Hike in the woods

 Lucky us. Neighbors who:

• a) are great people 
• b) own a boat (recall I sold mine)
• c) have a cottage
• d) kindly invite us "up north" frequently
  

 For the current trip, Mr. Enzo is boarded @ Samarkand Kennels. Not that we don't love him, but there's a high-maintenance issue, and he's not yet able to curb his enthusiasm around non-Heckers. We do have a trainer coming to our home to work with us on this very issue (note I say "us" and not "him" because of my suspicion of where the problem is lodged).

 In any event, we're at the cottage, and the temps are a bit chilly, holding to low 70s for highs, so long pants and sleeves... but plenty of sun and not a ton of wind, so, this morning, we had an outing. Glacial Hills Pathway and Natural Area, closer to Bellaire than the village of Central Lake, which is just around the corner from the cottage, which is nestled on Intermediate Lake. 

(note: I'm unable to wrangle this blogger to get links to show with two indicators: one, a blue font, and two, underlined text. I've failed, so click on blue text to navigate to the websites)

Let the visuals tell the tale:

Yep, Bruce and Trish are now figuring out our path. As one can see from the map, this is a pretty large collection of trails...

So off we went, Trish at the front leading the way, and bringing up the rear is the intrepid photo guy:

 Another trail shot:

Trish found these mushrooms off to the right of the trail. I hurriedly snapped a shot, figuring there would be plenty more such growths. Um, no. Thank goodness for the Auto setting on the camera!! 

(I didn't have to fiddle with aperture and shutter speed and  that mercurial devil ISO)

 

I caught up to the group again shortly, as they had stopped to ponder this sandstone deposit. They were discussing glaciers and forces of nature and such. I was catching my breath.

 

Curiously, to the left of the photo above, a part of this rock, there was a fissure (below), which I think quite rightly could be called a "fish-er". OK sorry I'll stay in my photo lane, sans commentary:

The merry band moved along, through a wood dappled in sunlight, quiet and peaceful - oh wait, did I mention this is also a bike path? And that they ride fast? Well, they are courteous, even the lady who was too winded to say "behind you" audibly on her approach to us. As the last in line, I was of course expendable by design, and my hearing, though assisted, isn't that great, so Linda's alert was welcome to both the biker and to me. Well, more to me because the biker had the bike, but luckily there was not going to be a collision this time!

This is a pretty dense old-growth hardwood forest, and it required a fair amount of chainsaw bushwhackin' as it was built. Evidence is abundant all along the path as shown below. We also marveled at one "falling" wherein tree A and tree B both fell and intertwined branches with each other on the way down, only to come to rest on a crotch of tree C, never actually falling to the forest floor. There's no picture of that, however, as the photo guy was scouting for a good visual angle and suddenly realized he was alone, in the woods. It occurred to him the quiet biker may have doubled back was closing fast, so he left the scene like a scuttling stink bug hustling to catch up to the others. People, not stink bugs.

 

Another monument to the forces of nature, this time by way of one determined-to-survive tree we came across close to the end of our two-mile hike:

The acquisition of this land and its transformation into an outdoor recreation Mecca has been on-going for a number of years. It was built as an expansion of trails originally used/maintained by local residents, and... well, there's an actual online web page thingy

Just click and read the (presumably) accurate history of the development.

Kudos to all who helped create this great resource.