Monday, October 18, 2010

Tahmore Hike

We had a great day for a guided hike at Tahmore Place on Sunday, Oct. 17th. Almost 2 dozen folks showed up to enjoy a nice warm, sunny, and much less windy day than Saturday.

Lynn Reid goes over the pre-hike preamble and takes a head count. She doesn't need to bring all the same people out of the woods that she likes to lead in, but she likes to come out with the same number that she started with.

If you every see a hiker walking briskly with 3 dogs on the trails around town; say hi. Lynn is one of our most active Trails Committee leaders.

We had people of all ages and most of them had not been on Tahmore before. The property is owned by the Shelton Land Conservation Trust, a private charity, who generously allowed us to lead this public walk. The Tahmore Loop is about one mile long and joins up with the Paugussett Trail above Indian Well State Park.

There were nice views of the Housatonic River, cows, a small footbridge, and lots and lots of acorns. Thanks to the trails work party that blew off the trails yesterday morning. It made a big difference in the footing.

It was a nice hike for families. The trail is set up as a figure 8 pattern so you can do a short or longer walk, depending on your leg size.

One big hemlock came down across the trail after the work party. The wind was pretty wild yesterday & we had wind gusts of up to 45 mph at times. I spoke with Hank Lauriet, the overseerer of Land Trust Monitors who lives next door & he said that he didn't hear the tree crash down. I asked him benignly if he was in the woods at the time, and he said no. That's when I said "so, it's true, if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, it doesn't make a sound". Hank muttered something and walked away, one of the few times that he was at a loss for words.

We had a great walk. Thanks to Rich Skudlarek for being the official trails photographer. The Shelton Land Trust is a private organization that is separate from the City of Shelton, and they take care of dozen's of properties like Tahmore. Consider becoming a member, it's tax deductible & you get to explore some hidden corners of Shelton.

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