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Hiking Diary

It's always a good idea to keep a log, or a diary, scrapbook, photoalbum, etc. It's indescribably annoying to think about (say) 1987 and wonder, "What the heck did I do then, besides bother people?"

My family started hiking before I was born. I started hiking in 1985, after we had moved to New Hampshire. Since then, we've been pretty good about keeping track of all the hikes we've gone one. Some even get feature-length stories.

Paper logs are so passé. Therefore the following series of links and data. This table needs work! All of the hikes from 1986 to approximately 2000 reside on that passé paper log in Birmingham, AL. They will eventually become a part of this database. Until then…

Date	Hike Description	State	Mileage	Elevation Change	Hikers
15 May 2005	GATC Wildflower hike	GA	5.5	2400	Bill Ruhsam, Jenn Bowie, Other GATC Members and Guests
19 Mar 2005	GATC Work trip	GA	3.0	~650	Bill Ruhsam, Rick Hartline, Other GATC Members
7 Mar 2005	Georgia Orienteering Club Class C Meet	GA	~3.5	~0	Bill Ruhsam
15 Jan 2005	GATC Work Weekend	GA	~5.5	Unknown	Bill Ruhsam, Rick Hartline, Other GATC Members
27 Aug 2004	Mt. Isolation	NH	16.9	8,000 ft	Bill Ruhsam, Bill Ruhsam Sr.
25 Jul 2003	Mt. Cadillac	ME			Bill Ruhsam, Jenn Bowie
2002	The Lighthouse, Palo Duro Canyon	TX	5	~150	Bill Ruhsam, Jenn Bowie
23 October 1999	McKittrick Canyon	TX	~8	~2200	Bill Ruhsam, Troop 406

15 May, 2005

	I dragged Jenn with me to North Georgia to go on a Wildflower hike along the Arkaqua trail. This trail runs from Trackrock Gap to Brasstown Bald almost entirely within the Brasstown Wilderness. 5.5 miles of moderate terrain, with a few short, steep sections and one long unrelenting slope at the western end, into Trackrock Gap. Our hike started from the parking lot at Brasstown Bald (highest point in Georgia and traveled west along the ridgeline. Many gentle ups and downs with the aforementioned occasional steep sections. There is plent of elevation change along this ridge, but the trail saves itself for the last descent into Trackrock along a series of well-graded switchbacks. I believe that the final descent is about 1400 feet in three-quarters of a mile. Enough to make my calves start to ache. There are no sections along this bit that are flat until you reach the bottom. If one were making the trek from Trackrock to Brasstown Bald, it would be easy to get a mite discouraged before getting to the top of the ridge.
	The purpose of this hike, however, was to find and identify wildflowers, and there were two people in the group who had encyclopedic knowledge of this subject. I found it interesting to realize my eyes had passed over something exceptionally rare without notice. We saw, to list what I can remember (and in no way should this list be taken as an accurate one): Trillium ad infinitum, Painted Trillium, May Apples (one of which was in bloom), Cancer Root, Violets, Bluebells, Rhotodendrum of several types, Moss Bluettes, several rare plants which slip my mind, and many others. I hope that my eyes will be better tuned next time I'm out there.
	The hike took about five and a quarter hours because we were looking at all of the flowers. Jenn and I were both exhausted when we got home, and I blame it on the slow pace. It's tough to stand and stop and walk, etc., for that long without wearing out. The rain didn't treat us too badly; just enough to keep our raingear on to avoid being soaked to the bone. All in all, it was a pleasant day, although Patty Lowe has to remember not to lock her keys in her car before leading a hike!

19 March, 2005

This was my second work trip with the Georgia Appalachian Trail Club. I traveled to Cleveland, GA, with Rick Hartline, and we met up with the rest of the group at Ma Gooch's Restaurant. We had breakfast, where I met Shirley, who bakes her own bread for sale. It's yummy.

After breakfast, we carpooled up to the jump-off point, which was in Tesnatee Gap. The trip leader, Owen, divided us into several groups for work projects. I was dispatched with Rick, Shirley, David, David, and Jeremy. We set out up the AT moving westward toward Neels Gap to get to David's section, where we would be working on water bars and filling in a hole where a tree-root ball used to be.

