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I found another one two years ago by a fire look out off a giant peak that I slept in, and I also attempted to write something crappy to contribute instead of a cheesy “Hi I was obviously here” in the trail log. The peak is obviously in the background. Massive.
I suck at and hate writing forced poems on the spot, and I don’t know how to write well when I’m not emotional or sad or about depression or people, but there was a Geocache on this peak I climbed yesterday (rare) and I felt I had to put something in the book other than a boring “Hi my name is Callie I obviously climbed up here” kind of thing. Anyway, not proud of it but I tried.
Sunday, November 10
Location: Camp Camfield; Green Trail
Distance: 2.6 miles Elevation Gain: 72ft
Time: 1 hour 21 minutes; Average pace 28:44 minutes/mile
Equipment: Hiking boots, Ruffwear track jacket, All Trails App, Deep Woods Off
Trail Conditions/Difficulty: Good/slightly moderate. The weather was absolutely perfect for this hike! It was quite cold the few days before, and they’re forcasting snow for the next few days. So I wore my coat and and hat and expected it to be a bit nippy. It was almost 60 degrees and I regretted both the coat and hat within the first half mile. Before the 1 mile mark I had tied my coat around my waist and was hiking in short sleeves quite comfortably.
Even though the fall colors around here are primarily brown, the sunlight light everything up with a golden autumn glow. The leaves made a delightful crunching sound and there was a faint smell of woodsmoke being carried on the breeze. There were lots of fishermen out on the lake taking advantage of the nice weather. And while the parking lot was empty when we got there, there were 5 other cars there by the time we left. We did see one or two other hikers across the little pond and two mountain bikers passed us on the trail. The dogs did great for both bikers with no indication that they wanted to give chase!
We didn’t see many critters on the trail. But we did see a very large flock of pelicans. And they were even close enough that I could get almost decent pics with my phone camera!
And Zella did pick up a little friend!
Definitely one of the best fall hikes! Very relaxing and the dogs had a great time too!
Sunday, October 27
Location: Warbler Ridge, Warbler Loop and Cemetery Ridge trails
Distance: 4 miles Elevation Gain: 322ft
Time: 2 hours 19 minutes; Average pace 31:31 min/mile
Equipment: Hiking Boots, Deep Woods OFF, leashes, Ruffwear blaze orange track jackets, All Trails App
Trail conditions/difficulty: Good/moderately difficult. Look at that! We finally found the fall colors! The weather was absolutely perfect and the scenery was gorgeous, the quintessential fall hike. Warbler Ridge trails are always well maintained, and in spite of raining all day the day before they were dry and fast. The most challenging part was the steep hills. October is deer season, and some of the trails were closed for hunting, so the dogs stayed on leash the whole time except for one particularly steep downhill (where Zella promptly took off after a squirrel and wasn’t seen again for several minutes). One of the nearby property owners must have been out doing target practice, because for the first hour we could hear gunshots (deer hunting on the reserve is archery only).
We saw at least a half dozen hawks on the drive over, lots of squirrels (all of which Zella wanted to chase), one deer dashing off in the distance (which Zella did not see, or she would have wanted to chase), a rabbit (or else a squirrel with a white spot on it’s butt), and a few chipmunks. We also found a lovely little toad.
There weren’t really any flowers left, but the fall leaves were making up for that with a lovely show of color.
This was the first time I’ve hiked the Cemetery Ridge Trail, the last time I attempted it I missed the turn off and ended up hiking from the south parkinglot all the way to the north parkinglot and back again. The majority of the trail traverses several ridges, with deep depressions that could just as easily be old road or natural washouts. We saw a few moderately large stones that I could imagine were remenants of gravestones, but were more likely just natural stones. I was starting to get a little disappointed when we finally found the old McKenzie-Waltrip Cemetery.
Most of the 57 graves are from the late 1800′s/early 1900′s, although a few of the headstones are quite a bit newer.
The most recent burial is Mrs. Genettie Anderson Lawyer, who died January 30, 1943. The next most recent burial is from 1919.
Overall 10/10 fantastic hike. Warbler Ridge is one of my favorite places to go hiking, and it really shines in the spring and fall!
Sunday, October 13
Location: Woods Lake
Distance: 2.5 miles Elevation Gain: 92 ft
Time: 1 hour 18 min; Average pace 29:14 min/mile
Equipment: Hiking boots, AllTrails app, leashes, Ruffwear safety track jackets; it was cool enough that I did not apply the bug spray, which given where we were hiking was a risky move
Trail conditions/difficulty: Good/easy. Since Zella is still recovering from the laceration she got on last week’s hike I wanted something a little less rugged for today’s hike. She still managed to re-injure herself. Lesson learned, until that cut has healed all the way we will be sure to bandage her foot well to protect it!
here you can clearly see where the cut is. It still doesn’t seem to bother her in the least.
The weather was gorgeous, all sunshine and blue skies with a little bit of wind. I thought it might be a little chilly, but by the end of the hike I was mildly regretting wearing my thickest longsleeve t-shirt under my hoodie. Woods Lake has always been a great place to find insects at this time of year, and we saw lots of grasshoppers and butterflies.
We also saw a buzzard, a red tail hawk, and an enormous flock of pelicans! Made me wish I had brought the good camera so I could get some clear zoomed shots.
