Hi everyone. I hope you are getting a chance to enjoy this nice spring weather.

Once again, I’m writing to ask for your help. As you may know, there has been unauthorized trail building activity taking place on the Hammond Hill State Forest. For example, a section of narrow trail has been built between Cannan Rd. and Y7, along with a small bridge and log ramp east of Y7. The trail and structures have not been approved by the DEC. Unauthorized trail building is of concern because: 1) improperly built trails and structures may create a personal safety hazard, 2) unauthorized trails are not officially mapped or marked, and may confuse and/or frustrate first time visitors or and/or novice recreationists, and 3) improperly located trails may result in chronic erosion and/or maintenance problems and further stretch already thin volunteer and DEC stewardship capabilities.

Please help me get the word out on this. People should not be building new trails or structures of any kind without written authorization from the DEC. I’d like to solve this problem through communication and education if at all possible. People advocating for new trails are invited to contact me and/or participate in the unit management planning (UMP) process. A draft UMP for the Hammond Hill and Yellow Barn State Forests, called Twin Sheds, is currently being prepared. Additional information on the Twin Sheds unit is available at: http://www.dec.ny.gov/press/62269.html

Please help. If you witness people constructing new trail structures or trails, please immediately report the activity to DEC Forest Ranger Joan Oldroyd (jtoldroy@gw.dec.state.ny.us or 607.798.1797) and provide as much information as you can (i.e., license plate, vehicle color, etc.).

Thanks for listening. I personally appreciate all of your work on - and advocacy for - the Hammond Hill State Forest trail network.

Sincerely,

- John

Attachment: Hammond Hill State Forest map and brochure

***************************
John M. Clancy
Senior Forester, Region 7
NYS DEC Division of Lands and Forests
Bureau of State Land Management
1285 Fisher Ave.
Cortland, New York 13045
(607) 753-3095 or 800-388-8244 ext. 258
FAX: (607) 753-8532
Email: jmclancy@gw.dec.state.ny.us

- Visit the DEC Web Site at:
http://www.dec.ny.gov/
- DEC Division of Lands and Forests Web Site at: http://www.dec.ny.gov/about/650.html
- DEC Region 7 Web Site at: http://www.dec.ny.gov/about/615.html#Region

- Strategic Plan for State Forest Management
http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/64567.html

- New York State Conservationist Magazine
http://www.dec.ny.gov/pubs/conservationist.html

Member, Society of American Foresters
Serving Since 1991

Laws change; people die; the land remains.

- Abraham Lincoln

DRYDEN NY - It looks like Hammond Hill State Forest escaped the worst of the wind and water damage that many other parts of NYS received from the hurricane. We do have some wind damage. There are a lot of small branches and trees down on the trails, most of this can be cleaned up by conscientious trail users if they take the time to do a little each time they are out.  For example, my small exercise group removed 2 medium sized trees with help from my handy little folding trail saw this past Tuesday night.

Send BIG tree locations to me and I will post them here on this forum thread http://canaaninstitute.org/bikeski/viewtopic.php?p=1756#1756 in anticipation of the upcoming fall trail session … so we have kind of a list.

We (”Friends of Hammond Hill”) will be posting a date and time soon (here on this BLOG) for our annual fall trail cleanup. This is in anticipation of the winter recreation season and is traditionally a combined effort of many different trail users: equestrians, mountain bikers, hikers, xc-skiers and so forth.

UPDATE: Date set for trail work session at Hammond Hill: Trail Work Session Sat Oct 15th 2011 at 10:00 am starting at Ann & Charlie Leonard’s house. Their driveway is on the left just before the HH parking lot.

Looks like Tuesday and Thursday night hikes. Then on Sunday a hike with light trail work like last week! If you are not on the email list send me a hello for directions, meetup times and etc! -Mike :)

Four of us hiking at 6:30 pm starting from my house. Brenda, Caren, Chris and myself. We headed up the hill accompanied by our big goofy dog, Buddha. Buddha looks a bit like Scooby Doo just so you can picture that image in your mind - same size and color. Yeah, kinda big. Our other dog, Hoju was missing - he had been out earlier with Ray and most likely had his head down a  woodchuck hole or something. We figured Hoju would find us up the forest as he doesn’t like to miss out on a hike.

The sun was setting and it was a little hard to see, but we were resisting using our headlamps just yet. As we entered the Red pine forest and the trail leveled out along the ridge we spotted something in the trail. First let me explain Hoju dog logic: he makes regular appearances in the trail almost always up ahead of us a bit as if to say, ‘this way you idiot humans” … “why are you so slow?” … so we saw something in the trail and assumed it was Hoju .. Buddha was with us. Brenda said “Buddha! It’s Hoju, go get him!” … Buddha bounded up the trail Scooby style and slammed on the brakes. We thought “wow Hoju is acting weird” …. now Buddha was acting weird ….

It was a HUGE porcupine! Yikes! Yes, we have porcupines at Hammond Hill! Buddha chased it around in the woods a bit while we hollered at him to stop, I finally grabbed his collar and dragged him off … popped my headlight on to look at his muzzle and yanked out a face full of quills before his Scooby brain had a change to figure out what hit him. If you leave the quills in they work their way in deeper and it takes a Veterinarian to get them out .. so don’t delay.

This was the closest to our home I have seen a porcupine. The neighbors have been seeing a bear getting into their birdfeeders … but that’s another story I guess. We don’t feed the birds in the summer and not much in the winter.

We are hiking now on Tue and Thur evenings - send me an email if interested in joining us! -Mike

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I am sending a general invitation for the readers of this BLOG to become authors. It works through your browser so it does not matter if you have a Mac or PC or whatever. You should have a good internet connection and the latest version of your favorite browser. That’s all!

I think this will broaden the usefulness of this outdoor web space for or group.

MORE — see also “Writing for this BLOG” under links to the right ….

COMMENTS — You do not have to be registered as an author to comment. The BLOG may ask you for your email address, that is just so I can tell it is not spam …

If you want to write a real article though, ask for a username and password, i can set it up quickly!

Mike

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