Flooded Trail

Omrom HJ-112
My usual walk with Rory sticks to the streets around our neighborhood and takes about forty minutes. With my snazzy new Omrom pedometer/pocket watch, I now know it's a shade over two miles. When I have the leisure for a longer walk, I'll take the Yankee Woods trail, which is a four mile loop I can pick up at the end of the block. Since the thaw, my exit from the trail has been blocked by flooding from an adjacent wetland. Retracing one's steps is frustrating and the trail might stay flooded until after Memorial Day.

My fellow die-hard on the trail (we were the only ones out there on a recent rainy morning) is an older diminutive Polish lady who shares my frustration. The difference being she did something about it. After grumbling about Cook County's negligence, she told me about a shortcut through the fenced golf-course that the trail encircles. A vehicle access gate just off the trail leads to the course's cart path and she'd marked the detour with trash bags attached to tree branches. Sure enough, there are two man-sized holes in the fence, one obviously cut long ago to judge by the rust. So until the trail dries out, we can carry on guerrilla hiking while dodging the occasional golf shot.

Hole In The Fence

Trash-bag Marker