Requiem for the old bridge (and Blue Blazing)

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day - sunny and not too cold. It was still way too muddy to mountain bike so Kevin and I decided to finish blazing the Blue Trail.

We noted some interesting  things along the the trail... that's what makes the valley so special - there is always something amazing if you just look around!

Monster face

The Coyote Crossing Bridge--washed away last fall in a nasty flood--is visible downriver. I wish I had a bugle to play Taps :-( Surprisingly its still intact but a close up of the snapped guy wires showed just how powerful the river can be...

Kevin had the Picasso touch on the blazing! :-)

  The old car chassis is still there - but every year its a little more weather worn...

 Lastly up by the Indian Ledges we marveled at this huge quartz boulder - the Valley never dissapoints!

Crampons at pValley

I went back into the Park today (Sunday) to see how our blue blazing held up. This time I used my crampons! All the blue blazing  is looking good (phew!)

 Couldn't resist snapping this photo :-)

Finally - Snow!

March 2nd - We finally got some snow. I took a walk in my local park (Woodway) and enjoyed wearing my snowboots (for a change!)

Virgin  snow!! 

My footsteps...

Duh - bring your crampons dude!!

I took a hike over at Wilton Woods today - but stupidly didn't take my crampons!  I hiked the Orange to the White Trail and realizing it was almost impossible to ascend the cliff on the White, I turned around and went out on the Blue.

 It was super icy and I even took a spill on this iced-over section of the Orange along the cliff  CWAZY!!

Down by the Riverside (Again)

Another gorgeous day for February! The caboose piqued my curiosity...

"Pier 66 within Hudson River Park in New York City  includes a Lackawanna railroad barge a historic rail float bridge, an authentic 1900’s Lackawanna caboose, and the retired New York City Fire Boat, John J Harvey." Further Details >

My handy bag of pretzels ensured I make new friends :-)

A view back to the overwhelming skyscrapers....

 

Yep - under the Highline there's greenery as well :-)

 Need I say more? This area is ritzy now...

Revisiting the High Line

Back on July 11th 2016, on a beautiful warm sunny day,  I documented my visit to the High Line on my railroad-related blog.  Today was a gorgeous day -(in the 50s -- amazing for February !!) so I spent my lunch hour on a quick trek back on this wonderful park/railroad remnant.

lt's always good to see rails :-)

Powerful piece of art!
(view full screen)

Frozen Face

Knowing the ground was finally frozen enough to bike, I was itching to get out again. It was so nasty cold, for the first 15 minutes of my ride, I thought my face was gonna freeze off!

Even with a balaclava it was piercingly cold. I finally switched from grip to warm on my winter gloves because my hands were getting numb. Fortunately after a bit, it warmed up a bit enough to switch back to the grip setting :-)

I parked on Riverside and rode in thru the playground on the White Trail - I wasn't feeling very ambitious today but I did want to get a photo of the "straight shot" on the re-blazed White Trail  thru the Tall Pines Area.

I checked out the Blue Trail boardwalk in the swamp - confirming it's moved about 3ft since we re centered it! Cwazy!!

 I paused at Turtle Rock and took a short video of the rushing water.

 Not much into selfies but since it was so friggin' cold - I took one...