Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday, 15th September.

We meet at the Ballpark in Gillies Bay at 10:00am.

Last week drove over to Pocahontas Bay on the east side of the island and then continued a short distance south on the old Pocahontas Main logging road, parking at the junction where the side road to the towers branches off.  Our destination was the viewpoints on Pocahontas East peak which we have visited many times before this, but we usually approach from a different direction on a shorter route.  This time the climb was longer and the elevation gain a shade over 1,000ft.  

There are no viewpoints on the way up and it's nice to have the views towards the mainland mountains as a reward for the physical effort. 

Shortly after we started down it was a little surprising to see a garter snake sleeping on the damp moss just to one side of the trail.  Snakes unlike lizards do not have eyelids so it's hard to tell if they are awake or not when they are not moving about.  In this case it remained quite motionless as it was being photographed until out popped it's tongue showing we had woken it up. Even then it was not bothered by us being close by and we backed off and left it to resume its afternoon nap.

JD.

 

A sleeping Garter Snake beside the hiking trail on Mt. Pocahontas.