Sarah and I went hiking on Saturday at Lake Griffy. We made the mistake of not checking to see if there was a basketball game (there was). This meant we had to sit in traffic on the Bypass for a while on our way to the trails. It wasn’t a big deal, but we ended up hiking shorter trails than we’d planned. We settled on hiking the Ravine Trail and the Overlook Trail. It was a beautiful day to be outdoors, with a high temperature of right at 32 degrees F and a bit of snow on the ground. We brought Rob with us.

I brought my new/old camera with me, the Yashica Lynx 500, this time loaded with normal color print film. Once again, without a functional light meter, I had to guess at the exposure. I mostly got it right.

Sarah and Rob

We had never hiked here before, and we really enjoyed the trails. The ones we hiked mostly follows the contours of the side of some hills, never fully descending into the ravines below but offering great views of them and hiking over some rolling terrain. There were a couple of waterfalls that were frozen and looked really neat.

Waterfall

Rustic handrail

Old railroad right-of-way that was never finished

Rob, running

Sarah

Ravine

Hill

A view of the lake

Rob and me

Sarah and Rob climbing the stairs

We once again appreciated how much better hiking can be in the winter. There weren’t many people there, we didn’t have to carry as much water, we didn’t work up as much of a sweat, and many of the views we enjoyed would have been blocked by leaves on the trees.

Lake Griffy is interesting because it’s just north of town and part of campus in particular. But once you hike back a little ways you don’t hear much road noise. As we looked down toward the lake, we realized it was frozen over and people were walking and skating on the lake! I was surprised it was frozen enough to allow this, but we did have a pretty cold spell for a while so I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. Hiking distance: about 2.8 miles.

After our hike, we headed down to play on the lake’s frozen surface. Some people were playing hockey, there were a few dogs, and everyone was having a great time. It sure was weird to walk where we’ve been canoeing before.

Lake Griffy

Sarah

Ice skate designs

Stick

Me

Hill

Docks

Dock

Dangling my feet in the water

Lake Griffy. The black specks on the surface, in the distance, are people.

A few words about this camera: in short, it rocks. I noticed some vignetting on some of these shots that I wasn’t expecting. It seems to particularly flatter people, the lens has a crispness to it but simultaneously just enough softness to make portraits look really great. So far, guessing the exposure is working surprisingly well — in fact, the prints look better than these scans, which were done rather poorly at CVS. At any rate, not bad for a camera from the 60s, for $30 on eBay, including shipping.

Sarah and I went hiking on the Pate Hollow Trail yesterday, a 7.7-mile hiking trail near Paynetown SRA by Lake Monroe. We did the shorter 3.8-mile eastern section. Initially, I thought it might be better not to take Rob (the dog), as I figured it’d be really muddy and didn’t feel like giving him a bath after our hike. But as we started getting ready, Rob somehow figured out what was going on (I know I didn’t tell him) and got really excited, begging to come with us. We couldn’t resist, so Rob joined us for this hike.

It was a dreary, slightly foggy day in the upper 20s, snowing a bit on and off. Really the kind of day that makes you want to sit at home and not do much of anything, but it really was beautiful once we got moving. Sarah and I have found that we much prefer winter hiking to intense summer heat. Granted, it hasn’t been extremely cold on our hikes thus far, but in colder weather, we can always add layers. In the summer, the heat can be brutal, and there’s little you can do about it. We don’t have to carry as much water during the winter, either.

Pines along the Pate Hollow Trail

The trail starts right behind the Paynetown DNR office and is pretty close to the highway at first, but before long you are away from it and it’s surprising how quiet it is, given its proximity to the highway. The trail starts on a ridge and gradually descend into a valley. You barely even notice you’re going downhill. The trail crosses a creek a couple of times and then begins a gradual climb that doesn’t feel too difficult, but before long you realize you are way above the valley, and in fact higher than you were at the trailhead.

Rob, running

The trail was well-marked, with maps with yellow arrows indicating your current location, at each intersection. Since we were doing only part of the trail, an old dirt road served as a shortcut.

The old road

The trail followed the ridge tops for a while longer, climbing higher before descending into another ravine and climbing back up the other side.

Rob peers across the ravine

Creek

Rob and Sarah

Hills in the distance

This was a really cool trail, and we want to go back and hike the whole thing. The western half of it goes near Lake Monroe, so it should be even more scenic.

