Jul 27, 2006 17:27
I took a hike around the campus hill, about 1:30 long. There's a low road which is the one I think I tried way back in sophmore year where we got lost in this flat grassy plain on a cloudy day so we couldn't tell which way was which, and the lack of a "downhill" didn't help. Today I decided to go for the high road, as I wanted the longer hike and the map said there were perpetually wet spots on the low road and it'd been raining lately. Good choice there, as there were a number of really mucky spots on the high road even.
There's less underbrush than I'm used to back home, which makes it harder to follow a trail (not that I've ever been good at it) b/c you can't use the color as easily. The trail blazes seemed to be more frequent in the other direction, so I kept turning around to check. There were also a couple trails that were unmarked on the map, but were marked on the trees by other colors or something. Lots of muck. No poison ivy, yay. Lots of cobwebs and bugs in my face (and one in my eye), but there don't appear to be mosquitos here at all.
There were a few bizarre signs of human presence. The only obviously explainable one were the branches forming lean-tos or windbreaks near places were it was clear the trail had been cleared of treefall. I'm guessing the Forest People club spent a few nights up there cleaning the trail up. They also moved the markers around a tree too big to cut, but didn't move all the markers, so I got confused. I'm not too good at following trails, did I mention? :-P At the far end of the trail, someone had smashed a lot of pottery. And near the beginning of the trail there was a tree that had had the core rot out, but was still alive. When I peeped inside the tree, there were a few nails nailed in (!), and on one of the nails, a keyring with two rusted keys (!!). It would've made a nice photo, but I didn't bring my camera due to the 50% chance of rain and looming thunderheads above. Good thing too, as it started drizzling while I was picking out fossil-filled rocks from next to the new dorm, and it came down hard right as I walked up to my place.
exercise,
travel,
mood,
nature,
hiking