'Green Tunnel' = Hiker Porn! The Appalachian Trail in Five Minutes!

Spotted this very zen video on a friend's facebook posting. No, it's not actually adult-themed aside from simply having some random adults who are doing nothing but hiking. As an avid hiker, I dream of doing the Appalachian Trail some day but if I ever do I figure I will have to train rigorously for at least 6 months prior and I think I'd like to go with a friend or two.

Green Tunnel from Kevin Gallagher on Vimeo.

Foxfire: A Surreal Experience!

I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT TO POST ABOUT THIS!

I was on a night-time run with my dog on the backroads near my house in early August of 2010 and saw an eerie, greyish-bluish-green glow coming from a spot about 50 yards into the woods. Knowing that area to be too densely wooded and too sloped for camping I was a little weirded out but figured that someone had drunkenly wandered into the woods and maybe passed out with a flashlight or cellphone turned on and I was concerned (people stop on that road frequently to drink or dump trash unfortunately). My dog usually reacts to the presence of another creature or person and he did not even register any sort of acknowledgement of whatever was causing the light. I called toward the light to see if anyone was there, the woods remained stone-silent. At this point the every hair on my body began to stand on end and my pulse started racing. This scared me a lot, having never encountered it before, but my curiousity was just a little bit stronger than my fear. I turned on my flashlight and with a death-grip on my dog's collar started slowly walking into the woods. When I got to the area where I figured the light had been coming from I saw nothing at all, not even a hint of a glow. With my brain and heart both amped up from the fear I did not know what to think. I really didn't want to but figured the best way to get another glimpse of the glow was to douse the flashlight. Upon covering the flashlight with my hand I was both stunned and amazed by what sat directly six feet in front of me: my first ever bioluminescent fungus discovery. I had no idea that this sort of thing occurred in environments other than tropical & temperate zones. Having studied and marveled at it for a few minutes I then ran home as fast as my legs could carry me to grab my camera.

Upon further study I determined that the species of the fungus is probably the immature form of Panellus Stipticus just barely starting to culture in the moist, freshly exposed wood of this fallen birch tree, having not formed true caps yet. It is also one of the species often referred to colloquially as 'Foxfire' but I have yet to confirm this.

Following is a progression of pictures alternating normal flash exposures with the same shots taken in the dark. The only thing different from the pictures was that the glow was more of a pale bluish green and it saturated the wood more thoroughly than in the pictures, the camera apparently only picked up the green spectrum. These are all 15-second exposures with a 2.4 aperture setting, 1600 ISO.

The other amazing thing about this is the very narrow margin of conditions which it requires to actually glow. Temperatures need to be about in the high-30s - high 40s with the humidity, type of wood, level of degradation of the wood as well as the time of year being just right. I feel very fortunate to have seen this.

Two New Inductions...

into the Sacred Sisterhood of Sacrosanct Cisterns. Don't ask me why I am apparently obsessed with them, I don't even know but have been neglecting to mention new memberships, found these two on another hike in the foothills a few months ago. I spoke to the farmer who maintains the land for the land-owner (also the person who built the enclosure for this one as I found out) and he is hoping to convince the land-owner to have enclosures built for all of the cisterns on the land. I'm not sure how I feel about enclosing all of them. I guess I understand if the intention is to use them all again some day or prevent falling/drowning hazards. Still, they are kind of pretty and almost naturalized to their surroundings when in a state of disrepair.


This one is about 3' X 6'. A few scant remains of it's former enclosure lie around it. It lays hidden in the woods about a hundred yards up the hill from a couple of the others mentioned previously.

This is the biggest one I've ever seen, roughly 5' X 9' and at least eight feet deep. I noticed that several unfortunate critters had fallen into it and drowned so, being careful not to touch them. I fished them out with a tree branch and buried them. Stuck a couple branches in at odd angles so that future clumsy critters would be able to climb back out. I also brought a few of my pond goldfish up on a subsequent hike and put them in there to help control mosquitos.

While I was busy mucking around with the big cistern, my dog disappeared for a few minutes and came back soaked from head to toe. I was curious where he found water deep enough to swim so I followed his tracks backwards to this beautiful woodland bog-pond just up the hill from the cistern. The place is very serene and unspoiled, I think it will be one of my favorite new places to take friends when we are out hiking or on a picnic.

