I am hosting Tue and Thur night hikes this week. If you are on the email list, please RSVP if you are coming, this helps with car pooling and helps me get psyched to get out there! Thanks. And if you are not on that list, email me if you’d like to join us for an outing sometime!

On Sunday, my neighbor Ann Leonard is hosting the big trail clean up session (see below). If you know of any big logs that require chain saw work, now is the time to let us know. Please be as specific as possible in your descriptive location of obstacles. -m

This is the announcement for the annual “big trail clean-up” event: a long standing tradition of all the different user groups getting together in anticipation of one of the shortest seasonal , but never-the-less most favored, uses of this multi-use trail system at Hammond Hill Forest: cross country skiing. The wet autumn snow storms often bring a slew of trail litter that needs picking up! Most of the summer trail users (mountain bikers, hikers, runners, dog walkers, horse back riders, etc..) also xc-ski or snow shoe - so this event usually gets a good turnout! Message follows from Jack Rueckheim, president of the Cayuga Nordic Ski Club.

“The Hammond Hill trails need some work.  The heavy snow has bent lots of tree limbs down across the trails.  A lot of them will spring back up after the snow melts, but some won’t.  There are also fallen trees across some trails.  The trails are pretty much unskiable right now (even though there was 4″ of snow up there yesterday).

We’ll be meeting at the Leonards’ (long driveway to the left just before the HH Rd. parking lot) at 9:00AM Sunday, Nov. 16 to clean it up.  We need lots of help and some tools such as weed whackers, loppers, pruners, and bow saws.

These trails will not get cleared unless we do it.  The DEC is not staffed for this.  Regular trail maintenance like this is done by volunteers only. So, if you can, please set aside some time to help out on Nov.16.” – Jack R

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 :)

Trail work - We had a great turnout for our mini trail work session! In addition to myself: Brenda, Iori, Marilyn, Cindy, Tim, Scott, PJ and later Hank. We covered trail Y7, Y8, most of Y4 and R2. There is one really big maple tree on R2 on the north side of radio tower hill in that wet zone that will require major chainsaw work. Otherwise all these trails are now clear.

MORE DETAILS [and big trees] ON FORUM THREAD INCLUDING MAP http://canaaninstitute.org/bikeski/viewtopic.php?p=1131#1131

Please email us [ or leave a comment here ] with the exact location of major trees that require chainsaw work, to better prepare us for the big trail session of Nov 16. Ideally we will post those on the FORUM thread and the map. More information on the blue trails would be good. [Frank?] Also tell is if any of those big trees get cleared before that event. Thank you. Mike :-)

There is snow and ice on the trails and the trees. About 2-4″ Hopefully it will melt off the trees before Sunday. But I think in general, we’ve had enough biking for the season. From now on; plan on the Sunday outings being a HIKE interspersed with light trail work. We’ll carry one tool each but try to keep moving along …

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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