The weather started sunny and chilly, with a southerly wind briskly coming up the valley and keeping everyone bundled up. Once we got started up the trail and warmed up, the jackets and hats generally came off. I did manage to whack myself in the forehead with the fire rake while trying to take off my stocking cap. Now it looks like I'm growing a third eye. Toward noon, the sun went behind overcast skies and we did not see it again until we were driving home.

We ascended Cowrock, which has a nice view southeasterly toward Mt. Yonah, then descended into Baggs Creek Gap, where we filled in the root-bole-hole with rocks and dirt. We then moved a bit farther west and put in a step and a waterbar at another location. Generally, an easy work day.

We lunched on Wolf Laurel Top where we met Bramble (a.k.a Carlos Adames) and Chase (the Dog) who are on a long trip. More info at News Channel 11 and Trail Journals. This was a Very Big Man. I was impressed by his size and his Kilt.

On the way out, we met and chatted with a few more Thru-Hikers from Maine and Rhode Island. It's nice to see these guys and gals starting out with their trails fresh in front of them. If I had the time...

We got out from the day early, around 3:30 PM. It wasn't a difficult work trip.

7 March, 2005

I'd been wanting to try the sport of orienteering for a while. Jenn was going to come as well, but she didn't feel good that day. The meet was held at Jim Kurz Wildlife Management Area in Gay, GA. Jim Kurz strikes me as an excellent place to have a boy scout campout, if they allow that sort of thing there.

As my first outing on an orienteering trip, I followed the advice of Kevin, who was the Meet Organizer, and ran the White course first. The White course is the easy one, which follows the trails and doesn't involve any cross-country seeking of control points. This turned out to be a good warmup because the international standard orienteering map takes a little getting used to if you spend your days reading maps made by USGS or hiking organizations. White, on an O-map, doesnt mean clear terrain, it means open woodland through which you can run. Other colors and shades of those colors indicate other terrain which may or may not be passable, depending on how much slogging you want to do (as the whole point to orienteering is to reach the control points as quickly as possible, you want to slog as little as you can). Long story short, reading the map correctly requires an inversion of what I was used to.

After completing the White course, I immediately headed out on the Yellow. This was slightly longer, but not much more difficult than the White. It still followed obvious terrain features which made the finding of control points easy. All in all, the day was a nice walk in the woods.

When I returned from finishing the Yellow course, I spend some time examining the control points for the Orange, Blue, and Red courses. The red is the hardest, and I understood why. The control points were placed at long distances from each other and the direct routes between them followed no logical boundaries or trails. I can see why this sport is so enthusiastically followed by some people. Next time, I'm going to go out on a harder course to see how well I do.

15 January, 2005

This was my first work weekend with the Georgia Appalachian Trail Club. I've been hiking along ATC trails for quite a while and I figured it was time to contribute toward their maintenance; give back to the people kind of thing.

This being my first trip out with the Club, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. Unfortunately, this was also an atypical weekend. It was the supervisor "walk-through" where each section supervisor hiked his/her whole section (approx. 1 mile per section) looking at the big picture. Most weekends involve hiking to one location adn then a day's worth of work.

The day involved hiking from Gooch Gap to Cooper's Gap along the Appalchian Trail. I was introduced to the Polaski (a tool with a axe on one side of the head and an adz on the other) the knocking down of berms, the cleaning out of waterbars, and the brute labor in filling in a hole created by a blown-down tree.

One interesting note for hikers in Georgia: I "grew up" hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. As of now, the AT hiking experience I've had in Georgia has been on Blood Mountain and this 5 mile jaunt. Almost every inch of the AT along these Georgia sections has been groomed to a standard almost unheard of in New England (At least in the mountains). There were times I would have given my left...arm for a nice, easy, flat, smooth piece of trail, even if only for 100 yards. Suffice to say, watching the other ATC members kick tiny, inconsequential stones off of the trail to make it smoother was a wake up call to what standard the trail is maintained here in Georgia (Not that I'm belittling the efforts of the trail people in New England, I just would never have expected the efforts I saw this weekend).

