‘Outdoors | Hiking’ Posts⁽⁷⁾

Hiked another Nature Convervancy preserve, this on called the Fraser Preserve near Great Falls, Virginia.

It’s a nice hike, relatively flat and easily navigatable … except for one tiny little problem. Apparently, the trail crosses onto the property of a neighboors who doesn’t like the Conservancy much. There is a 5-string barbed wire fence blocking off fifteen (yes, 15) feet of the circuit trail. How much do you have to hate conservationists (not to mention the baptists that co-own the preserve) to do that?!?

To make matters worse, everything around that part of the path is swamp-land, so you have to go all the way back past the river and use the government access road to get across the property … just to get to where the blue blazed trail picks back up.

When you do make the trip, you’ll have the opportunity to stand at the barbed wire fence and stare at the neighboor has he fishes away on his fancy-pants barbed-off stream. I did, and it was a heck of a lot of fun … tho he didn’t seem to enjoy it that much.

Roosevelt Island is certainly a nice hike, but not one of the most photogenic places in Washington. A dog was doing some dead-waterfowl retrieval drills, but not much exciting beyond that.

Something like my fourth trip back to this hike, located about 20 minutes north of Baltimore. Still far and away my favorite. First trip in cold weather, though … and I think it was my first trip where it didn’t rain.

For some reason, I love hiking around abandoned farmland. It must be my hippie upbringing, but my favorite hike (Susquahannah State Park) is also around the same type environment. I must have spend half an hour walking around an old abandoned barn on the Merkle property.

Speaking of which, I should really do Susquahannah again. I don’t think I have been there since I got the new camera.

Not much of a hike to and from, but the payoff (the falls themselves) was amazing. I’ve never had much chance to play around with shutter speed near water before, and that in itself was a lot of fun. Hokie, but fun.

Hiked the Old Stone Fort Trail in Harpers Ferry National Park. Outstanding hike. While the views weren’t particularly great, the breastworks, trenches and other relics of the Civil War add a terrific historic element to the trek. Overcast day, which was great for the cloud shots, but lousy for pretty much everything else.

Maryland Heights, Harpers Ferry NHP
http://www.flickr.com/photos/unclevanya/sets/…6746/

Spent New Year’s on the Eastern Shore, just outside of Ocean City, Maryland. My brother gave me a number of his old black and white photography textbooks from college, so I spent a good amount of time trying the B&W setting on my 20d.

I didn’t think this one through very well. I drove all the way from suburban DC to the north end of the Skyline Drive … and *then* thought about checking to see if the road was open. Turns out that it wasn’t.

The good news is that one trail, Dickey Ridge, actually goes from the entrance road, around the road blocks, and up into the park. There were about a dozen cars parked at the trailhead, so I assume it was legal … if not it was still very popular none-the-less.