Another Trip to Plan
On October 20 I did a short day-hike on the Donut Hole Trail. The purpose of this hike was to scout another portion of the trail for a future thru-hike of the entire trail. Hopefully the thru-hike will be next year, but logistics may dictate otherwise. The hike started at Hyner Run State park and proceeded north a few miles until reaching Abe's Run road where I had lunch and then returned to the park. One trail feature I got to experience was, paraphrasing the trail guide only a little, was a nasty 150 foot deep (and steep) gully (I went down, then up in both directions, it was so steep a wrong step on the fallen leaves would have meant a nasty tumble or worse). Although unpleasant to hike through, it was useful information to have for a future trip. Anyway, the weather was decent although chilly and only a few people were actually on the trail (and they were near the park when I saw them). There was some lumber cutting noise coming from an area near the gully, but I could not see the equipment involved. Such noise does tend to take away from a hike. A picture I took is below.
Another reason for the hike that day was to put to rest the remainder of my dog Hoppy's remains (see an earlier post). I placed her ashes on a spot (away from the trail) we had camped at on a well known trail (not the Donut Hole trail, but one near it) some years previously. If you come across the spot I placed them please do not disturb them. These are some pictures from that part of the day.
The next posts will concentrate on planning for next years hikes.