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.

A Geocaching Adventure

I know that I have posted this blog a few too many times this week, but I need to talk about a wonderful experience that I had last week while camping of one of Lake George’s (New York State) beautiful islands.

I love exploring the mountains on the eastside of Lake George and I noticed before we left for the camping trip that there were a few geocaches hidden along a trail system that I wanted to hike. So without interest from my family I headed out solo from a lakeside trailhead located near Red Rock Bay on Lake George.

The trail going up was worn, but in good shape and the RED ROCK BAY VISTA geocache was an easy find. I then set out on the ridge trail that looked like it was hardly used and these are the ones that I like to hike, especially on a cool breezy day that I had.

The next geocache was The Narrows Lookout, which was located off the trail near old forest fire. This was a cool place, and I enjoyed the views.

The next and the last geocache that I found that day was In the Shadow of It's Tail , which is a really fun multi-cache. The first part I made a lot more difficult than I had to. When I was walking down a rock outcrop and the ridge trail again picked up it’s north-south direction I noticed that this cache may have been a little out of the way and it looked like some serious climbing get to it. However, after I descended off the outcrop and walked a bout 0.25 mi. south along the ridge trail, I noticed a trail intersection and it led in the general direction of the cache, so I went after it. Recorded the waypoint of this intersection and before set off. After awhile I noticed that the cache must be to my right up hill and that the trail was taking me away from the cache, so I bushwhacked for about 1000 feet until I hit a rock face. The cache was only 136 feet away from me, but it might as well have been a mile. This rock face ran perpendicular to the first 800-1200 feet of the trail I just walked down, so I headed back toward the trail, along this rock face until I found a spot where deer had gone up the face and even for a chicken like me I was able to scramble up and find the micro. This one will make you laugh, but I will not spoil it. The second and final part was easy, just maintain your elevation. I wanted to practice my compass skills so I took a direction on the trail intersection waypoint and compassed out, almost stepping on a yearling deer in the process. By coming up the rock face, I was able to get behind her with her noticing.
I made it to the intersection and set out to find one more geocache, but when I reached the spot where the first micro was, there was a group of muggles having lunch, so I decided that that one would have to wait.

All and all I had a fabulous 7-mile loop through some beautiful country that offers a wonderful array of habitats and a plethora of photo opportunities. The hike actually was not that difficult either. Fun Fun Fun!

Col Williams Monument is Back!

After I gave this one up for lost a persistent Letterboxer found it about 6 feet from the original place. I am not sure why someone felt the need to move it, but its was dry and in good condition. I brought it home and replaced the Rubbermaid box with a Lock and Lock and camouflaged it a bit and set out this morning to place it in a better spot. I spent about 20minutes searching and ended up near the original spot, but a little better hidden. Hopefully this new location will keep it safe.

The clues for this box are at the following letterboxing.org link

http://letterboxing.org/BoxView.php?boxnum=21263%26boxname

This poll is closed and here are the results.


Would you feel more comfortable on a longer hike with a series of boxes to bring you along?


Yes, it's like having trail makers 29 (59%)

No, I will hike anyway. 19 (38%)

Don't care, just want more finds. 1 (2%)

What this has told me is that from now on that I am going to use series and better trail descriptions for those remote letterboxes that I may place. I think that it is very important to help people who are looking for your box, feel comfortable and to have fun looking for your place. By using a series in an imaginative way, that is possible. My goal with my first series is to bring people to a fairly tame area, but wild all them same. To give them a taste of the Adirondacks.

Thank you to all those who participated in the survey and to those who left comments regarding this survey. I listened and really appreciate all of your input.

My Letterbox was Found

My Col Williams Letterbox was found the other day after I had retired it a month ago. The persistent letterboxer found the box about 5 feet from my original place. The irony is that I would have found it if I was searching for it, but since I placed it I knew where it was supposed to be and when I didn't see it I actually searched around for evidence that it was muggled, not that someone moved and hide it. I didn't think that another boxer re-hid the letterbox in what they thought was a better location. I will remember that if it happens again.

I have it ready now to be placed again. I am going to place it in a better, more secure spot as this box gets a lot of traffic, so I am going to try and find a hiding spot that will be a little more out of sight of possible muggles. It is in in a new lock and lock and has a 100 page logbook. I even camoed it. I hope to have it back in commission by this weekend.

Would you feel better with a series of boxes on a long hike.

This is something that I am curious about. I have noticed, and I have talked about this before, that many letterboxes are located in nature trails, close to the parking area when they are solo, and also, even of easier hikes, if I locate a single box more than 1 mile from the road that it does not get visited very much.

I thought that it was more of a physical thing, but I thought a little and I'm am thinking that maybe a may be a comfort thing. That is hiking in on a new trail that takes you into the WOODS, may be uncomfortable to some. I didn't think about this as I grew up in the woods; raised by, well not wolves, but close; and I am very comfortable going in to new places. I just know how to prepare.

So my thought was, and I have posted a poll that asks if a series of boxes will make you feel more likely to go on a longer hike of not. I am figuring that if I gave detailed descriptions to the boxes along the trail, that other boxers will be more likely to look for them and enjoy these areas as they will have a "trail of breadcrumbs" to follow. But, maybe I am way off.

Please cast your vote and if you have more to say, please commit on this subject, as I would like use this information to customize my series a little better.

I will also post the fianl results on the Yahoo group so that we can take a look at the results.

Thank you.