Pusch Ridge Wilderness — Image by kenne
BAD DAY ON LEMMON ROCK
The wilderness area of the Santa Catalina Mountains
provides many beautiful vistas, massive majestic
rock formations and several challenging hiking trails.
For the start of the fall hiking season,
the naturalists scheduled a hike starting
at the highest point atop Mount Lemmon.
In a prologue to frost and early fall colors,
we arranged a shuttle car at Marshall Gulch
so not to double back the six and a half-mile hike.
Having led this hike two months ago,
it combines four trails leading down into and out
of the Pusch Ridge Wilderness to Marshall Gulch.
Beginning on the Mount Lemmon trail,
we follow a forest service road through
upper mountain meadows to the Lemmon Rock trail.
The two rocky trails provide a steep 1,800-foot drop
through tall pines on rocky slopes lined with thorny shrubs
with an occasional cairn marking the many switchbacks.
However, cairns are of little help if I misread
a marker and attempts to create my own trail
down an even steeper rocky slope.
Taking a wrong turn at a trail marker,
which was about an hour into the hike,
was the beginning of my bad day on Lemmon Rock.
It quickly became apparent my pace was too fast
for the rocky slope, I was proceeding down, planting
my right foot, so to begin a slide, only to twist my ankle.
The pain told me this was not a slight twist of the ankle —
Oh, SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! Holding back additional profanity,
I quickly started getting up, checking out the damage.
Anyone who hikes with me knows I usually
have my four-pound camera/lens on
the left shoulder, which I balance with the left hand.
Not this time, since I was wearing
a center-body camera harness —
for the first time, not focusing on saving my camera.
In pain, I did a four-point crawl up to the trail
after answering some ankle movement questions
from a fellow hiker, a retired foot doctor.
Continuing to walk on the rocky trail was difficult —
generating expressions of concern from everyone,
some checking their backpacks for an ankle wraps.
Someone had a velcro Ace bandage,
without which I would not have been able
to continue the remaining five miles to the gulch.
The ankle wrap was a blessing, but having now
given the experience, more thought, although a steep climb,
the shorted hike would have been back up to the top.
We live and learn, or do we?
Would I hike five miles again on a sprained ankle?
I hope I never have to face the question.
How here I sit with my wrapped
black and blue swollen ankle iced down —
I guess I won’t be hiking again soon.
— kenne “Wrong-turn” Turner
Sprained Ankle — Image by Jeff
Monday Morning Milers Hiking Mount Bigelow In The Santa Catalina Mountains — Images by kenne
While vacationing with family on the Outer Banks (OBX) of North Carolina, we took in some of nature’s best. Since most of our time was spent on the shore side, we made a special effort to explore the sound side.
In Nags Head there is Jockey’s Ridge State Park, which contains the tallest natural sand dune system in the Eastern United States attracting hand gliders and wind surfers from up and down the east coast. 
There are plenty of self-guided hiking trails, however we learned of a guided nature walk Wednesday morning that proved to be very information — at least for me. Our guide was a retired high school teacher/administrator that spends his summers as a park docent.
As it turned out, we had a our own personal guided nature walk, since our family were the only people on the walk. There were a lot of people in the park, however, most were on the high dunes watching the gliders. The maritime thicket of live oaks, persimmons, red cedar, wax myrtle, bayberry, sweet gum, red oaks, and pines grows best in areas protected by the large dune.
A lot of the older pine trees died a few year back then a large storm pushed saltwater in the low areas of the park.
Shifting winds are constantly reshaping the dunes. Because the Ridge is always changing, it is often called “The Living Dune.”
Looking out over Roanoke Sound.
The edges of the maritime forest contain a lot of marshy areas attractive to birds.
While on the nature walk, the docent told us about the Nags Head Woods Preserve, so after completing the walk, Joy and I decided to go for a short hike in the preserve.
The preserve is a nature conservancy containing the largest maritime forest on the east coast. The trails wind through marshy woods and wooded dunes.
The Nags Head Woods Preserve Center — Images by kenne
