Onekama Township Parks

One of the things you can do for the Onekama Challenge is visit all 7 Onekama Township Parks to get a sticker. Today, Cathy and I went and did that. There were places you could hike/walk at 3 of them.

First we went to John Langland Park which is where the channel from Portage Lake enters Lake Michigan. There is a short accessable walkway to the beach, but by hiking a little extra down to a public access point we were able to hike along the channel to the light on the north breakwall.

I do love these Lake Michigan pictures with nothing but sky and water.

There were ducks alongside the breakwall. Mama merganser...

And a raft of teenagers trailing her.

Then we went to North Point Park where there were also hiking trails. Part were paved for accessibiltiy, and part were dirt surface. One short loop was gravel. A nice feature there was a garden of native plants that are labeled in Braille, Anishinaabemowin, Spanish, and English. Most of the plants are very new or gone. Hopefully it will be maintained. That had 2 miles of trails, and they were fine, but my favorites were the lakeside one above, and the next one.

There was a mile of trail at Glen Park. This is the site of a mineral spring where a grand hotel was built in the late 1800s. The waters were considered restorative, and people traveled from all over to visit. Here is Cathy on a bridge over the creek.

Several places in the creek still have these ceramic tiles sunk in them to contain pools of the mineral water. And these three are under a shelter to help preserve them. I sampled the water, and yup, it has that oily, mineral taste.

Of course the hotel burned long ago, and we couldn't even figure out where it had been. This park had the most primitive trail and the most topography.

After we visited all seven (two of them we barely got out of the car because it was just a matter of taking a picture of a sign for wetland preserves- but it was good to know the township is preserving a fair amount of wetlands), we went for ice cream. Came home, did a few errands, voted. Oh yeah, I got laundry on the line before we left this morning. I had a Zoom event at 6 pm, but I forgot. Hopefully it was recorded.

Miles walked in 2026: 277.2
Onekama Challenge: 89.0 miles

Onekama Township, Michigan, John Langland Park, Glen Park, and North Point Park trails. Total 4.1 miles

See Portage Lake- A Brief Glimpse

Arcadia- Authors and Animals

The final day of Arcadia Daze was shorter and calmer, with a little more time to do things besides interact with potential buyers.

John Wemlinger is an author I met at an event a couple of years ago. He told me I should try to get into Arcadia Daze, and that was good advice. I did well. I finally felt I had a comfortable enough margin that I could buy one of his books I wanted- The Cut- an historical fiction concerning the momentous and contentious cutting of a channel from Portage Lake in Onekama through to Lake Michigan. It dropped the water level of Portage Lake by 20 feet. I've just started reading it, but I can heartily recommend it.

He bought my sampler book, Accidentally Yours. I don't know if he's started it yet or would recommend it, but I'll tell you it's an eclectic collection of all the kinds of things I write. You may not like all the entries, but you'll probably like some of them.

John's wife Diane helps him with "marketing" (and moving all the crap around that one needs at these events). They make a great team. We had a good block of time before people really started coming through to talk about editing and publishing and all that sort of authorly stuff.

Since the vendors did not have to stay as long today, I popped over to Arcadia Marsh for a walk. The middle section of the marsh boardwalk is closed from April 15 to July 15 when birds are nesting, and I'd never managed to get there except during that time. But today, I got to walk all the way through.

I got some nice plant pictures but none of anything very unusual, so I'm going to show you animals because animal pictures are harder. Critters are more mobile than plants!

Who doesn't love turtles? Painted Turtles, and I chose this picture because their reflections are also in focus.

There were several Cedar Waxwings flitting around a space of open water.

Female Wood Duck swimming around.

And although this is just a female mallard- probably our most common duck, she's doing some nice contortions to get her preening accomplished, and notice the spread tail feathers.

I'm always tickled to get a good picture of a dragonfly. I've shown you this one before, but not very often. This is a male Widow Skimmer.

A nice Muskrat working its way around the same place of open water as the Cedar Waxwings. There was a lot of watercress here, and although cattails are their primary food, they will eat the cress too, so maybe that's what it was doing.

I thought that was probably going to be it for the wildlife. Another couple saw a green heron, but it was gone when I got to that spot. I walked the boardwalk trail twice to get in some miles, and almost at the end of the second time, I spotted a family of Trumpeter Swans. OK, it's getting so I see these fairly often, but I still love finding them.

An excellent day and weekend. The weather was neither too hot, too cold, nor too windy for an outdoor event. Developed a good relationship with a fellow author, made some money, and had a great hike. Can hardly improve on any of that!

