the Way of the Turtle

A VERY Slow 2.7 Mile Walk at Corbett's Glen
Saturday, June 27, 2009

Corbett's Glen North trail map (PDF)
Corbett's Glen South trail map (PDF)
Corbett's Glen site

I was determined to get outdoors today, regardless of how my knee felt, so Ann and I headed over to Corbett's Glen to do a bit of walking. I chose this particular park because I remembered the trails being fairly flat (that was mostly true), because one section of trail runs along Allen's Creek which has three very nice waterfalls, and because I hadn't been there during the summer for several years.

The parking lot on Penfield Road was a lot more crowded than I expected, but thankfully we saw very few people while we were out on the trails... I guess most folks don't walk through the whole park. The knee made for tough going... I had to take it pretty slow, and most of the time it still hurt quite a bit, but at least we were outdoors on a beautiful sunny day!

Down in the Glen Ann decided to wade out into the creek. The first spot she chose, just below the second waterfall, turned out to be interesting - when she almost stepped on a medium-sized snapping turtle doing a good impersonation of a rock! Needless to say she decided to head downstream before going into the water again... she waded across the top of the third waterfall and then out into the stream below the falls as well.

After that we walked the perimeter of the Glen and got to see a number of birds, including a group of downy woodpeckers that were chasing each other up and down trees and some very active brown birds that were probably some kind of thrush (they never sat still long enough for me to get a decent photo...)

I was getting pretty tired by the time we finished circling the Glen, so the walk back to the car was very slow going. A couple of miles of walking wouldn't ordinarily cause me much stress, but between the constant need to be aware of my knee and the frequent pain from it... this walk did a pretty good job of wearing me out. But, as I said already - it was great to be outdoors on a gorgeous day, even if only for a relatively short and very slow walk.

JMH