It's been a hot minute since I've been out in the woods. Having a kid, going through a divorce, battling depression, and not having a 4WD has made it super hard to get out and when I do it's usually to somewhere like Sandy Hook since it's not far. I had nothing really on the agenda for this weekend and I wanted to challenge myself, so I decided that I'd hike from Harrisville Lake up to Nash's Cabin with my camera gear and see if I could get any good photos. I ended up hiking up Martha Rd. rather than take the trail around the lake that connects to the Batona since it seemed like it added unnecessary distance. According to my watch the trip there took one hour and forty seven minutes with a distance of 4.22 miles. Mind you, I had 20 pounds of camera gear in my backpack and I'm not in the best shape so the trip was pretty difficult.
Martha Rd. was in pretty decent shape for the most part, but it doesn't look like anybody's been to Nash's cabin in a long time. The road leading to it is blocked by a few fallen trees (from storms, not placed there intentionally) and it's super overgrown. There wasn't any trash that I could see except for an old glass bottle. Even the blue plastic drum that people had been using as a trash can was gone. The last time I went there was in 2011 and there was a fair amount of rubble laying around:
but now it looks like someone's gathered up the rubble and attempted to piece the fireplace back together:
it also seems like part of the concrete porch is starting to cave in:
It looks like some animal has burrowed under the porch. There was water down there and I wonder if the beavers dug it out and they go in underwater in the pond. While I was there I saw one of them swimming near the shore, but as soon as it caught sight of me it disappeared under the water with an angry splash. I didn't see too many trees that had obviously been felled by beavers like I had on previous visits so maybe there's a smaller population now.
Unfortunately I couldn't find a composition I liked to get a good picture for my Instagram, so I took all of the low effort snapshots in this post. It was dark out by the time I made it back to my car. I had to find a makeshift hiking pole for the trip back as my right hip was killing me. Right now I live in a three floor townhouse and the stairs were a real challenge. I feel better this morning but I don't think I'd do this hike again.
I remember the PPA people saying that people should "just hike" when I said that closing off access to motorized vehicles and to that I say "F that". It would probably have been much easier had I not been carrying my photography gear, but getting some photos was the whole point of the trip.
Martha Rd. was in pretty decent shape for the most part, but it doesn't look like anybody's been to Nash's cabin in a long time. The road leading to it is blocked by a few fallen trees (from storms, not placed there intentionally) and it's super overgrown. There wasn't any trash that I could see except for an old glass bottle. Even the blue plastic drum that people had been using as a trash can was gone. The last time I went there was in 2011 and there was a fair amount of rubble laying around:
but now it looks like someone's gathered up the rubble and attempted to piece the fireplace back together:
it also seems like part of the concrete porch is starting to cave in:
It looks like some animal has burrowed under the porch. There was water down there and I wonder if the beavers dug it out and they go in underwater in the pond. While I was there I saw one of them swimming near the shore, but as soon as it caught sight of me it disappeared under the water with an angry splash. I didn't see too many trees that had obviously been felled by beavers like I had on previous visits so maybe there's a smaller population now.
Unfortunately I couldn't find a composition I liked to get a good picture for my Instagram, so I took all of the low effort snapshots in this post. It was dark out by the time I made it back to my car. I had to find a makeshift hiking pole for the trip back as my right hip was killing me. Right now I live in a three floor townhouse and the stairs were a real challenge. I feel better this morning but I don't think I'd do this hike again.
I remember the PPA people saying that people should "just hike" when I said that closing off access to motorized vehicles and to that I say "F that". It would probably have been much easier had I not been carrying my photography gear, but getting some photos was the whole point of the trip.
