Ridge Walking 12-20-08
The day before this trip was my last of work before my vacation. It was a long day, I was still nursing a head cold and it was freezing raining out side. But I did get everything done that I needed to get done before vacation so I could relax.
Saturday the sun was still behind some clouds. The temps were in the 20s, but at least it stopped raining. We weren't hit by the storm as bad as some areas of Pennsylvania, and Montgomery County was one area that was worse off than we were. I didn't know if we were even going to be able to get into the area we were aiming for because of the ice on the roads the day before.
I stopped of at Dan and Linsey's house to pick them up. Dan called over to Weller's house and we went over a block and got him and headed out to John's house. Just as we were getting ready to see if he was ready he came outside. Pete wanted to go too. On to plan “B”. Took Dan back to get his car and another helmet and light for Pete. Rendezvoused back at John's and we all packed up and head out on the road.
We were meeting up with Steve. He was going to take us ridge walking. He knew a place that we could go to look around for any possible evidence of caves. There were a couple on the property we were head for that were already known. We did have permission to be on the property for the day and wanted to take advantage of it as much as possible.
It was just about perfect weather for ridge walking. Fresh crunchy snow. Not deep enough to get your feet wet. Not warm enough for the snow to melt. A couple times the sun did come out and tried to melt the ice on trees making that creaking sound as the wind blew.
This is one of those activities that's hard to describe. We just kind of wondered through the woods looking for big rocks to look around and through. There was a lot of magma rock. Big squarish rock. Not the round bolder like in Boulder Field. As I learned that day this rock was not from a glacier deposit. This came up from below as magma and cooled very slowly. Sometimes over hundreds of thousands or millions of years. As it cooled it would crack, mostly in straight lines. This rock was very hard. It was mostly covered with moss and lichen giving it a green tint, but it is almost black when cut, if you can cut it.
We spent about 4 hours walking through these woods looking at rocks and just enjoying the day outside. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the day that I can use. Forgot to put the RAM chip in the camera. You can take my word for it that we had a great day and a fun, as well as different, adventure.
Steve has a few other places he wants to look for caves. He's invited along on his adventures. Maybe we'll hook up again soon.
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