Rope Climb! - Earle Park

I got out for a quick but super humid hike before the big rainstorm came. The highlight of the trek was the steep hill to the river which required rope assistance!

By the pond...

Gully ascent

Behind the farm fields

(boring mile-wide farm road)

Nice view of the river

The STEEP rope-assisted hill (kinda crazy)

At the river's edge - see the rope swing and small beach?

The ascent back...

What a steep trail!

See the rope? It was needed both on the descent and ascent!

Ride to Hell and Back!

WTF? A green trail on Trailforks should be easy, right? Well it was relatively flat but ridiculously overgrown with numerous deadfalls so the ride turned out to be a nightmare!

Getting stabbed by pricklers,  slogging over numerous tree blockages and trying to discern which way to go on a myriad of different pseudo hard-to-even-see trails made riding the green level trail one of the worst rides of my life!

After riding thru 4ft prickers with shorts on I thought once I got here things would improve - NOPE!

Where's the trail?

One of many blowdowns I had to scoot over

Never thought I'd be so happy to ride on pavement!

The paved trail along the river was super easy riding but a welcome relief

I turned around here, where the pavement ended

A the north end of the paved trail - very pretty!

Hilliard Park and New State Trails

Hilliard Park Trail

This was super short - blink and you miss it!

Yep - the river is that green...

New State Trail

This was a much more interesting trail. Although I only hiked a section of it, there were some surprisingly rough stretches,

No tree - its not autumn yet!

The "Catwalk"

The riverbank here was a 40+ ft cliff but the trail continued on thru a series of catwalks and steps. Much of it was seriously overgrown as it appears this is not that frequently used.  There were even remnants of a former substantial footbridge washed out by a flood.

Nice View!

I swear this looked like a scene out of Jurassic Park...

Waiting for the dinosaurs to appear!

Here's where I turned around

Two more photos on the way back...

Great Pond - no bugs!

 I returned to Great Pond today to do a Flute and Forest Chat - thankfully there were no bugs!

The Podcast is on YouTube:

Rich's Forest and Flute Chat #9 - Great Pond

Oakland Trail - Manchester

Today I hiked the Oakland Trail in north Manchester. It follows the Hockanum River and even has a short island loop as well. I parked in the Kohl's parking lot just up the street from the Toyota Dealership.

The Island Loop

ALERT: animal on trail :-)

Remnants of a small dam

Main South Trail 

This was a little more scenic - heading southwesterly along the south bank on the river.

Here's where the trail officially ended

If I ventured on I would have ended up at the funky abandoned mill I visited on Monday. That was a little sketchy LINK > so I turned around and headed back...

The "money shot" :-)