i took my hiking stick for a walk

Today was the Get Out Lehigh Valley hike at Dodson Park in Fountain Hill. Calling it a park is a stretch. Pretty much it's additional baseball fields.  It began at 10, so I left my house at 9:30 and started to walk up to the park. I stayed on Broadway and then Dotson, to keep the walk easy. I didn't know how strenuous the hike would be, and I still had to walk home.

It was snowing. Beautiful, little, tiny snowflakes that only stick to grass.

I have been on a lot of hikes with this group. I have walked thru a golf course that was reclaimed by nature when it was 95 degrees and 85% humidity with minimal shade. I have hiked with them at a park in Salisbury Township in a torrential downpour, in an inch of standing water.  I had no reason to think that it might be cancelled. Had they ever cancelled before? I don't think so.

I arrived at the park and there was nobody there. I looked on FB to see if there was a cancellation notice. I didn't see anything. I was more than a little disappointed.

I really wanted to do this hike. It was described as "walk on trails laid out and maintained by Valley Mountain Bikers. We’ll travel across the top of Ostrum Ridge and down one of the area’s oldest roads, which is barely visible now, to the foundation of a stone barn whose walls were still standing in the 1970s. We’ll meander near old quarries where rock was quarried for some Lehigh University buildings. There’s a lookout spot above the Lehigh River that also affords good views of Bethlehem and east Allentown. There are remnants of a park that was active in the 19th century. After looking at vernal pools, we’ll finish our hike with a steep walk back up to the parking lot."

I need new places in the "hood to walk. And maybe, just maybe this would take us close to the reservoir. Remember how we picniced there as kids. We carried all that stuff -- food and toys and chairs -- from the house to the reservoir and then back home again? Of course it was only six blocks from the house on Seneca Street to the entrance of the park and a zillion kids to carry things. Do you remember when I broke my collarbone on one of those picnics? Right before they closed it off to the public because it wasn't safe. And then sealed by homeland security after 9-11. The fed's have to protect the water supply.

I think that's the remains of the park they were talking about in the description. 

I wanted to do this hike. I wanted to know how to enter the woods and find the trails. Do you have to cut thru the cemeteries? Maybe you enter at the barn? Or do you enter by the rservoir, and go past the "no trespassing under penalty of federal law" signs? I'll never know.

I waited about 20 minutes and went home. I took my hiking stick for a walk. 

Miles/Steps:   Less than 3 miles. It should have been around 7.
Bathrooms:     Locked, baseball season is over. No port-o-potty.  
Weather:        28 or so. Light, but steady snow
Wildlife:         None.
Extras:           I dug out all my warm weather gear and was reminded that my ankles are always cold. I need to buy longer socks, but never do.