Sunday, July 13, 2008
A short run at the Great Dune/Madison Pinelands section of the Pine Bush... short because (1) I wanted to have something left in my legs for tomorrow evening's Lou's Run 4 miler at the Mohonk Preserve, and (2) my legs are still a bit tired from yesterday's long ride, and (3) I'm a wuss.
Weather-wise, today was an oddball... grey and raining in the morning, then sunshine in the afternoon... and by the time I got to the trails the clouds were coming back in. Felt some light sprinkles of rain at various poits during the run, until about a half mile from the finish when it started raining fairly hard. Perversely, that almost convinced me to add a mile or two... it felt good to be running in the rain... but decided to play it cautious instead and wrapped up as I originally planned.
I finally looked closely at the "trails closed" notice at the trailhead kiosk - apparently that's until the end of October! So much for the hope that they were only doing minor "habitat restoration" along the blue and yellow trails, and what I saw today confirms that. It looks like their stripping the entire hill overlooking the southern stretch of the yellow trail. Another shady stretch of trail that's going to end up opn and sunny... sigh. I understand the reasons for restoring the unique and endangered pine barrens ecosystem,and can even agree with them on some level... but it still bothers me to see trees being cut down and reduced to a pile of logs and wood chips.
JMH
