Heavy Lifting

 Visit #1341, Sunday 12 December 21, 7:30-9:55AM, 5.8 miles, 17.8lbs. of litter.

Temps in the low 40's, mostly sunny and very breezy.

A frosty December welcome to the incoming city councilors, who have been added to my e-mail distribution list!

Update: Last week I reported finding a wallet and my attempt to find the owner. We did correspond and I mailed the wallet out this past week, which he received and signed for yesterday.

Edwin sent me the video of his drone, which eventually led to him losing his wallet.

You can watch the video HERE.

This week I would return to the location to remove a tree fallen across the trail, and for something else.

Early Sunday morning I slung my chainsaw laden backpack on my shoulders and hiked up to just past the Halfway House to remove a tree bent over the trail.

I had been eyeballing this tree for a couple years as it bent lower and lower over the trail. This morning I finally did something about it.

Hiking up toward Castle Craig, I stopped at the fallen tree I found last week.

There's no need to step over it anymore!

Now the REAL heavy lifting would begin.

While crawling among the rocks last week, I found some wrought iron, likely from Castle Craig and certainly many decades old. I'd seen it on previous climbs on the talus slope but thought it too heavy to carry. Well, I stopped making excuses and bundled the three pieces up, added them to my backpack, and headed back to the park.

When I reached Merimere Reservoir, I had to take a break. If I had to guess, I'd say the iron added 30lbs. to my load. I'd love to know what its original purpose was and its age.

I had dreams of schlepping this all the way back to the park but the reality was, it was all to clumsy to carry. So I wimped out and dropped it off at the water treatment plant. Surely the weekend employee will pick it up when he stopped by Sunday morning...

...yet when I caught the employee's arrival later that morning, rather than throw it in his pickup, he tossed it aside and drove in the compound without a second thought. I'll be curious to see if it's gone next week.

I returned to my car and dropped off my chainsaw, then returned to the road around Merimere Reservoir for more litter pickup and another adventure.

For the past few years, there's a tree at Echo Point that gets decorated for Christmas. This year would be special because I heard there was an "ornament" with my name on it! Of course my ego had to go see if this was true.

I found the tree and the wreath.

And then there it was, an ornament with a personalized note to ME on the backside!

It makes me all warm and fuzzy to know someone's thinking of me during the holiday! (Yes; it's addressed to me. I know more than I'm revealing.)

With joy in my heart and a spring in my step after seeing the ornament, I turned around and headed back to the park. Along the way I came upon my Find of the Week.

I was going to wash this hat and take it to Goodwill, but when I traced the logo to a nationwide cannabis dispensary chain, I changed my mind.

I dropped off the last of my heavy lifting for the week, without a contact high.