Saturday, October 29, 2005

Glacier Ridge hike

Today I took a 2.2 mile walk through Glacier Ridge Metropark.  I'll add more in a bit.  I'm a little busy right now, so hopefully later this evening I'll get to the commentary.


This windmill provides some of the power for the park.


It's hard to see, but there is an old truck in the woods.  It is the former site of the Engine Geocache.


Zoomed in on the truck.


A pic of the trail, and a little bit of the wetland area.


Looking at some of the woods.


The trail, leading into the woods.


In the woods


Looking back toward the parking area.  There is a small pavilion, a playground, and a few picnic tables here.


The aerial view.


The TOPO view.


The elevation profile.  As you can see it's a fairly level walk.  The highest point being 1018', the lowest 983'.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Delaware State Park Hike

First off there are a lot of pics in this one. Secondly if you ever want to see the full size pics, feel free to go to Photobucket.com where I store them. http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b327/Mr-0/ is my album. Thirdly, I did this hike on Sat. Oct 22, 2005, but I just got around to posting it today, Monday, Oct 24, 2005.

Today started with a stop at the G&R Tavern in Waldo, for a famous fried bologna sandwich.  I had been craving them for a few days, so I figured I'd get my fill.  After munching on that and some fries,  I decided to take an off trail hike in a part of the Delaware Wildlife Area.  I had been back in here a couple of times before, but I never had my GPS with me to record a track log.  I started out parked right by the levee on Panhandle Rd.  I walked west along the levee until I saw a bit of clearing in the woods to the north.  From there I followed a small spring until it ran into the reservoir at the cove near the dam.  I walked along the ridgeline above the water, until shortly after the mouth of the cove.  From there I dropped down into a wash out, and down to the water level of the reservoir.  I continued along the edge of the water until I got near to the spot of a former cache I placed, actually the first cache I placed, that was taken a long time ago.  I looked around a bit just in case it would happen to be there, but of course it wasn't.  For reference it was Where Eagles Soar ( http://tinyurl.com/dlxvw ).  After that I headed back down to the edge of the water, hiking through some mud.  It seems that they're in the process of letting the water out to bring it down to winter levels, so it was a bit of a mess there.  Eventually I made my way back up the levee and took a look at the dam.  I had been there earlier in the year when we had all of the bad floods, so I wanted to take another look to compare that day to today.  Below you can see comparison pictures.  The one with the level marked near 45 is when it was flooded, the one where it doesn't register on the scale is today.  After that it was an easy walk back to the car, following along the levee.  I took a bunch of pictures from here, since even through the day started out gloomy and overcast, it started to clear up, and bring the fall colors out a lot.  The whole trek was about 2.4 miles round trip.


Just after leaving the levee.  It's too dark to make out anything.  I suck at pictures.


Another one too dark.


Near the beginning of the small spring.


Just a look at some of the brush and stuff.


The woods on top of the ridge along the eastern edge of the cove.


A look northward up the cove.  The spring runs into here at the right of the picture.  The cove bends a little to the right nearer the top of the pic, then turns back left into the reservoir.


Not sure what I was after on this pic.  Again, I suck.


Some bright yellow foliage along the ridgeline.


The work of some busy beavers.


A nearby tree where the beavers have just begun.


A look north on the reservoir.


Another northernly view of the reservoir.


More woods along the reservoir.


The wash I dropped down into, to get to the edge of the lake.


Looking north west.


Once again, looking north.


North again, looking along the eastern edge of the lake.


More industrious little beavers.


Not sure exactly what this is.  The other end of the chain is attached to some telephone poles.  Looks like it may have been a dock or boat ramp or something.


Looking westward over the reservoir, and look the water even goes uphill here.  Amazing!


Looking north from the levee


Pic from early in the year, during the floods.


And the comparison pic from today.  If you look at the flood pic you can also see the little island of trees in the background are, well, and island, but not today.



North again, from the dam.


And why not, one last time, north from the dam.


Looking east along the levee.


A little fall color.


A little more


More yet


The orange tree in the distance is right where Panhandle Rd. crosses the levee.  The car is parked across the road from the tree, more or less.


Closer to the tree from the pic above.


Closer yet


Very close..looking northward.


Very close, looking up.


The aerial view of my trek.  It was done in a counterclockwise loop.


The TOPO view


The terrain profile.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Blues Creek Preserve Hike

Today I went for a hike at Blues Creek Preserve, part of the Delaware County Preservation Parks system (http://www.preservationparks.com).  This was a nice little hike, that took me about 2.2 miles round trip.  I started from the main parking back near the playground area, and took the grassy trail starting to the west.  That took me around a prarie area along the treeline  then back to the road.  I crossed the road and turned north on the main gravel path  to get to the foot bridge over Blues Creek.  After looking at the scenery there for a moment, I headed back south, where that main trial passes behind the playground, and becomes the "nature trail."  Had I continued north at the bridge it would have been a short walk through some grasslands and second growth woods to a small parking area near the entrance to the park.  The trail system here is setup a little differently.  The 2 main loops spur off of the nature trail....sort of.  Once you hike back the nature trail long enough you see a sign that announces the "Shagbark" trail.  It's the first loop shown below, to the south.  It loops back around through some fairly thick woods.  There also appears to be some small streams that run through there, although today they were dry.  After getting back to the main trail, there is a sign announcing the "Bluestem" trail to the south.  I headed around that loop.  It's a grassy trail through another prarie/grassland area.  The trail loops back onto itself, leading you to turn back north to get onto the main trail again.  Heading north I completed the Shagbark trail, back through the playground and to the car.  I enjoyed the hike, and it didn't seem like I had hiked as far as I did.  Mainly due to the fact that there are few elevation changes along the way, I believe.  It was a cool, crisp day with the sun peeking out from behind a mostly cloudy sky.


Taken from the southern side of the Bluestem trail looking north.  This was taken with no filtering in place on my camera.


 Another shot from the same spot looking north and a little east.  This was with a circular polarizer on the lens.  I like how the sky was darkened, but I need to play with the settings to get the landscape to show up too.


The aerial view of my track log.