the montco trail challenge begins.

 

I've done this challenge twice. I think it was the first and second years. The first year we looked for shapes. The second year I think I had to take pics of the trail signs. I know last year they did selfies because of Covid.

We did the closest ones first. Each time we'll be doing two or three trails, and one time five. This year you need to find animals and mark them on a card. Then deposit the card in a designated mailbox at the parks. We're taking pictures of each one. Otherwise it's just too much driving. 

We began at Green Lane Park. We parked near the ranger station and found where an old marker was. But no marker. A ranger came out (everyone we saw was a woman!) and we asked her. She had no idea but thought it was a squirrel. She said they are never in the same place twice.

So we began exploring. We crossed the dam and went to the other side of the lake and explored there a little. No animal sign. We crossed again and found a white egret, but no sign. We took a path into the woods by the lake and followed the creek to a bridge. The road used to come into the park but now it's closed.

Walking up the hill we saw another ranger. She told us that the animal markers were at the trailheads for the orange, red and blue trails but not the green. We thought we were on the orange trail, but we were far away. We walked to that trailhead and found the squirrel. Then we walked a bit of the orange trail but it was rocky and rooty. Neither of us had sticks so we turned around and came back.

Running in front of the trailhead for orange was another trail. We suspected it was the Perkiomen trail. It begins (or ends) in Green Lane. We followed it and eventually we came to a trail sign saying it was the PerkyTrail. And we found mile marker 18.5. The trail is 20 miles. We also found a fitness trail and Pam tried a few of them out. Following the trail took us out to the road, and we walked on the road a bit before it turned into the park again. Instead of taking the sunny path, we went back into the woods and followed the disk golf path. The we cut thru the picnic area, crossed the dam again and headed back to the car.

 Since we never found the animal for the Perky, we drove to the next trailhead where there were two markers. One for the walking trail, and one for the river trail.

There were also run-away chickens from the farm next door. They were taking free-range too seriously and almost made a bike wipe out.

Miles/Steps:  I ended the day with 6.2 miles. I think Green Lane Park was about 3.
Weather:       mid-80s, sunny, really humid
Bathrooms:   We didn't use them but there were a lot of them in Green Lane Park. There was a port-o-potty at the Perky.
Wildlife:        White Heron, 2 doe, a gaggle of geese