What occurred today:
All the rain that should have fallen over a reasonable length of time came down. At the higher elevations, it was snow. Well, mum and I had planned on partially hiking the Surveyor's Ridge trail, and in the spirit of the IHC we decided to stick with that plan. We left the jeep at the Oak Ridge trailhead and then made Tim drive us up to where we were startin.' We had donned several layers of clothing and laughably oversized rain ponchos. Snow was steadily falling and two to three inches had accumulated in some areas. Nice and powdery. I love the quietness that comes with snow. There was dense fog so we didn't have much of a view the majority of the time, but the scenery was spectacular anyway. Cool to see immense rimrock outcroppings against that fog; it was like the last perceivable object before a seemingly endless backdrop.
So about half a mile in we came to a quasi clearing and I saw something sticking out of the snow several meters off the trail. It looked suspiciously like two points of an antler. "That's just a branch..right?" As I approached, I became less sure that it was just a branch. It was a four point deer antler, probably shed within a few days! Now being an avid antler hunter this was pretty exciting. And considering I've only found one spike before...yeah, "avid" doesn't necessarily denote efficiency. But antlers are like needles in the haystack of the wilderness. We scouted around looking for its match for a few minutes, but since we sorta wanted to continue actually hiking and we knew it could be miles away we continued on.
The rest of the hike was uneventful in terms of encounters with animals and/or their traces. Only a few birds, some squirrel tracks, and possibly a shrew or other small rodent trail. But it continued to snow and it was beautiful. Took a few photos of course. We got excellent views when we came out on the Oak Ridge section - the highway and houses far below, the muddy ribbon of trail traversing the hillsides, a barn that appeared to be sitting on the edge of a cliff, and of course some nifty mossy trees. At this point it was still snowing but not sticking very well - it was neat to be able to see the ground and the trail ahead without losing the snowglobe effect.
So we got back to the trailhead and arrived home around 5:00. Then I hurriedly prepared to meet friends at taco night, only stayed there for about 20 minutes before everyone went back to HR. Something more will probably be planned.
Tonight we had a free pay-per-view deal so we watched Garden State. Until a warning popped up on the TV informing us that our satellite receiver box was at 131 degrees fahrenheit. That's what happens when one stacks a DVD player that is constantly on on top of one's satellite receiver thingy. So by the time we remedied the situation the movie was over. Shucks. At least I had seen it before.
Now it is wednesday, and I will slumber.
All the rain that should have fallen over a reasonable length of time came down. At the higher elevations, it was snow. Well, mum and I had planned on partially hiking the Surveyor's Ridge trail, and in the spirit of the IHC we decided to stick with that plan. We left the jeep at the Oak Ridge trailhead and then made Tim drive us up to where we were startin.' We had donned several layers of clothing and laughably oversized rain ponchos. Snow was steadily falling and two to three inches had accumulated in some areas. Nice and powdery. I love the quietness that comes with snow. There was dense fog so we didn't have much of a view the majority of the time, but the scenery was spectacular anyway. Cool to see immense rimrock outcroppings against that fog; it was like the last perceivable object before a seemingly endless backdrop.
So about half a mile in we came to a quasi clearing and I saw something sticking out of the snow several meters off the trail. It looked suspiciously like two points of an antler. "That's just a branch..right?" As I approached, I became less sure that it was just a branch. It was a four point deer antler, probably shed within a few days! Now being an avid antler hunter this was pretty exciting. And considering I've only found one spike before...yeah, "avid" doesn't necessarily denote efficiency. But antlers are like needles in the haystack of the wilderness. We scouted around looking for its match for a few minutes, but since we sorta wanted to continue actually hiking and we knew it could be miles away we continued on.
The rest of the hike was uneventful in terms of encounters with animals and/or their traces. Only a few birds, some squirrel tracks, and possibly a shrew or other small rodent trail. But it continued to snow and it was beautiful. Took a few photos of course. We got excellent views when we came out on the Oak Ridge section - the highway and houses far below, the muddy ribbon of trail traversing the hillsides, a barn that appeared to be sitting on the edge of a cliff, and of course some nifty mossy trees. At this point it was still snowing but not sticking very well - it was neat to be able to see the ground and the trail ahead without losing the snowglobe effect.
So we got back to the trailhead and arrived home around 5:00. Then I hurriedly prepared to meet friends at taco night, only stayed there for about 20 minutes before everyone went back to HR. Something more will probably be planned.
Tonight we had a free pay-per-view deal so we watched Garden State. Until a warning popped up on the TV informing us that our satellite receiver box was at 131 degrees fahrenheit. That's what happens when one stacks a DVD player that is constantly on on top of one's satellite receiver thingy. So by the time we remedied the situation the movie was over. Shucks. At least I had seen it before.
Now it is wednesday, and I will slumber.
1 Comments:
At 10:30 AM ,
Becky said...
Ahh I can't handle it! You've stopped updating every day! How am I supposed to procratinate from writing papers!? =)
Post a Comment
<< Home