful  —  the high point came when we abruptly hit a foggy area where it felt 20 degrees colder and the ground was covered with snow

a little later we came to an area of green ground cover  —  Take a photo, said Karin  —  I don’t do nature shots, I said  —  Fine, she said, fine FINE FINE …. and when I say ‘fine’ I don’t really mean fine  —  so I compromised and got our ladies to liven up the scene  — I hope you can see the green on the ground

later Karin asked me to take another landscape  —  this time I just did it

this trail has more than its share of narrow wooden bridges  —  very slippery yesterday  —  I’m of two minds about them  — they feel dangerous but they’re sort of fun too.  We had one mishap  —  hiker was distracted by talking and didn’t duck low enough under a fallen log  —  he smacked his head on a vicious little spur sticking out.

Click here to see 12 more shots online.

Hello Hikers!

beautiful mild bright-grey morning in Lime Hollow, warm enough to hike without gloves or a hat once we got moving

Official head count:  16 hikers, dogs not allowed.

Verdict on Doug’s:

fabulous!

I’ve only been to Lime Hollow about a half-dozen times, and every time I come I like it more.  Besides great scenery, it’s the only place we hike where you can see big lovely blue fish swimming in a hatchery right before your eyes.

We always come here at the same time of year, and it’s almost always snowy, so it’s come to take on a holiday feeling for me.  The first part of our walk winds through beautiful pine trees, up and down small hills, and it feels like Christmas to me.

The second half of the hike takes us into huge overgrown brushy areas with fascinating terrain  —  for whatever reason the cold frozen fields make me think of Thanksgiving.

Seems like one thing’s always guaranteed:  the parking lot will be a treacherous sheet of ice.

Our regular hiker Norm worked in Lime Hollow briefly some years ago and that makes him our guide now  —  even so, the trails are so delightfully convoluted that we needed a lot of map-consultation.  Toward the end, three hikers fell behind and took a wrong turn  —  they were lost until they heard me bellowing for them in the distance.

 

Click here to see 11 more hike photos online.

Hello Hikers!

 

Another great morning on the trail when it was supposed to storm, but didn’t. I love it when the rain clouds are charging toward us on the radar, and then nothing happens — it’s silly, but you really do feel like you pulled something off.

Official head count: 21 hikers, five dogs

We’re coming into the cloudiest time of the year — it’s easy to let it get you down, but out in the woods the muted colors come across as subtle and lovely, not bleak or depressing.

As promised, beautiful scenery everywhere.  This is one of my favorite spots ….

love the way the ground falls away on both sides of the ridge, everything about this short stretch feels wonderful. I like the side trail over to La Tourelle too

normally I don’t photograph the hikers from the rear, but it seems to work in this case.

 

It started to rain lightly toward the end, but it was so mild and lovely out we hardly noticed. Sometimes in the past we’ve heard gun shots on this walk, but none this time.

 

I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the time or trying to speed up or slow down as we got near the end — but somehow we finished in just about precisely two hours — pretty good without trying!

 

Click here to see 10 more hike photos online.

Hello Hikers!

 

great walk and delicious beer on a damp gloomy morning.

Official head count ….

15 hikers, three dogs

 

if you look closely, you’ll see that Vicki and Rabbit came for the beer but skipped the walk  —  it was pouring at both their houses at hike time  —  the rain had stopped in Fall Creek a little while before Tiger and I set out.

 

We had two new hikers with us  —  both got misled by the Google Maps directions to the trail head  —  one hiker managed to come across us by chance before we started  —  the other was too oconfused by Google  —  we bumped into him on the trail near the end of our hike.

For some reason I can’t quite explain, I really like walking on the country roads behind upper Treman, especially this open stretch along Thomas Road ….

it wasn’t actually as dramatically lighted as it looks here, but it was pretty beautiful

Tiger and I had never hiked when we moved to Ithaca in 2003  —  the first time we tried the Red Pine Trail back then, it seemed so horribly steep we gave up and turned back

yesterday, we and everyone else just waltzed up the hill  —  10 years on, I can definitely say we managed to fall in with good companions.

 

The French fries at Ithaca Beer Co. truly are fantastic  —  I ate a huge amount, so much I felt queasy for a while when I got home.

Click here to see 12 more photos from the hike online.

 

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This Friday marks a milestone of sorts for our group  —  we now have four full years of hike photos online on our photo web site  —  click here to see our hike of Nov 15 2009, a beautiful warm morning  —  can you recognize where we were without looking at the headline?