There aren’t many wildflowers blooming this time of year, but we did find fruit of the Carolina horsenettle. Seeing the fruit it’s easy to see why another name for this plant is Devil’s Tomato.
We also found flower-of-an-hour (Hibiscus trionum, I think the common name bladder weed or bladder hibiscus sounds more fun)
Queen Ann’s Lace (aka wild carrot)
And rudbeckia
As I mentioned in last week’s post, we are somewhat lacking in fall color here. But there were a few more colorful trees on today’s hike.
Along with lots of pops of color in the fall grasses and smooth sumac
Both dogs were also quite photogenic today!
All in all a very relaxing easy hike for a lazy Sunday.
Sunday, Oct 6
Location: Wolf Creek State Park, Red Fox Trail
Distance: 2.1 miles Elevation Gain: 115ft
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes; Average pace 32:01 min/mile
Equipment: hiking boots, AllTrails app (the MapMyHike app is no longer supported), deep woods OFF, Ruffwear blaze orange track jacket
Trail Conditions/Difficulty: Good/Easy-moderate. The trails are nice and dry right now, and while this hike is marked as “moderate” on the park map I’ve done it enough times that it’s pretty easy for us. The weather was absolutely perfect for hiking. Low 70′s, just cool enough that I needed my hoodie but warm enough that I was ready to shed it by the time we got back to the car. The sky was mostly blue and the lake was beautiful!
Most of the plants are starting to go dormant, but we did find some aster (smooth? spreading? not sure, but it’s definitely some kind of aster) blooms and goldenrod (? bluestem?).
Most of the fall leaves around here are boring brown, but we did see a few more colorful ones! And the fungus was in fine form this weekend!
Like I said, the lake views were gorgeous today!
And we saw a lovely tent caterpillar nest. It really looked like a cross between a bagworm tent and a squirrel’s nest.
The dogs had a great time. Although Zella did take off into the underbrush after a chipmunk and managed to cut the back of her right front paw. She never limped or indicated that it was bothering her so I felt bad that I didn’t notice it until hours later!
Sunday, September 22
Location: Camp Camfield, Blue Trail
Distance: 1.7 miles Elevation Gain: 71ft
Time: 1 hour 20 minutes; Average pace 47:25 min/mile
Equipment: Hiking boots, Deep Woods OFF, MapMyHike App
Trail conditions/difficulty: Good/ easy-slightly moderate. It felt so good to get back out on the trail again! This weekend we had the 6yo with us, so we didn’t go quite as far as I would have liked and we went much more slowly (and stopped a lot more often). But the weather was perfect and we had the trail all to ourselves when we started.
There are still a fair number of wildflowers out there as we start autumn. And also a fair number of sticker bushes. It wasn’t too bad, but I did have to de-burr both dogs before we got back in the car at the end of our hike.
There are some new signs out on the trails. Clearly mud was not an issue this weekend, the trails were nice and dry.
The 6yo found a wooly worm just off the trail. Most of the pictures I got were blurry, this one’s the best. He accidentally dropped his hiking stick while we were watching the little guy and bumped it. The gasp when his stick hit the caterpillar and it curled up was priceless. Poor kid thought he killed it! I explained that it was okay, just curled up because it thought he was going to eat it. Then we talked about how the hairs/spikes wouldn’t feel good in a predator’s mouth if something did try to eat it.
We also found this small toad. I didn’t get a picture, but we also saw an eagle that the 6yo identified as a bald eagle. I didn’t get a great look at it, but it did have a white tail. We do have bald eagles in the area, so it’s possible.
Since I had just bathed the dogs the day before they were sorely disappointed that they were not allowed to go play in the lake. Especially Zella.
We also saw several impressively large fungus on our hike.
It’s just starting to look like fall here. Looking forward to many more autumn hikes before wet weather sets in!
Sunday, September 15
Things at work have been absolutely miserable, between working stupid-long hours dangerously understaffed and struggling with my mental health as a result I have completely dropped the ball on my goal of getting the dogs out hiking at least once a week. Things are starting to settle down, so hopefully we’ll get back on track soon. On the one hand, I no longer have a day off during the week. On the other hand, I now only work mornings so I have the potential possibility of hiking every afternoon (not really, I mean I gotta get housework done at some point).
This weekend I walked the dogs home from Sunday dinner at my mother in law’s house. Rather than going straight home, we took a short detour through the walking park behind her house. It was, for the most part, very relaxing.
They’ve converted a majority of the open area to wildlife habitat over the past couple of years. Both to aid conservation efforts and to save the city money on maintenance costs (after all, when you’re only mowing a 8 foot wide path it’s a lot less expensive than if you were to mow the whole meadow).
We were really enjoying the early fall feels on our walk. The leaves are just starting to change and drop, and the crabapples are ripe but not yet covering the ground.
There were also several dog-savvy squirrels about that Zella especially found very exciting! I mean both dogs found them exciting, but Zella seems to be a huntress at heart.
On our way out of the park, we were waylaid by an entire pack of poodles. I was nervous when I saw them coming at us, had to make a mental effort to relax my shoulders and keep the leashes slack (thankfully my dogs didn’t pull towards them) and just stand still. My two did beautifully, and thankfully the poos were friendly and not really rude about greeting us.
The rest of our walk was uneventful. Total distance was a mile and a half and it took us about 50 minutes. The dogs greatly enjoyed it.
