Rain, Mud, Watersheds - Day 135

  Actually, the mud came before the rain, but let's talk about the rain. It was supposed to be a little rain between 9 and 10. Well, it was a nasty needle-like rain with strong wind from about 10 am until 1 pm. The afternoon cleared up and got rather nice. But I'm a little tired of being wet.

What I'm actually tired of is the mud. The first mud encounter of the day was out of the ordinary (but not unheard of). Some logging company has begun an operation without giving the trail any notice. They drove the "hydro-skidder" right up the trail. Sigh. Those ruts are over two feet deep. Most of the blazes are gone. Sigh again. However, I've learned a great feature of the Avenza map app. You can load any geo-spatial PDF into it and the app can read it. What this means is that the Finger Lakes Trail maps that I bought digitally can be used with Avenza. So, I just pulled up the correct map and located the trail again! SO much better than wandering around in hopes you'll find a blaze, or bushwhacking to the next known contact point.

The rest of the mud section is about mud in the trail because it's spring. I know, I chose to hike at this time of year, but the mud is really slowing me down. Any step may be solid, be shoe-sucking deep, be calf deep, or send me skidding sideways jarring hips and knees. And my feet are getting waterlogged. I was making under 2 miles per hour in the morning. And getting rained on. Yes, I'm almost whining.

But then it stopped raining, I sat down to take a rock out of my shoe, and was face-to-face with this handsome weathered tree root.

Another great find is Corn Lily, also called False Hellebore, just coming up. This doesn't grow in Michigan. These plants can get about 5 feet tall, with coarse, heavily veined leaves, and green flowers. It's extremely toxic, so it's best kept in woodland wetlands. Farmers don't like it in their fields.

This was neat. A Norway Spruce plantation from the 1930s has so many babies growing in the understory that they are practically solid branches. Only a few of those will survive. But the trail cut a pathway through. It was fun to walk that corridor.

Most of the nice views one gets are from roads because trees have been cleared on the sides. This is a nice one looking southeast.

This is just a deep valley in a road, right? Nope. At the bottom of that dip, all the water that runs to the right will go to the Allegheny River- Ohio- Mississipi and Gulf of Mexico. All the water that runs to the left will go to the Genesee River- Lake Ontario- St. Lawrence River and Atlantic Ocean. (If you've read North Country Cache and recall that I described this at a different place... yes, the trail has moved.)

Fortunately the afternoon trail miles were on higher ground and not nearly so muddy. I was actually getting discouraged in the morning. But with good footing, I was able to pick up the pace and I did finish at 5:15. Later than I like, but I got it done.

Miles today: 16.2. Total miles so far: 1780.2

See Intermittent