It was a good trip, and I met some nice people. I look forward to next month's outing.

27 August, 2004

For the full story go to Mt. Isolation and revel in the fun.

25 July, 2003

Friday the 25th was the day we designated to go hike! Mt. Desert Island is full of places to walk/hike/roam but we were on our honeymoon, and we didn't feel like hiking the whole week. Besides, it rained from Monday to Thursday.

We started our hike at the Sieur de Monts visitor center parking lot and ascended Dorr Mountain on the Dorr Mountain trail. Dorr mountain and the trail up it gave nice views of Frenchman's Bay and the ocean to the east. There's a nice little spit of land about the size of the lighthouse that sits on it, right in the middle of the bay's opening to the Atlantic.

After we toppped Mt. Dorr, we descended into Dorr Notch and then up the Dorr Notch Trail to the top of Mt. Cadillac. Cadillac Mountain is reachable by car and has a gift shop at the top. Jenn and I availed ourselves and bought some goodies: a snack and a t-shirt (too small). We roamed around the top a bit, looking for the USGS marker. Found it, took a picture, then had lunch.

We descended Cadillac on the other side of the mountain, toward the Bubbles. Cadillac South Ridge trail to Cadillac West Face Trail to the trailhead at the outlet of Bubble Pond. The South Ridge Trail was easy and smooth, but the West Face Trail was a different matter. The top end consisted of a side traverse of rocky faces, which on this particular occaions, were all wet and slippery, making for interesting footing. The bottom of the trail was a straight boulder scramble, down the last 700' or so of the trail. It was nice to rest the legs when we got to the bottom. It was also nice to catch the free L.L.Bean shuttle from there to the other side of the mountain where we had left the car.

Fall 2002

We had previously made an attempt to hike to the Lighthouse in Palo Duro canyon in August of 2000. This was a colossal mistake on our parts, recent transplants from a cooler, wetter climate that we were. We had ended up dripping and drooping from exhaustion near the middle of the hike and decided to turn back.

Which brings us to present discussion. We journeyed back to Palo Duro Canyon to test out our new tent and make the previously aborted hike to the Lighthouse. The Lighthouse is a stone tower that sits by itself in the middle of an eroded arroyo. The spur that connects it to the rest of the caprock has been eroded down to where it looks like it is a sole rocky outcropping in the middle of the floodplain. It's called the Lighthouse because it reminds people of lighthouses. Jenn and I have seen a lot of lighthouses in Maine and New England, and although we could see some resemblance, it didn't jump out and scream "LIGHTHOUSE!" to us.

The hike in is flat and easy, along some rocky and sandy trails. The trail follows the stream bed for the most part and doesnt climb much at all until you get to the foot of the Lighthouse. From there, you can walk around the base to various observation angles. It is quite neat to look at, plus the whole area is just dying for you to go off trail and scramble around. Watch out for snakes and tarantulas and cacti and thorns...

23 October 1999

I travelled to Guadalupe State Park with Troop 406 to hike McKittrick Canyon. The Guadalupe Mountains are part of an old limestone reef from an ancient inland sea. The area is now stark and dry with entirely new vegetation for me. Prickly Pear cactus, Spanish Bayonet, Alligator Juniper, Yucca, these are not New England Plants.

McKittrick Canyon is a deep cleft in the side of the ridge which holds enough moisture to support some deciduous trees in small patches deep in the defiles. It is quite popular to hike this in the fall when the leaves are turning and it's obvious why once you get here. The contrast between the desert plants and the ravines full of red and orange oaks and maples is spectacular. I recommend this hike for anyone. It is fairly flat walking far enough into the canyon to view the leave changing.

We hiked in to Pratt Lodge where we had lunch. Then half the troop (and me) hiked up to Turtle Rock, which sits at about 7,000 feet. This is the highest I'd ever been via my own two feet. And it was only about 3,500 feet short of the top of the mountain! Very nice views from up there.