Shaw Girl Happenings

Labels: 'tis a silly place, Matthew

Back in September, I hiked 3 days on the Westside Overland Trail, with my old friend from Kindergarten and beyond Jennifer (nee: Scott) Schlick, and a Kindergarten teacher friend Concetta (with whom Katie and I canoed with this summer.) We backpacked this baby, slept in Adirondack type shelters, enjoyed glorious weather, and a few surprises. The trail starts at the Pennsylvania line and winds it's way through farm fields, thick forests, over creeks and streams and ends in the gorge, northwest of Mayville. It's 25 miles long. I hiked 19 miles of it, as I jumped on the trail after school and met up with my buddies in the afternoon.

Our first surprise was at the first shelter. These mountain bikers came pedaling pell-mell through our lean-to site, and one blew out a tire. We offered them some food, and as they fixed the flat tire, one biker pulled out a penny whistle and piped us a tune. He was from Scotland, with a brogue so thick, we mostly just nodded when he spoke and said "uh-huh" because we couldn't understand much of what he said. A serendipitous moment. You can see from the photo how lovely this area is with the pond and the pine trees.




Here's a nice pic of us hiking down the trail. We hiked south to north which is actually a gradual uphill. I'm the one closest to the camera.









We all made these crazy hats to celebrate the autumnal equinox while we camped at the second shelter. Also notice the decorative turkey tail feather that I collected en route. It has since found its home in my oboe case. We found pears, grapes, and apples as we hiked. We ate the apples for lunch, grapes out of hand, and cooked up the pears into a compote for breakfast.







Here's Jen and I, ready for the trail. We are currently planning a spring 4-day hike on the part of the North Country Trail that passes through Allegany State Park.

Labels: nature, Sue