I "got a little lost" on the trails; they have the road closed for repaving right now, but I figured it'd be fun to walk trails to the falls instead of walking down the road. I went up ridge trail to part of rockburn branch trail, then turned around and went back to the start of morning choice trail, walked that through to connector trail, then picked up ridge trail until the trail shelter where I turn back down river road. I pulled out a stripe the same length as two tenths of a mile on the scale marker, I got about 17 of them from start to finish which is close to three and a half miles. Ridge trail is pretty tough work, not as bad as buzzards rocks trail was, but it goes into and out of several drainage creeks off the higher plateau. I ended up running most of the trail from the point where it intersects with connector trail until I met with the road again. By that point, it was 2:40, and I wasn't sure I was going to have enough time to get to the falls, set up, get meaningful pictures, and get back to the parking lot before the park closed (4:40).
Bird list - GBH, a couple dozen robins in with the 30 or 40 chickadees, small numbers of what seemed like song sparrows, but I didn't get a better look than that, three pileated woodpeckers, a downy woodpecker, female ruby crowned kinglet, and (finally!) a brown creeper.
Good walk, though, good run for those parts that I ran. I like the lightweight kit, though I should have left the tripod in the car instead of bringing it with me. I'm ordering a set of trail maps for some of the parks around here and to the north tomorrow; hopefully I can save myself the trouble of heading out without a reasonable goal or idea of where I'm going next time.
An after-the-fact musing: I spent the entire day in manual focus.
ReplyDeleteNat,
ReplyDeleteI really like that close up moss shot.
You are emphasizing to me how much I need to get out somewhere WITHOUT the dog.
- Josh
It was definitely a good day, though I wish I had gotten out a little earlier. I'm going to have to do the morning choice trail one day during the spring, when it's greening up a little bit, but still cool. If I can get someone to help me out with it, I'd like to drop off my car at the cascade falls trailhead, then ride back down to the start of ridge trail; that's something like six miles, and if it's nice enough outside, I could definitely see taking four or five hours to walk the total trail length.
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