Log 2016052701

I was at a bar and hotel in Corydon, Pennsylvania in 2011, just across the line from New York State.  And the locals were telling me a suspicion that they had about PA DNR having released some rattlesnakes on Tracy Ridge somewhere south of there just off of the North Country National Scenic Trail  I dismissed it at first, but as I hiked through there, the one thing that I noticed was that the place seemed overrun by chipmunks.  And the NCT has areas of thick, high vegetation that hugs the path (I couldn't see through it).  Sometimes, there would be something that had to be at least 20lbs that would just take off under there about 6ft to the east of the trail.  I couldn't discern any footfalls, so I think that it had to move along the ground.  North of Kellettville, I caught the "cucumber" smell several times out there.

I came through the Tracy Ridge area during a holiday weekend and there were more than a dozen people on trail.  About a day after, there was no one and no cell signal.  I went into isolation symptoms at 2.5 days where I really learned about the darkest side of myself.  It was growing to no end.  I pulled an aggressive 24 miler, running the downhills and flats on the last leg because I wanted to "get the hell out of there."

That trip ended with me loosing my wallet.  And lucky for me, my family lived about 100 miles away and my brother came and got me.  Now I know to store my money and ID cards in two different places.  Because my bank can wire my money, but I can't pick it up without an ID.

What I did was purchased some low grade canvas, Velcro, a hot glue gun and sticks for it from Jo Ann Fabrics.  And I used a card to form it while I hot glued around 3 sides.  On the final side, I hot glued the Velcro in place and that made a little slot to store them in.  It lasted for years.

Log 2015020401

One of the things I plan to do this year near the Whipple Section off-road is search off-trail for places to meditate.  Since I have topographic maps and already know where the section's surface water is, I feel that I have a good start on knowing what areas are too steep to access on a bushwhack.  I'll also be able to use my GPS to mark waypoints and begin to chart any brier patches.  Once done, that information will be uploaded to my Personal Section Supervisor's Page here on Blogger.

As for the location of any Rattlesnake dens, NFS wouldn't release that information (probably out of conservation fears), but in the last year, I smelled, but I've never seen one.  That took place on a gated skid road that intersects County Road 9 (C9) this past summer when I was making my last inspection before the Whipple Work Weekend arrived.  The cucumber like smell came from just off the west side of the skid and lasted for about 15 seconds before it quickly dissipated.

If there's any concerns about encountering them, I could do the search when the temperature is high.  To be more comfortable, this will drive them to become nocturnal.  Or I could do this as the first order of business in March when the snow melts, but the daytime high is still too low for them to come out of hibernation.