Rounding the Corner

 Visit #1353, Saturday 5 March 22, 0820-1055hrs, 5.3 miles, 9.8lbs. of litter.

Temps in the 20's, rising to the low 40's, sunny with a light breeze.

With spring a few weeks away, you can hear the ice cracking on Merimere Reservoir as it melts. The sound is reverberant and eerie.

From a distance, looking at the bare hillsides you would think the trails were clear to hike. I was going to find out by hiking a lesser used trail at the north end of Hubbard Park.

I walked around Merimere Reservoir, crossed over the Maloney Canal, and picked up the trail. It was all hardpacked snow and ice, which would have been too slippery for most people. But I wisely brought my crampons which were a necessity and a godsend.

Halfway up the trail I found a fallen tree, which I hope to remove next week in a Power Tool Weekend®!

Above is a good depiction of how ice/snowbound and slippery the trail was.

I reached the top of the trail and hiked back to Hubbard Park.

Adding to the Season of the Missing Glove 2021/22 collection, are entries #12 and 13!

Last week I was talking to a relative who walks their dog regularly in Hubbard Park, and they were amazed at the frequent smell of marijuana they would encounter. I agreed; during last week's adventure, when I arrived at the park BEFORE 7AM,  I could smell it from a passing car.

What we both experienced is apparently not unusual, as I found while picking up litter, and so close to the playscape, too.

With little litter collected on the road around the reservoir and on the trails, I took some extra time to clean up the block surrounding the playscape, and inside the playscape as well, thus the final photo from the inside of the playscape fence.