"Maidenhair" Fern grows abundantly in biotopes like this: filtered sunlight, lots of sphagnum moss & still, acidic water with a very thick layer of settled organic matter just below the surface. This is one of those places where if you tread on the mossy areas, the entire ground ripples and one must be careful not to damage the plant life or fall through the moss layer.

Sacred Sisterhood of Sacrosanct Cisterns

...dare ya to say that ten times fast.

The area where I live was primarily farmland a century ago and most of the open fields have since been reclaimed by the trees again. Vestiges of the farms still remain, such as these four cisterns I found hidden away in the woods.

This one has obviously seen better days. I imagine the crack was from years of freeze/thaw cycles, now there is a constant flow of water coming out of the crack, thus a convenient watering hole for the dog.

The fresh-cut boards on this almost-finished cistern enclosure would indicate it to be a new construction, I'm guessing that it gravity-feeds the farm house and barn located about a tenth of a mile down the hill from it. For those who are unfamiliar with cisterns, if they are for human use and drinking water, they need to have enclosures like this to keep bugs, animals, leaves and other potential contaminants out of them.

Hike To Gunnison Lake & Mt. Sunapee

Thursday was my day off so I decided to go on one of my long, rambling walkabouts (gee, I hope Australians aren't the only ones allowed to use that term). It is a form of walking meditation; helping me to iron out my priorities and recenter myself spiritually.

The map below details my approximate route which spanned seven hours, two towns and almost every type of terrain common to this area of New England. The experience ranged from falling into mud-holes through frozen snow, to scratching up my legs in dense underbrush, crossing a waist-deep freezing river, climbing 50 feet up a maple tree to figure out where the heck I was, viewing a beautiful panorama of the surrounding area from the top deck of the closed-down ski lodge on top of the mountain and on bare-soled sneakers skiing down slopes which had just been in use two days previously. I killed the soles on my old shoes and thought it curious that I never fell once (I fall frequently when actually wearing skis). I met my parents at the base lodge and we went out for pizza. Along the way there were abandoned shacks, partridges flying up in my face, bridges of questionable design & stability, and a cast-0ff crutch on the side of one of the trails. What a day. All pictures are in order of appearance on the trip.

Goshen/Sunapee NH area (click for a more detailed view)

Trails ranging from mixed mud & icy snow...

...to snowy & slick.

Gunnison Lake (aka "The Goshen Ocean") with Mt. Sunapee in the background

Random trailer/hunting camp(?) in the middle of nowhere, literally 2-3 miles from the nearest road.

Should have listened to the little voice telling me that it was a stupid idea to wear low-ankle sneakers.

Some of the trails were washed-out

Falling-down shack in the middle of nowhere on the back side of Mt. Sunapee. The dimensions would indicate that it's primary use may have been for a hermit with an ascetic lifestyle or a temporary camping retreat for a single person. Just enough room for one to lie down in with a small stove and a backback. It measured about 9 ft. by 4 ft. and was just under 6 ft. high.

The stove was sitting outside the entrance, mostly rusted into the ground.

It was high enough that the trees near the top were very short, most of them looking to be 5+ decades old yet less than 15 feet tall.

Cell tower and lodge at the top.

Distant view of Gunnison Lake

Closer detail.

Ski lift

I found the severity of the language in this disclaimer enough to prevent me from taking this trail.

Lake Sunapee at the top right and Little Sunapee to the left

Awesome name for a trail!

What I See and Do Lately

A beauteous and detailed cross-stitch that my coworker & friend D made over the winter. She chose a wonderful frame and matting color to showcase it as well.

Detailed view of said cross-stitch.

My friend P and I went out and visited the old covered railroad bridges again (previously mentioned in this post). This gives a good perspective on the size of the entrance to the bridge, large enough for an old steam-engine train with a stack to pass through. (P, I blurred your face because I forgot to ask your permission to post your image).

Close-up of the texture of a favia (aka: pineapple or moon) brain coral at work.

Close-up of a sun polyp coral at work.

