Maple Fest Scramble on Watkins Hill Rd. East Poultney, March 27, 2023

The rescheduled date came through with fabulous. The snow melt made for an great weather and some
sunshine. Larry, Sue, Carol and I started at the old yellow school house and historic Ward family cemetery at the
corner of Watkins Hill and what locals call “the loop road.” There was still snow up there, so once we hit the hemlock forests further up the road, it was active and beautiful stream with its contours and little falls. I had gotten permission to hike on two very large parcels of land owned by friends and neighbors, and it had been a dream of mine to hike on the other side of the gorge up there. Oh, what fun it was to hike through the snow and hemlocks and get a completely different view of that gorge. What looks like a really big drop-off from the view of the class IV road was just a gradual decline from that other side. It’s quite an optical illusion!

Anyways, we finished by climbing up to the top of my friends’ property for a view of Birdseye and a few other hills.

All told, we walked about 4.7 miles, and I hope the other three had as much fun as put a big bandaid on the booboo, and I patched it up at home I did. I think the only time I didn’t have a smile on my face was when I ripped my jacket while climbing under a barbed-wire fence. Larry with some liquid Fabric Fuse. If I had just walked a few yards further, I could have avoided the barbed wire altogether. Shortsighted thinking always causes
problems! Anyways, to go exploring in a beautiful hemlock forest with that waterway and snow on a sunny
day, and to share that with friends, was just the tops!