Geocaching Leather-man

After a long Winter of catching up on business we finally got out caching again. I was surprised at how out of shape you can get in 3 months time. We kept our hiking down to a short 7 miles but still got pretty tired and sore by the end of the day.

Hiking in the Finger Lakes of Upstate New York in the Spring can be a bit tricky with the water and mud but we had fun just the same. We started out at the base of Hemlock Lake here:

It’s one of the smaller lakes and is one of the water supplies for Rochester, NY so a permit to hike there is required. We only worked one side of the lake saving the other side for summer when the views will be much more colorful with the leaves and wildlife in action.

This was our last stop and the shot was taken in the middle of many fresh signs of the bear in the area:

Many of the older and dead trees in the area had deep claw marks through the bark from 2 to 4 feet above the ground. Bear claw marks and scat were everywhere. I kept my eyes out but we didn’t get to see any of them on this trip. We have them in our back yard several times a year but have yet to run into them on the trail.

As the weather warms, we plan on as much hiking or more than last year and can’t wait for the plants to green up.