Sarah and I hiked the 4.5-mile Lake Trail in Yellowwood State Forest today. Fortunately we didn’t see any logging going on in Yellowwood. I brought my Nikon D50 on this hike instead of the point & shoot camera I’ve been bringing, and I think it made a world of difference.

We had never hiked this trail before, and I was really looking forward to it, since it goes around Yellowwood Lake, one of my favorite lakes in the area.  It starts out following the Jackson Creek Trail, which we had hiked before, but soon splits off. And follows the west side of the lake fairly closely. It has numerous ups and downs as it goes winding in the nooks and crannies of the shoreline, then going uphill, further inland, and back down to the lake again. It’s a great time of year to hike this trail because with the leaves off the trees, you have a great view of the lake this whole time.

Lake Trail

Jackson Creek

The lake sprawls into the distance

Sarah by Yellowwood Lake

Trees on a hill

We approached the end of the lake and hiked across the dam. We had picnicked here before when we hiked the High King Hill and Scarce o’Fat trails before.

Crossing the dam

Another view of the lake

We then had to cross the creek by the spillway, which was probably the most challenging part of the hike. It didn’t help that the trail, which had been well-marked to this point, was incorrectly marked here so we ended up trying to cross the creek in the wrong place. There was also a steep slope up to a sketchy stairway, and Sarah slipped on the wooden slat forming the stair, smashing her leg on a piece of rebar.

Creek Crossing

Dangerous stairs

The hike on the east side of the lake is much more difficult, and it goes pretty far from the lake, so the scenery isn’t as good. The trail twists and turns, seemingly going uphill at every possible turn. It also joined up with a horse trail for a while, which was OK, but not ideal. It was still fun and the woods are beautiful in their own right, but the first half of the trail was much more to our liking.

Sarah

The trail joined up with an interpretive trail for a bit and some trees were labeled, which would be educational if I could ever remember anything like that.

Labeled trees

Tree sign

We noticed that for a while there were two blazes on the trees, but one of them was crossed out with red paint. It appeared someone made a mistake and put blazes for the interpretive trail on the wrong trail. This made me think of Doug and his painting blue blazes along the Superior Hiking Trail. Reading about his efforts there really make me appreciate those who paint blazes on our trails. But whoever made this mistake must have been pretty mad at themselves, both for making things more confusing to hikers and for having to go back, paint over the incorrect blazes, and paint the blazes on the right trail.

Botched trail blazes

All in all, it was a great hike. We discussed possibly doing this trail in the opposite direction next time to finish with our favorite section and lots of great lake views.

Yellowwood Lake

Yesterday I rode up to Morgan-Monroe State Forest, a route I’ve done several times but always enjoy. At 35 miles, it was a bigger ride than I’ve done in a while due to the weather, but I was feeling good so I felt a longer ride was in order. It was in the upper 30s and the roads were dry and in good shape. I’m not going to do a detailed write-up, but here are some photos.

Field and power lines

Musgrave Orchards (this place has great cider)

Bryant Creek Lake had a layer of ice

Thin ice on Bryant Creek Lake

More logging

Cherry Lake

My bicycle

Acorns

My saddle and new(ish) saddle bag

Main Forest Road

Rays of sunlight striking Old State Road 37

Rock Shelter Trail

I haven’t done as much cycling as I’d hoped during my time off, but Sarah and I have done some hiking instead. We got away from hiking for a while, and I think we both forgot how much we enjoy it. We’re lucky that it’s been mostly in the 40s lately, great hiking weather. On Saturday, we hiked the Rock Shelter Trail, which we have hiked before (read about it here). We took our dog Rob with us, who really needed the exercise.

We were dismayed to find a lot of logging going on in Morgan-Monroe State Forest, particularly by this trail. A huge semi was taking up most of the parking lot when we arrived, and we kept hearing logging trucks through part of the hike. Other than that and occasional blast from a hunter’s rifle, it was a very quiet and peaceful hike. And aside from the trucks, we didn’t see a single other person on the trail. Rob loved it, but didn’t pace himself. Of course, there was no way for him to know how long the hike would be. He was running around a lot and especially liked the parts down by the creek. Toward the end of our 3-mile hike, he was getting pretty tired.

Us

Rob

Looking through my water bottle

Trees on a hill

Sarah and Rob hiking

Rob

Creek bed

Me, in the rock shelter

Moss

Mushroom

Pond

Sarah

Logging