the Way of the Turtle

1 Mile Walk at Old Maid Woods
Friday, July 30, 2010

I've wanted to check out this short trail in Rotterdam for a while now and finally made the opportunity before heading over to the bike path for a ride. the walk started with a climb to the top of a ridge followed by a level loop through the woods and then back down the same way I hiked in. All in all a nice, relatively quiet walk in the woods (except for the traffic noise from I890 and when the train went by!) with some impressive old growth trees (ie big old trees; according to this report, some are 200+ years old.)

My only major wildlife sighting was a bit amusing... I opened the rather battered trail register box just inside the trailhead to check if there was a map and found instead several nests, lots of torn paper scraps, and a vinyl binder, which I assumed was the trail register. Opened it up and there was a mouse hiding inside! Needless to say he hightailed it out of there. It looked like the binder had once held pictures of some sort and possibly a trail register... amusingly someone had written on one scrap of paper "The mice have been evicted." Maybe so but at least one of them didn't get the news!

All the same, I don't see myself coming back here very often... it's too short to run by itself (unless I want to be a gerbil and go around and around and around... ugh, no thanks) and there isn't really anything that leaped out at me and made me say "Wow, I've got to come back here again!") It might make a nice side trip during a run on the bike path (particularly if combined with the Rotterdam Great Flats Nature Trail that I visited a few weeks ago) or perhaps it could be a nice spot for a short snowshoe run in the winter... it might also be nice to go there when the leaves are turning and also when they're off the trees to get a better view from the top of the ridge. We'll see...

JMH