Miles walked in 2026: 248.5
Miles walked for Onekama Challenge: 60.3

Streets in Arcadia 0.7 miles. Arcadia Marsh boardwalk twice 4.6, for a total of 5.3 miles.

See Arcadia Daze

Amazing Ashokan

The morning today was just about as close to perfect of a hike as you can get. You know, right, that if there are 10 things that make a perfect hike and you get all 10 of them, it's a dream. Wake up. Nine would be amazing, probably 6 is about normal for a good hike. This was close to a 9. I guess you could wish for blue water instead of ice (but then we would have missed one of the most interesting things). You might have wanted natural surface and that we would have actually seen the eagle. But this was seriously wonderful.

The weather was great. Mid fifties, warming a bit more before we finished. We had gorgeous views. We got to watch something really interesting. I managed to ID some of the surrounding mountains. We met an interesting couple and had a surprising interaction with another man.

Marie took me out to the Ashokan Reservoir where we hiked once seven years ago (link at end). The reservoir was built in the early 1900s to provide water to New York City. This trail used to be a road, but was closed and turned into a trail when a new road farther from the water was built. This is the view east, and I think the jagged peaks are Snake Rocks.

But not so fast. First we tried to do another piece of the Ashokan Rail Trail. I had not been on that before. However, the piece that has views of the reservoir was totally ice covered, and we opted not to do that. We walked a bit the other direction. This is one of the old mile markers indicating 16 miles to Kingston.

But we wanted to see the water, so we turned around and went to a different trailhead. You can see what a beautiful day it was!

The whole edge of the reservoir is lined with native rock. It makes dizzying patterns.

Our first interesting people encounter was with a man to whom we said, "Good morning." He countered with, "Why is it a good morning?" I don't think anyone has ever asked me that before at least after the casual greeting! I quickly said, "Because I am hiking with my best friend and it's a beautiful here."

This is South Mountain (which is west of the reservoir) on the right, and the larger one is Ashokan High Point which is the tallest peak surrounding the reservoir on the left. Ashokan is 3,081 feet tall.

This is perhaps my favorite view from the Reservoir. The little nipple to the right of center is, I'm pretty sure, Slide Mountain which is the high point in the Catskills at 4180 feet. The eastern terminus of the Finger Lakes Trail has been extended to there, but I've not yet done that new piece. It will be an all-day hilly hike to get from the last parking area to the new terminus. At least 8 miles total. In front of that is Cornell Mountain with, I think, Samuels Peak in the front left.

This is the roadway that crosses near the middle, and I'm pretty sure the peak in the background (these are all part of the Catskill Mountains) is Ticetonyk (TICE-tun-ike) which is from the name Mattias TenEyk who owned it.

We walked all of the roadway today. This was where we watched the most interesing thing. The ice is breaking up, and there is one of the arches of that bridge where water is flowing from one side of the reservoir to the other. There were slabs of ice being swirled around in a huge circle on the downstream side. You can see a few in the picture above. It was like watching plate tectonics speeded up. We watched the slabs (plates) hitting each other. Sometimes one would go beneath the other (subduction). Sometimes the lower one would be tilted upright and some even flipped completely over. It was fascinating. I began to realize how big slabs of rock could get tilted and even flipped.

We even saw some mergansers.

Walking back to the car we met a couple who were training to walk the Camino de Santiago (in Spain) in the fall. (They were wearing backpacks and I asked if they were getting ready for a hike). The man has walked all of the Appalachian Trail, and they plan to walk the Superior Hiking Trail next year. They also have some other trails in Europe in mind because their son lives in Zurich. We traded stories and names.

We saw an eagle nest, but not the birds. The ice patterns were artistic. We saw an air boat that almost certainly belongs to New York City Department of Environmental Protection (which operates the reservoir) going over the ice to reach a buoy of some kind (water sampling?).

What a wonderful day! It rained in the afternoon, but that's OK. We played our game, fixed dinner, read a little in the book we are currently sharing, and then I had a Zoom meeting.

Miles walked in 2026: 87.8

New York, Ashokan Reservoir Rail Trail 1.2 miles, and Ashokan Promenade 4.2 miles. Total 5.4 miles.

See Ashokan Reservoir Hike

Yesterday's Hike

I spent most of today just doing yard and garden work, so I'll catch you up on yesterday's hike. Cathy and I, with new acquaintance Barb (who also joined us last week), went out to hike at West Shore Community College. It wasn't sunshine-and-fall-leaves gorgeous like the hike in the link below, but it was fine.

Here are Cathy and Barb on the bridge at the south end of the pond.