So I could proceed to whine about my car having broken down... as in TOTALED because the wiring harness decided to have a complete meltdown, fusing to the frame and melting through the floorboard in some spots. It all happened while I was driving and caused a scene that will make an amusing story in a few months (or years), but I am too annoyed to find it humorous right now. It was only a 2001 Ford Focus and it had just 71,000 miles on it. I was good to that car; keeping up on repairs & maintenance. My plan was to run it another couple of years to further enjoy the "cinderella period" (when a car is paid off but not yielding major troubles yet) before needing to trade up to another vehicle, but I guess this was not meant to be. I feel torn because I really want to get another Focus and support Ford (it's one of the few American car companies with fairly progressive, inclusive initiatives in place in it's facilities), but I am also very soured by this experience as well as the Focus' general track record on the Consumer Reports website.

On the GOOD NEWS front it looks like I will be a home owner soon! Nothing further to say yet because the deal is not cinched and the current owners are still waiting to get into another residence, but it is looking more hopeful than it was a few weeks ago!

Bouncing Off The Walls

I love my parents and all, but keep in mind that I've been living in my own home for over a decade now, and staying with them (it seems for the duration of winter) is driving me stir-crazy. This is not due to any transgression or shortcoming on their part. I'm simply ridiculously independent and feeling some major withdrawal from not having my own home environment to micromanage and a lack of an easily-available internet connection. The up-side: cheap rent and living expenses for now, which is enabling me to save up for a down payment on a home even faster than before, and I get plenty of exercise hiking all my familiar childhood trails.

There is a popular book that I am in the middle of reading (on the advice of a coworker) - The Saint, The Surfer, and The CEO; a decent read so far, but parts of it feel like a pre-scripted interaction within an Amway presentation, with people planted in the audience. Regardless, there are some interesting theories put into the book and I shouldn't discount it on the basis of it's mechanically contrived feeling. One of the concepts put forth in the book is that within the complexity of life, circumstances and teachers are sent our way repeatedly until we learn what they were sent to teach. I can not truthfully disagree in this case. It has felt for some time like the people and circumstances in my life are there to teach me to stop being so headstrong and independent, learning to be more socially passive and take help and acts of kindness instead of being the one who always gives them. My other lesson seems to be in the areas of patience and tolerance... Being a bit of a social introvert, I have a strong aversion to people who talk a lot while not expressing anything useful or meaningful, suddenly it seems like I am being surrounded with them everywhere I go, babbling non-stop and sometimes trying to engage me in conversation. I have to keep reminding myself that they do it because they want approval and camaraderie, seeking a connection just like any other human being. I just need to step back and patiently allow them to come into their own and hopefully outgrow the tendency toward verbal incontinence.

I was playing around with google maps a few weeks ago and stumbled across a woodland lake I had never seen before...

...and only a stone's throw away from one of my favorite hiking trails. It was in a section of the woods which I thought I had known like the back of my hand while growing up. Obviously I didn't know the woods as well as I thought, so I decided to go out and find it. After traversing the trail to where I figured was the nearest point, I guessed which direction the lake would be in and I bushwhacked through about a half mile of underbrush and ended up right on the shore...

...on further exploration around the entire perimeter of what turned out to be more of a large pond, I found a well-marked ATV trail leading from the other side of the lake onto a neighbor's property about a quarter mile away, but I also found something else interesting...

...on the shore of the pond was an old, decrepit sugaring house that looked like it was on the verge of falling down...

...note the large collecting tank for the sap...

...there were faint traces of an old (and long since grown-in) road leading to the structure and miscellaneous bottles & rusted out equipment lying around. I wish I knew the history of this structure: the conversations that may have taken place, the people who worked in it. If it was a family business... I am hoping to talk with the neighbor who presumably owns this property and ask about it.

More Miscellaneous Pictures:

Weird anthropomorphic stump aquarium ornament at work

My feline children resting comfortably

My former roommate brought 'Spud' for a visit at my workplace and she dressed him up in one of the small dog costumes.



I'll wrap this up with a cutesy-amusing video of 'Ozzy', a Brussels Griffon owned by one of my coworkers, reacting strangely to having winter paw-wear put on him.