David Reik, Photo Blog

On 2020-8-26, I went back to the Tunxis Blue-White-Dot Trail to inspect the sections I did not get to on 2020-8-25.  I'll put in a map with location numbers to show where these pictures were taken. Here's a screenshot of the northern section of the map. Here's a screenshot of the southern section of the map. Here's a link to the interactive map where you can pan around, and zoom in and out. http://arcg.is/ne1Gr 1.  This was between the parking and the gate at the north end of Blueberry Hill Road.  Maybe the blowdown was dragged here to discourage ATVs. 2.  A little overgrown near here. 3.  12-inch blowdown 16 inches high. 4.  12-inch blowdown 20 inches high. 5.  It looked like someone did a lot of chainsaw work here within the last two weeks.  Update:  Tom Burkholder and Ellie Pelletier did the clearing ---- a tricky job because of the height of the branches. 6.  A bit overgrown near here. 6.  A large healthy looking hemlock tree, despite the woolly adelgid. 7.  The who

 On 2020-8-25, I did Part 1 of a trail inspection for Trail Maintainer Dan Casey of the Tunxis White-Dot Trail in Burlington, CT. Here's a map showing location numbers near where I took the pictures below. A bit overgrown near 1. 2.  Somebody tried to make a bog bridge here. 3.  14-inch blowdown 20 inches high. 3.  20-inch blowdown 60 inches high, 14-inch blowdown 30 inches high, and more. 3.  12-inch blowdown 20 inches high. 4.  This is representative of much of the trail ---- not four feet wide, but not hard to see. 5.  20-inch blowdown 30 inches high. 6.  10-inch blowdown 18 inches high. 6.  10-inch blowdown 60 inches high, and more. Between 6 and George Washington Turnpike.  An overgrown section. 7.  8-inch blowdown 40 inches high. 8.  4-inch blowdown 50 inches high. 9.  These protruding branches were blocking the trail, but could be removed with loppers, I think. Back at the overgrown section between 6 and George Washington Turnpike, poison ivy encroaching on the trail. 10.  T

On 2020-8-2, I re-visited Highlawn Forest in Middletown.  Highlawn Forest is a preserve managed by the Connecticut Forest and Park Association.   I made an interactive map showing where locations I will refer to here.  You can zoom in and out, pan around, and turn off and on various layers including LIDAR, contour lines, aerial imagery, and my GPS Waypoints and GPS track.  Here's a link to the map: http://arcg.is/1yCzTf0 Here's a static screenshot of the interactive map. 1.  I turned from the Blue Trail to a network of unblazed trails.  Too bad this is not a three-dimensional picture --- you can't see here that this was a hole.  Was the hole the work of man? 2.  At first I thought that this trail, which is raised above the surrounding ground because dirt and gravel have been laboriously deposited, was the work of the Connecticut Forest and Park Association, but it seems that neighbors have constructed this raised trail and many other features along the unblazed trails. 3.