The pond doesn't have color around it yet- the grass is finally getting green, but not the leaves.

We did see a pair of bufflehead ducks.

We walked enough of the mowed trails that are the cross-country team course that we got in a total of 3.2 miles. I wore the big pack. It's feeling easier.

Sandhill cranes here today, and I almost stepped on a garter snake.

Miles hiked in 2025: 141.7

West Shore Community College trails, 3.2 miles

See WSCC Hike- Try Again

Best Photos of June 2022

   
Here are the best of the pictures I took from June 2022. I'm still working on processing trip pictures.

From June 2022, during the big hike, I've chosen what I think are the 10 best pictures to share. Sunshine makes for more nice pictures, but I still have a ton of marginal ones, or just shots that prove I saw something but won't win any kudos.

I am saying these pictures are "best," not because they necessarily tell the story best, but because I think they are simply the best actual photographs. I've left them full size, so you can click on them and see them larger. That always makes photos look better. Two are cropped a bit, and one had the color saturation increased a tad.

I spent June finishing New York and Vermont, and then drove to North Dakoa and started home.

These are arranged chronologically... it seemed to work.

One of the most beautiful places for views on the NCT is Jones Hill. It's not very big by Adirondack standards, but it has the proverbial location, location, location. This is the view to the south with possibly Beech Hill visible across the valley.

And chronologically, only 20 minutes later, the view to the north from the same Jones Hill across the Blue Ridge Range (the one in the Adirondacks) in some mist. Honestly, it's kind of hard to not show ten photos all from that hill!

At Crown Point, NY, on Lake Champlain, this is the Colonial era fort with the new (2011) Lake Champlain Bridge in the background. I like the contrast of shapes and time periods.

You know I'm a sucker for texture pictures. How about going from lush, green eastern mountains to dry cracked mud in North Dakota?

This is some shallows in an arm of Lake Audubon. I liked the various colors of earth and plant material.

I believe I have a few nice pictures of yellow-headed blackbirds from the summer I worked in northern Illinois, but I've hardly seen one of them since then. Not a spectacular picture, but decent.

As you may remember, North Dakota was wonderful for seeing bird life. That doesn't mean I got great pictures, because I'm only a photographer of opportunity. I don't stand around waiting for the right light and spending 30 minutes creeping up on a bird or hoping it will move its head just an inch. Nevertheless, this is the best picture I've every gotten of a northern shoveler duck.

A thirteen-lined ground squirrel was straining to see far ahead from his burrow. It's not the best picture I've ever taken of that critter, but I like the depth in the shot. It almost looks 3-D.

This is just some ordinary grass along the canal, but I like the lighting and contrast of textures.

Finally, this is one of my favorite shots from North Dakota. I just like the shapes defined by the fence and the hill.

Well, I counted wrong. I had one more texture picture, but I think it's not as good, and I've been trying to limit these collections to ten.

In other news: I edited and wrote. What else is new? I must be making progress, the word count goes up.

See Best Photos of May 2022

Hike 100 Challenge 2023 - Day 401

With a little digital magic on pictures from another day (the two hollow logs picture was too good not to use) I bring you my Hike 100 Challenge completion for 2023! Lots of people have finished before me this year, but that's OK. I haven't missed a year (although one year I had to do a couple of December hikes to finish!), so this is number 8.

The thing you will notice immediately is that the snow is gone again and the sun is shining! Works for me. This lovely scene is at Dollar Lake.

Some ducks were swimming around. The pictures aren't great- I had to zoom too far, but this is a Bufflehead female and then male.

I love trail like this! The only thing that would make it better would be some leaves on the deciduous trees. But... no bugs, no poison ivy, sunshine, warm but not hot. Can't beat those.

I hadn't realized I would go through this section today. This is new since my first E2E hike, but I did see this on a group hike at the 2019 Celebration.

This is an area where there are a lot of white pine that are over 150 years old.

This is a lot of pictures, but there was a variety of things to see today. The trail then closely follows TwentyTwo Creek. I played with the lighting a bit on this picture to make it look more like what my eyes saw. The camera always seems to "enhance" the reddish brown of the leaves rather than the richness of the greens and browns.

And I discovered there is now a bench in memory of a great trail friend, and a great friend of the trail, Arlen Matson. It wasn't break time, but I sat there a minute to remember Arlen.

I was hiking in shirtsleeves before I finished. The sunlight on conifers and moss was exquisite.

I will confess that the last couple of miles were hard. My knees are rebelling against getting up to speed again, but I did it.

Miles today: 13.2. Total miles so far: 4478.0.

See Mother Nature Had a Relapse