Pilot Knob Ridge Preserve

While this blog has been mostly about letterboxing, it really is supposed to be about all of my outdoors exploits. Recently I have not been letterboxing, as I have become a volunteer Trail Steward for a little preserve in Lake George, New York. It is the Pilot Knob Ridge Preserve managed by the Lake George Land Conservancy. I have been a Trail Steward for about a month and I am finding that I absolutely love working on this beautiful piece of land.

I am not going to bore you with all my responsibilities, but keeping the trail clear, clean and well-marked sums up most of them. What I am finding interesting though is I have gone up there each weekend for the last month, and each time I go up there I see something different. When I go up know I try and go up with a fresh pair of eyes and just observe nature, and I am seeing or I should say rediscovering the importance of visiting a trail or hiking area repeatedly to really get to know that land. The way hunters get to know a hunting ground.

I have for a long time concerned myself with visiting and hiking new trails and felt a certain amount of disappointment when I only had time to hike an old trail to “train” for the next great hike. I think that going to new places is fun and exciting, but it’s importance has diminished for my, and now it is more important to visit the old trails looking for something new each time I go there. To go off the trail and discover what most people miss.

What I do now is not only look for wildlife, which is exciting, but also looking and learning about the habitat’s plant flora. This I must say is new to me, but since becoming a Trail Steward we are supposed to look for invasive plant species and remove them. In order to do this I had to get a good tree and shrub identification book and learn friend from foe. By taking the time to do that I discovered that I have a shrubby honeysuckle in my backyard (now removed) and that the preserve has an area that this weed has a foothold in, and needs to be dealt with.
Anyway, I hope to write some interesting happenings that are going on at Pilot Knob Ridge Preserve and encourage people to visit this wondrous place.

Work has me tied up

I have not been able to do anything outdoors in a week. This week is always busy at work and keeps me from running wild in the great outdoors. However, I have found some time to carve some stamps for my series I plan on planting on the backside of Prospect Mountain in Lake George NY. I have the stamps carved and actually I have the locations for my places and have even thought of a theme for the entire series which will include a single letterbox and tie another one with the series.

I think however that I will wait until spring to release it. This are is heavily used by hunters and I really don't want to start it a couple of weeks before the season opens. This is one area that I would recommend people not to go into during deer hunting season. But, we'll see. I have other things going on right know that I will talk about next week.