Cold x3

MY cold is mostly gone, but cold weather, not quite.

Visit #1063, Saturday 11 March 17, 10:00AM-12:35PM, 5.6 miles.
Temps in the 20's, mostly sunny with bone chilling high winds.

Last week I found a couple trees/branches felled by recent high winds. This week I called a couple of my park informers and asked them to recon the trails to look for anything else that may need removal from the trails in the aftermath. Then I could plan an efficient route to remove everything in one trip.

Thanks this week to Paul Bernier who joined me, doing most of the heavy lifting and performed "behind the lens" duties while I operated the power tools.

First up was something I hadn't discovered last week because I bypassed the Yellow Trail.

  

Done.

The next tree had been bending over more with time. Someone had propped it up with a stick.

Here's an action shot of me carrying it away.

We hiked a steep trail up to the road leading to Castle Craig, where we reached the next fallen tree.

More manly chainsawing ensued.

We crossed the road and picked up another trail heading downslope. Below, I'm cutting the remnants of a branch across the trail. Paul was a little bit slow on the uptake with the camera, so no Before photo.

Next was this leaning tree which was tenuously being held up.

Here's another view.

A little smart cutting and a little safety, and it dropped.

Clearing the fallen tree.

To reach the last tree, we bushwhacked through the woods to save time, reaching the Blue Trail high above Merimere Reservoir.

A portrait-style after shot. That's Paul Bunyan taking a break.

We then turned around and hiked to the road back to Hubbard Park, the most direct route. Along the way, we came upon this timely piece of humor.

I may not support Trump, but I certainly don't support graffiti. I'll see if I can't take care of this next week.

Despite last week's snow, I did manage to pick up some trash on the way back to the park.

A real bomb of a Nor'easter is expected to hit on Tuesday- plug in your shovel!