Winter Hike Series No. 2

I am surviving the cold and have accomplished another winter hike.  It was a little questionable in light of our past week with an arctic front plunging our temperatures into the negative numbers.  Yep, Monday and Tuesday we had a low of negative 9; I don’t think our high got above 10.   

The second hike for the Winter Hike Series was at Sharon Woods.  The skies were threatening rain but it actually turned out to be a wonderful day; temperatures in the high 40’s and the sun even peaked out a few times.

On a personal note, Tuesday morning I hit a deer on my drive into work.  Scared me to death, one minute all is fine, I’m driving down a dark road (the road was clean and dry so I was relaxed, not white-knuckled as I would have been had there been snow on the ground), and all of a sudden I see a two deer jumping into the road.  I slammed on the brakes but they were too close to avoid.  I’m not sure if I hit one or both.  I think if they had jumped into the street two seconds later, they would have been jumping on my car rather than in front of my car.  They were that close!  What’s the matter with these animals?!!  Anyway, my bumper in now duct-taped down to the hood to keep it from flapping around when I drive.  Class-act, all the way! Okay, back to the hike posting.

Here is the crowd starting to gathering around at the start.  I don’t know how many people were there, but Hamilton County Parks limits these events to 275 participants.  You have to register on line and they say that all five hikes in the series have sold out.  This does not really look like 275 people… maybe a few were scared off by the ominous grey clouds overhead.

Our wildlife sightings consisted or a couple Red Tailed Hawks overhead and these ducks in the lake.   Most of the lake was covered with the thin sheet of ice but these guys didn’t seem to mind the frigid waters.  I think they were Mallards or American Black Ducks, just your basic pond variety. I’m told there are Wood Ducks here as well, but we didn’t spot any. 

Here is the dam that controls the water level for the lake, which is a man-made lake built for flood control in the region.  Overall, a neat park and a great place for a winter hike.