With parking at Hubbard Park off-limits due to the Daffodil Festival, I had to use the back door.
Visit #1597, Saturday 2 May 26, 6:15-8:25AM, 4.4 miles, 2.9 lbs. of litter.
Temps in the 40s, with intermittent showers then clearing.
Saturday morning I parked in Berlin on Park Drive and walked in through the north gate. I was greeted with some new graffiti on the spillway.
The good thing about this graffiti artist (and I use the term loosely) is they were nice enough to put the year of creation on the end of their tag. That lets me know I wasn't too slack in my duties.
If you recall last week's entry, I mentioned finding some leaf bags at a trailhead in Hubbard Park. Chris Bourdon, Director of Parks and Recreation, notified me his staff had picked up the bags. Thanks, Chris!
And also if you recall that same blog post, I found some unusual blue ribbons all along one relatively seldom used trail. At one point the ribbons went in two different directions. This week I would follow the opposite direction from last week and remove whatever more blue ribbons I encountered.
This week I removed an additional 22 ribbons following an even more obscure trail, and from the evidence I can safely conclude it is an illegally built mountain bike trail.
Some evidence besides tire tracks includes this tree root which was profiled with a hatchet or similar tool.
Anyway, I exited the trail near West Peak and while policing the parking lot found this collection of stickers on the fence.
I later tried researching the meaning of this bumper sticker but came up empty. If anyone has an answer, contact me, and I'll think of a prize for whoever can solve this mystery.
About the time I began to remove the stickers, it started to rain, hard enough to put on my raincoat.
As I followed the road down toward the reservoir, a parks department Jeep, Lic. 300.ME I believe, passed me going up presumably to Castle Craig perhaps to put up the flag? Five minutes later he was passing me again heading downhill.
There was no way I was going to move this off to the side but with my handy folding saw I managed just fine.
Before:
Now, about that graffiti. I returned to the park early Sunday morning to do business.
I couldn't safely reach the right side of the tag from this side of the spillway so I approached it from
the opposite side, above the guardrail. Consequently I wasn't able to see that well looking down at it from an awkward angle, hence the less-than-complete job vs. the left side. I hope you still approve!
