Quebec Bike Trip 23AUG08

23AUG08 – North hero SP, Vermont
Well it has been a nice day today, great weather; sunny and warm, Sent the morning tasting beer and exploring Burlington. A nice city, but a bit too Hippy for me. “I am more hippy, cool, back to earth than hick farmer than you”! We hit the farmer market, not as large as the Rochester market.
We road from a park & Ride just north of Burlington to north Hero along the Champlain Island Bike Route, or the shoulder of Vermont Route 2. The road was a lot busier than I had anticipated. We met a large group of bikers (pedal) from Quebec. A very friendly group that made me feel the trip through will turn out fine. Still nervous, can we do the miles, speak the language, order food…
The bugs are thick, have on long sleeves and pants and they are still getting through. Worked on the bike a bit today. Trying to find a better way to secure the map to the man purse on front of the bike. Came up with a new method, lets hope it does not fall off and I can still read it.

First canoe trip of the year. We had a great relaxing morning on the West River and canal. saw many birds, a few turtles and several fisherman. Some really big carp are spawning in the shallow water and made some big disturbance every time we neared them. Wendi some fish at +3ft. We went up the Naples creek for a bit, but a tree had fallen across the entire creek preventing any further passage with out a portage. The bugs where getting thick so we turned around. Saw several great blue heroins also. It got pretty warm by hte time we got back around 12:30. Hopefullt next time we can get Fred and MaryAnne to come with us.

FLT - Conservation Trail Ed, Wendi, Pete and Mike

25May08 – Sitting on the deck at Woody and Corky’s. Just finished a nice hike along the FLT this morning. Started at the Elkdale golf course outside of Salamanca and hiked to just outside of Ellicottville with an overnight at the top of Holimont ski resort. WE started yesterday hike with a steep climb, stopping early to check out a very old stone arched bridge. It was beautiful old structure that I pan to use as a model for future painting. The trail from here to Little Rock City was full of fossils so Pete, Wendi and I had a great time looking @ prehistoric animals. We hit a bit of dirt road and then single track to the park. None of us had ever been to Little Rock City, so it was a new experience for all of us. It was interesting visually as well as geologically. It was a mini Utah with lots small narrow canyons eroded into large chunks of sand stone. We spent a good hour exploring the canyons and eating lunch.

The trail between Rock City and Hungry Hollow Rd was my favorite by far, lots of ups and downs with amazing older forests. The trail was also used for Mt biking, a bit technical in spots with large rocks, but probably ride-able for 90% of the time. We really liked the camp area at the Old Seneca Camp (CCC era camp) at Mutton Hollow. The trails where great here, a nice place to go for an overnight with mom and Chuck. We had a little “Deliverance” creepy episode at this camp ground when we came out of the woods with back packs on. The camp ground was filled with the local red neck sitting around drinking beer and other holiday red neck activities. They looked at us with our packs as though we where aliens from a different planet. Leaving this camp ground we had a steep climb up to some state service roads to about 2300ft. Ran into an older man on an old school mt bike Moots bike, old Manitou shock, no rear suspension. He said he tries to get out 3 hours a day, good for him, I am jealous. Lots of side trails in this region, need to get a map for future mt bike exploration.

I enjoyed the flat section from McCarthy Hill parking area over to the Mutton Hollow, flat, lots of plants and quite a few small rocks in the trail. More good mt biking trails (can you tell I am jones’in to mt bike). Would like to come back and ski this section into the winter and take the Holimont cross country trails to the bottom of the hill. We could not find the first bivouac at the mutton Hollow intersection so we hiked down past the lifts and large ponds to the Holimont bivouac on the shore of one of the ponds. Saw a wedding on top of the slopes with Riccola bugle band and 30-40 people that arrived via chair lift (pricey) then off to a reception. Had some dirtbikes/4-wheelers traffic most of the night, not the best night sleep.

We had an uneventful hike from the campsite to the pick up location. Stopped at Al Stoker (a retired co-worker) for a short break and then a real steep decent down the last hill, almost had to go onto all 4 for some of the sections it was so steep, some switch backs where in order. Ed did some fantastic cooking, pasta last night with oatmeal and omelets this morning; he must have been carrying 10 lbs of food.

Cold Hiking

A cold day of hiking in Hi-Tor, the temperature was around 8F the entire time with a pretty strong wind. Still not much snow on the ground so there was no need for snow shoes. We were looking for a gully we had explores several years before. With a little exploring we found the gully, but much further up the hill. We where a bit to high, and unable to get down into the gully due to the steep and high banks, ~ 50 ft high. We continued on up and eventually hit the FLT trail. We followed the official trail for a while and got to a spot that we could get into the gully. The gully was steep at this location with some spectacular ice formation as seen in the attached picture. After leaving the falls we ran into a group of grumpy old hikers, most likely form the city, that did not really appreciate the dogs. We tried not to let their comments ruin the hike. We continued up the FLT to the Blue Trail junction and followed the blue trail to the open field. Both human and dogs where getting cold so we decided to head back home. A lazy day at home for

both man and beast. Looking forward to a day in the city tomorrow (MLK holiday). Need to stop at the bike shop to get a few more bike parts, almost have the Tomac back together now.