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October Hawk Watch & Dinner
What? A nice, maybe cold, maybe wet, day on the side of a mountain, looking into sun/clouds/fog/rain/sky for hawks/falcons/osprey/eagles/rocs/pterodactyls/more, followed by a meal of chorizo quesadillas and fajitas.
When? Saturday, October 14 8am-7pm or some subset thereof
Where? At Bake Oven Knob until the mid-late afternoon, and then caravanning back to the Ellyssian Estates for dinner
Why? Because.
The Particulars: Justin, Rachel and I will be leaving the house around 9:30am. Show up at the house before 9:00am and our guard cats will do their duty (i.e. run away or roll over for pettings.) Knocking at the door, however, will mostly be ignored. You can meet us at the house between 9:00am-9:30am to follow us over, if you'd like. We'll likely get to the BOK parking lot before 10:00am, and will hang around there until 10:30am or until all expected folks arrive, and then we'll head up![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
thetrail. Around 3:30pm or so, we'll head back down to the parking lot and home. Dinner will follow as soon as possible after that.
The road to the parking lot is stone, washout, gravel, dirt, and smallish ruts. The Contour made the trip recently, and, while showing the abuses of the rains that hit us this year, it didn't have too much difficulty. Except when I drove off the parking lot embankment thinking it was a usable road. Bit to the right would have been less traumatic, eh? In other words, you'll be okay in anything but a Ferrari, but if you have four or all wheel drive, you'd probably be more comfortable.
The hike to the top took us about a half hour each direction. There's some (generally avoidable) mud at the bottom, segueing quickly into some rocks, which become more rocks, which become awful lots of rocks. Sneakers can survive. Flip flops, loafers, or ballet shoes wouldn't.
Bring a lunch and/or snack to hold you over until dinner. Bring some water. Expect to pack back whatever you bring - the only facilities at the top will be a counting board for the hawks and maybe -maybe- a decoy owl on a pole.
Bring something to look at the birds with - binoculars, spyglasses, telephoto cameras, bionic vision, etc. You can spot a lot with the naked eye, so if you don't have an ocular enhancement device it won't be a total loss, but it's a lot more fun if you can actually count the feathers as they fly by...
Bring some corn on the cob, a salad, some Riesling (there's a vineyard right around the corner,) or some desserts for the dinner (let me know what you're bringing and I'll cross them off, or, for the desserts, list them below...)
When? Saturday, October 14 8am-7pm or some subset thereof
Where? At Bake Oven Knob until the mid-late afternoon, and then caravanning back to the Ellyssian Estates for dinner
Why? Because.
The Particulars: Justin, Rachel and I will be leaving the house around 9:30am. Show up at the house before 9:00am and our guard cats will do their duty (i.e. run away or roll over for pettings.) Knocking at the door, however, will mostly be ignored. You can meet us at the house between 9:00am-9:30am to follow us over, if you'd like. We'll likely get to the BOK parking lot before 10:00am, and will hang around there until 10:30am or until all expected folks arrive, and then we'll head up
thetrail. Around 3:30pm or so, we'll head back down to the parking lot and home. Dinner will follow as soon as possible after that.The road to the parking lot is stone, washout, gravel, dirt, and smallish ruts. The Contour made the trip recently, and, while showing the abuses of the rains that hit us this year, it didn't have too much difficulty. Except when I drove off the parking lot embankment thinking it was a usable road. Bit to the right would have been less traumatic, eh? In other words, you'll be okay in anything but a Ferrari, but if you have four or all wheel drive, you'd probably be more comfortable.
The hike to the top took us about a half hour each direction. There's some (generally avoidable) mud at the bottom, segueing quickly into some rocks, which become more rocks, which become awful lots of rocks. Sneakers can survive. Flip flops, loafers, or ballet shoes wouldn't.
Bring a lunch and/or snack to hold you over until dinner. Bring some water. Expect to pack back whatever you bring - the only facilities at the top will be a counting board for the hawks and maybe -maybe- a decoy owl on a pole.
Bring something to look at the birds with - binoculars, spyglasses, telephoto cameras, bionic vision, etc. You can spot a lot with the naked eye, so if you don't have an ocular enhancement device it won't be a total loss, but it's a lot more fun if you can actually count the feathers as they fly by...
Bring some corn on the cob, a salad, some Riesling (there's a vineyard right around the corner,) or some desserts for the dinner (let me know what you're bringing and I'll cross them off, or, for the desserts, list them below...)
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Enjoy!
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I'll be there
Would anyone like me to carry additional (picnic) equipment up? I am a regular ole pack horse. I carry up to 40 pounds without complaint. But of course... (1) It's gotta fit in the backpack. (2) No live cargo. (3) No dead cargo. (4) No cinder blocks, without darn good justification. (5) No bear bait.
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Now that you mention it, there is a can of bear mace in my kitchen. It looks like a kitchen fire extinguisher. Sister Robin made me buy it, because she lives on the West coast. The bears are nastier there, and she did not want to take a chance with our brown bears.
I am more likely to use bear mace on a woodland mugger than a bear. Make enough of a racket, and the bears usually leave me alone.
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If we could convince them.
Maybe that should be IF or If...
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A few weekends ago, we stopped by BOK for a couple of hours, and during that short time saw dozens of birds.
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In any case, I'm just going to have to see what time I get done with the walk. If I get done relatively early, and the weather is good for hawk-watching I may well join you. If the weather is wrong, I probably won't. After all, I can just go up on Mt Penn behind my house to watch hawks - much closer although the company is usually not as good. (We tried to get them to let us use the firetower there for hawk counting, but the deal never quite got made to do it.)
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