6.3 Mile Run in & around the Pine Bush
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Some days there are just too many options for places to run... I knew I was going to hit the trails in the Pine Bush for 6-8 miles, but which section? I finally went with my gut feeling and ended up at the Blueberry Hill East trailhead, looking forward to a nice mix of hills and flats, woods and fields.
Unfortunately, a little over 2 miles into my run I hit a snag - the trail was blocked off and marked with a sign that a large part of that section was closed for two days due to herbicide application. Phooey. If it had been mowing I'd have ignored it (they don't mow at night, after all) but potentially toxic chemicals... not something to mess with. So I headed back the way I came, then took another trail down to the Blueberry Hill West trailhead... that required a quick dash through a small section of the closed area, but I was willing to risk that.
From there I spent a while running on local roads until I reached the Kaikout Kill Barrens trailhead, where I was able to head back into the woods. Ran half a loop, then turned around and ran the full loop in reverse before heading back toward the closed area. Made another quick dash through and was back on the trails I'd started out on.
It was getting pretty dark by the time I looped around the fields of Blueberry Hill East, so I broke out my headlamp and tried something new, taking a trail I'd never been on before to another one of the many parking lots in the Columbia Circle office complexes. Then it was just a matter of making my way through the lots back to my car, to wrap up a rather unusual and somewhat disjointed run.
In another day and a half - I'm off to Maine!
JMH
