Melissa is our hike coordinator for the Winter 2013 season.  She has agreed to schedule 10 hikes for the months of January, February and March.  But she needs us all to suggest and plan the hikes.  Do you have a favorite hike we have done in the last two years?  Or maybe you have always wanted to explore a specific area.  Well, now is your opportunity.

Please send your suggestions for hikes to Melissa at [email protected]. Let’s flood her with ideas so she can select a truly outstanding schedule of hikes for us all to enjoy.

The first thing to do is select a location where you would like to hike.  If the hike is on private land, will you be able to get permission?  When you start to plan the hike, will you be able to plan a route for the naturalists and the climbers?  Now, send your idea to Melissa.

You may want to look at our guidelines to the job of the hike planner.  But always remember that other hikers are always available to help with the planning and the leading of the hike on Sunday.

And check back here for more information as the schedule comes together.

Today is the two year anniversary of the Springwater Trails hiking group.  In those two years, the group has lead 90 hikes (and Char has taken pictures on 75 of those hikes!)

Although I do not have exact counts on the number of hikers, we have averaged 15 to 20 hikers on each Sunday, resulting in a total of 1500 to 2000 hikes being completed by the Springwater Trails.

There are many thank-yous that should be handed out, but I will mention only a few.

First, I have to thank Dean, who invited Linda and I to that very first hike.  Second, we all thank Pam for being the heart and soul of this group for well over the two years we have been hiking (if you don’t know what I mean, please come to any Sunday hike).  And finally, I want to thank Linda and Mac and Duff for hiking with me and being my inspiration for continuing to be a part of this group.

I am sure each of you would mention others, from the original committee members to a particular hiking companion who made one hike memorable.

As many of you know, Char has taken the job of official photographer for the Springwater Trails.  Many of the pictures on this website were taken by Char and are used with her permission.

Many hikers wore orange this week, with the start of hunting season.

I hope that you will find the pictures enhance your experience on the website. I also hope you will respect Char’s rights to the pictures – as the creator of the image, Char has the copyright and it is protected by US copyright law.

Although Char shares her pictures with us, she can’t be everywhere and sometimes she simply enjoys hiking.  So if you have some pictures you would like to share with the Springwater Trails you have two fairly easy options.

You may become a contributor to this website.  Click on the login link at the top of each page, and create your own login.  This will allow you to comment on the stories. To contribute new articles send me an email so that  I can set that up and you can start contributing.

Alternatively, you may email me your pictures.  If you do this, I would like to ask that you take some time to edit and document your pictures.  Here is what I would prefer.

1. On your computer, create a folder for pictures called SpringwaterTrails.
2. In this folder, create a subfolder for each walk.  Name the folder with the year, month and day and a short name for the hike.  For example use a name like “2012 10 14 – Hemlock East Shoreline”.
3. Put your pictures in this subfolder.
4. You may use any photo editor to crop the picture, fix the contrast, remove red eye etc.  You may want to add a small copyright notice such as “©2012 Springwater Trails – 10/14/12 5:00PM EDT”.  I would suggest using your own name, unless you want to transfer the copyright to Springwater Trails.
5. Resize your pictures so that the largest dimension is less than 800 pixels.  Since these will display on a computer screen, high resolution just slows everything down. Viewers shouldn’t be printing your pictures anyway.
6. Create a ZIP file with the entire directory – On Windows 7, I do a right mouse click on the directory in Windows Explorer and select “Send to ->  Compressed (zipped) folder”.
7. Send me the zip file.

Before I use any of your photos, I will add a copyright if you haven’t.  And thanks for hiking with us and sharing your photos.

For those of you who did not pick up a brouchure at the Fiddler’s Fair, the fall hiking schedule is now available either on the Calendar page or in PDF format.