Thursday morning started out bright and early. My target was Inman Gulf which lies between Watertown and the Adirondack Park. Unfortunately, this was to be a solo visit. Shannon had to work and Chinook just wasn’t up to the trip.
Over the last week or so, Chinook had come down with a case of the “doggie flu”. We brought her in to Highland Animal Hospital and got her back on track, but I just didn’t think she was up to an 11 mile trek and, not having been there before, I wasn’t sure what kind of condition the gorge trails would be in. Of course, she made me feel guilty as all hell. Once she saw me bring my day pack upstairs to the dining room, she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. With a big smile from ear to ear and tail wagging and erect, I could hear her thoughts.
“Dad! Dad! Where we going dad! I’m ready dad! Feel all better dad! I love exploring dad! Dad! Dad! Are we going now dad!”
You get the picture. In truth, she has been my faithful companion on exploring new trails but she’s really slowing down. She’s half blind, mostly deaf and suffers from arthuritis (as my grandfather calls it) so coming off of the flu, I just couldn’t chance it.
I couldn’t have asked for better weather conditions and the trail itself was a great hike. I’ve posted the trail details and some photos in my “Trails, Tails and Tents” blog. This was my longest solo hike in the better part of two decades. Yup, you know you’re old when you can start referencing time in decades. Of course, I did get the shit scared out of me as I walked passed a wild turkey on the Oak Rim trail. I’m sure I startled it as much as it startled me, but my heart was racing when I saw the wings spread in his panic to move away from the trail. Then your mind begins to wander a little about what else might be lying next to the trails.
GCVD93 – Deadwood Crossing – N 43° 49.644 W 075° 49.984
There was a geocache along the way that I spent a few minutes to search out. It was close to the path in a nice spot that makes you look a little. I was also impressed with some of the arrangements of mushrooms that were growing on and around the trees. I saw several that I would have liked to get pictures of but they were in low light areas and required a tripod (or someone a lot less shaky than myself). I still took several photos but the best ones were blurred. The kicker is that I’ve been carrying a portable tripod in my day pack all summer and haven’t used it once on these type of outings. Figures right ….
I made it back to the car around 2:30 and still had a little something left in me so I decided to hit up another cache in the area. This one was off Route 11 just a couple miles north of 177.
GCTVA8 – Talcott’s Treasure – N 43° 53.545 W 075° 58.738Admittedly, although unsure, I had a pretty good idea where this cache would be before I had even seen the location. I wanted to see what Talcott Falls looked like though. It’s small but worth the couple of minutes it took to get there. The water level was very low on Thursday. I saw a picture from January of the falls when I logged the cache at Geocaching.com and it was much more impressive with a larger flow. The cache itself was approximately where I expected and an easy find. As always, I won’t post a picture that gives away the exact location of the cache so I’ve posted one of pics I took of the falls.
It was back in the car and home to season steaks for the grill. All that walking sure makes me hungry!
Tags: Waterfalls