Let's go for a walk!
Disclaimer: It's wintertime here, so these are some very brown and unremarkable pictures. Don't say I didn't warn you. Also, there are lots of words on this hike, feel free to skip them
Some background: I live in an urban area in a decent-sized city, so it's mostly all paved sidewalks and streets. There are parks around, but they're really just open squares of grass with playgrounds and more sidewalks -- except Kessler Park! It's pretty big considering the area (tucked between the ghetto and an industrial area) and it's a proper park, with trees and stuff
A group of guys spent a year digging trails throughout the park. Their main motivation was having a place for mountain biking (or trail biking or nature cycling, IDK what you'd call it) with good parts for "technical riding," i.e. not flat terrain. While some parts can get a little rough, lots of bikeless people walk through.
There are several trails with multiple places to enter/exit. We're going through my favorite one, faved because it's in the wider part of the park (so you can't see the road or city when you get high enough) and it goes across the cliffs (where you
can see the city, which is cool at that point). It's also the scariest (further in) and I love it.
Let's do this.
The beginning!This is where the trail starts, with the Terrace Lake (or Lake Terrace?) beyond the trees. Don't get your hopes up though, it's barely more than a puddle. Its original name was Scummy Pond Filled With Trash Surrounded By A Minefield Of Goose Poop.
Trees and stuffIt really does look better with leaves and grass, and that's the last time I'll apologize for it, I swear!
Getting technical hereI think a tree growing over the trail would add to the technical part of the riding for a cyclist... When they were making the trails, all the trees and stuff they cut out were just tossed to the side, so it's kind of a mess of twigs on either side most the way through. Oh, and trash.
Little bridgesHere's another one of Scummy Pond and some sidewalk bridges over a runoff point. There are a few tiny streams here and there in the park, and maybe they all lead to Scummy Pond.
Mud?! How exciting!No, I almost died here, I slid a foot on each step! Hard to tell in the picture, but this part (and most of the trail from here) is cut out of a hill. This is where I started thinking I should go back the way I came and stick to the sidewalks for the day...
Caves and trash dumpersHow intriguing! Not the discarded siding, that's annoying, but I really want to look in that cave thing. I've been closer and I'm pretty sure someone lives in there, but I don't want to get closer because I'm pretty sure someone lives in there.
Seriously, what's in there?!I'm dying to know, but I don't want to die finding out. There's probably someone looking at us right now.
Knotty tree"Look at this knotty tree. Oh behave!" I make that dumb joke every time I pass this tree. There's nothing interesting about it.
It's all uphill from hereIt's been pretty flat for a while, but we're heading up the hills now. We must be two, maybe three feet high! This shows how we're walking on the side of hills most of the time. There have been several more mud patches too. Now would be a good time to exit the trail, while there's a clear space...
Heads up!They aren't kidding. There is a disc golf course in this part of the park. It covers a huge area, which is probably typical, I don't play. The first flying disc I saw came out of nowhere. There was no one around but I saw this pink thing go past me. Then this guy came over the hill and says "oh hi, that must have looked weird!"
Casual rock climberThis is the beginning of the cliffs that gives Cliff Drive (the scenic road that goes through the park) its name. This guy was part of a group of disc golfers playing through, taking a break to scale a rock wall. It was warm today -- 60F/15C -- and there were lots of people out everywhere.
Very climbableMore rock wall. I can see why people are tempted to climb these.
Walking on a hillHere's another example of the hills. We're still not too high up, and this part of the trail is flat-ish, but on parts of the trail that slope downward and are muddy, there's really no other option but to carefully cross the mud. Listen to me make excuses! But it gets worse higher up in these hills, believe me.
Chicken exit!I didn't take another picture of mud, but I slid big time in another mud patch just before this, nearly dying. I probably would've just fallen on my butt and stopped sliding, but it was a fairly steep hill and I got nervous. I'm a long walk from home, too far to risk getting hurt. Also, I didn't want to walk home covered in mud. So on the first clear part I came across, I exited and took the road back.
It's going to be below freezing for several days (or the rest of winter). I'll come back when all this mud is frozen! I did this trail a few days ago after the snow was gone. It was still 28F/-2C but I thought the ground was dry. Nope, frozen.
The Great StairA short walk up the road brings us to the first and fastest way out of the park. These steps are behind The Colonnade, a fancy structure in The Concourse. It's a lot of steps, but the road takes you out of the way. You can see the "castle" from there, but it's clearly getting dark and we're still 15 minutes from home. The stairs it is!
Feel the burn!It's 192 steps, including the steps you have to take on the flat parts. I'll admit it, I'm huffin' and puffin' by the time I get to the top. You can also see another trail. Haven't taken that one yet, but it looks boring. I can tell.
Mystery islandCrossing a bridge to get home, you can see most of Scummy Pond in most of its majesty. You can't see where the floating trash collects around the corner. Don't be deceived, it's not actually that blue. Or blue at all. And the island looks better and more mysterious in the summer, when there are leaves and you can't see the middle of it. And I've bad-mouthed it the whole time, but I actually like this pond. That's not really scum you see now, it's ice. It's been very cold recently, except today.
Aaaaand, you can't see it in this scaled down image (or the huge one), but the high ground on the left is where the reservoir is, which is the reward at the end of the trail. Or it was the first time I went to the end of it. I don't check it out every time, but that reservoir is worth seeing once.
So today was a bust. We'll have to finish in a few days after it's been cold for a while, but before it snows. Look for the continuation soon! We'll get a look at this "castle" and the reservoir and The Colonnade, see if it's worthy of the capital letters.