Saturday, September 09, 2006

A Personal Letter (it's ok, you can read it anyway)

Dear P.F.,

About that hike you have planned for later on this month: I checked out the trail this morning. Since I'm writing this, you'll know I didn't die a horrible death.

First off, the parking situation is interesting. The dirt road is marked "Private" and there's absolutely no room to park on it. You'll have to park on the paved road. Caution: it's narrow and some of the residents have 'no parking' signs. I'd suggest carpooling.



The hike goes down the private dirt road to a locked gate.



The yellow trail marker is on the gate, so I went around it anyway.

Continue on the dirt road for 50 feet or so. The trail begins on the left.



My oh-so-excellent photography skills didn't capture the yellow trail markers, but the trail begins to the right of the crooked tree.

In case you miss it, there's this incredibly obvious trail sign.



Actual size: 2x5 inches. And it's faded, too.

Following the trail for a bit, you'll come to this gorgeous mucky pond/lake/water thingie.



Right after the pond, I found this really cool mushroom.



It was about 6 inches tall and translucent. How cool!

Can you see the trail?



That's because the trail is obliterated by a mess of fallen trees. I was able to climb over/under as necessary and the trail clears out again after about 20 feet of serious brush.

I saw other things that I wasn't able to capture with my camera: some deer, a gazillion frogs (toads?), a woodpecker, my life flashing before my eyes (there was this tree root I tripped over at the edge of a really steep hill....).

I only had 2 hours available this morning. After the first hour, I wasn't quite at the top but had to turn around due to time constraints.

I hope some of this information is helpful to you and those who join you on your hike. I, however, will not be one of them. This hike was insane impossible invigorating and I'll probably take a 'kinder, gentler' hike instead.

Best of luck,

Debby

2 comments:

Eileen said...

Cute. What's the matter? You don't like hikes that resemble military forced marches?

Marla said...

u think p.f. will get the message?!?! :)