Tagged: hiking

How Do You Pronounce Huyck?

I like the directions for getting to the Huyck Preserve. Get on Rt 85 and go to the end, then take a right.

Three other cars in the lot when I got there, around 1100. I compared my map to the one at the trailhead and decided I should take a picture of that, for future reference. I took an obligatory photo of the falls and minutes later I was huffing up a steep hill.

I went up the west side of the lake. It was pretty, and quiet, and I took my time. Just the wind in the trees and the birds. It’s funny how the water moves but makes no sound. Around 1130 I realized I had forgotten to bring a notebook to write anything down. Around 1145 I positively identified colt’s foot, a wildflower that looks like a dandelion with a weird stem.

There was a spot where I had to stop. I had to. It stopped me. It was so calm that it calmed me. I stood there wishing I could capture this moment. The smell in the air. The sound of the water. The little spray over the rocks in the creek. The temperature. The squiggly little roots. The best I could do was take a picture, which does not do any justice.

Quite a while later I came out on the other end of the preserve. I walked down the dirt road and picked up the Wheeler’s (?) trail on the other side. I stopped for lunch around 1215 at Partridge Loop One. It took me almost an hour and a half to get back to that point. The trail wound through everything from spreads of birch to quiet and dark pine, a couple of swampy areas and dry creek beds. Lots of stone walls. I startled a herd of deer three times. I was never close enough to get a good count, but I think there were four. Maybe five. All you can really see is the white tail disappearing.

I came down the east side of the lake. Around 1400 I saw the first human being in three hours. I was back in the car and on the road by 1430.

More photos, including wildflowers, here.

Biking to Five Rivers

It’s been quite a while since I rode all the way out to Five Rivers. I couldn’t have asked for a better day to do it again.

I packed up and hit the streets around 10am. Was hoping for light traffic and got it. Light headwinds and sunshine. Half of this trip I’ve covered before, but beyond there things get tricky. The traffic doesn’t slow down. In many places there’s no shoulder, and in some the pavement is broken up. It’s not as nice a ride as it could be.

When you finally turn right on Orchard it’s a big change. The road is clear and easy, and there aren’t many cars. It’s what riding in the country should be. I locked up my bike at the perpetually empty rack, and took off on foot.

It didn’t take long to start feeling like a new man. Like a real human being again. Sitting on wooden benches in the bright sunlight, listening to half a dozen different kinds of birds. The smell of wet wood chips. The light brown of the grass.

When I’m here (and here is a mental place as much as geographical, probably more spiritual) To Do lists make no sense… Geese. A woodpecker. Deer tracks in the frozen mud.

I was shocked to find the field had been mowed. I thought it was supposed to be a wild grassland. Why would you mow it? I’ve seen rabbits and deer in that field. Today it just looked desolate.

That upset me for a while. I wasn’t sure why. But then it got muddy and I had to focus on more immediate concerns. Balancing on fallen logs is fun. I took my time getting through there. No reason to hurry, and really exactly where I wanted to be. I saw two turkey vultures but didn’t get a photo of them. Good thing I’m not a photographer.

On the other side of the “hill,” closer to the creek, most of the mud was actually still frozen. I ate a granola bar at Jay’s Home Run. I wandered down by the creek, which is one of my favorite spots.

The water is soft greens, blues, browns. The little waterfalls, the bubbling parts of the this brook, are different every time I come here. Bundles of twigs left high by the flood, stranded. Dark sands, sculpted by the slow stream, occasionally punctured by the hoof of a deer.

I took the long way over the bridges. I saw a person, the first person I’d seen or heard in at least an hour. And then more people, suddenly. They built a new bridge at the far end of the trails. It has that “new lumber” smell.

Then it was time to ride home. It was warmer so I stowed a sweater and my hat. I was hungry and planning to stop somewhere for lunch on the way home. Unfortunately everything looked like pizza or it was closed. So I just went home. A really good couple of hours.

More Exploring in Thacher Park North

Got up, packed up my stuff, and took off for Thacher Park North. Didn’t get lost this time. Was on trail a little after 10am.

I took the Perimeter trail NW to the little pond. Where I promptly slipped off a log and stepped in a puddle. A little while after that I had to stop and remove my outer layer because I was too warm. I drank some water and walked a little slower to try to gradually cool down.

At Carrick Road I wandered through the eerie rock clearing to find the Fred Schroeder Memorial Trail. At the fork I went left, marching through some tight forest. Some of it was only just barely a trail, though clearly marked. Somewhere in there I flushed a grouse. At the next fork, with W4, I went left again, through the field. Where I heard an eagle.

I followed the Long Path east-ish for a bit, and a guy ran by. He was the first person I had seen in over an hour.

I took W3 south, cut east to the Long Path, which goes south from there. That takes you down to Hang Glider Road, which goes east and then north. When I got out to the cliff, there were three people there. I put my sweater back on because it was a bit windier, and sat down to eat my lunch by myself. You could hear church bells from the little town below. They left after a little while and I realized I had sat in damp moss. Oh well.

Backtrack to the road. On the way back I heard what I thought was a very pissed off turkey vulture, but which proved to be a raven. It flew over, and in the silence I heard it’s wings beat the air. Back on the cyan trail, which shortly hooks to the left/east. Another person passed by. I picked up the Perimeter trail again, which took me back to the parking lot. Where I tried to kick the mud off my sneakers. It was around 1pm.

I like Thacher North because each section of trail seems to be different terrain. Wide open “roads” of rock. Big fields. Pine and birch forests. You can spend three hours here and count the number of people you see on one hand. It’s much more quiet than South, which is sandwiched between roads. There are a lot of strange little unmarked trails, and a lot of stone walls. In the spring I bet it’s beautiful.

Choquetacarpo

Good reading.

Choquetacarpo is two miles higher than the famed Khyber Pass, taller than the Space Needle stacked on top of Mount Rainier. When it became obvious that we wouldn’t be hit by any snowstorms- there was hardly a cloud in the sky- we slackened to a strenous stroll. Fifteen thousand feet was almost certainly the highest I would ever stand on earth, and I wanted to savor it.

The canyon we’d walked through was beautifully desolate, a brown badlands hemmed in by two sets of sharp, rocky incisors. The top of the pass was crowded with dozens of apachetas, towers of rocks stacked on top of each other. Nati had explained these to me once. Local people who come through a mountain pass create a new apacheta or add a stone to an old one, asking for a favor from the apus or hoping for good luck on a journey. The piles reminded me of the votive candles my mother used to light in church. John checked his watch. “Two and a half hours to the top, not bad,” he said.

Mark Adams, Turn Right at Machu Picchu

For a long time I’ve known I want to get a stamp in my passport as some sort of adventure life list. I need to add hiking over ten thousand feet.