Thursday March 25, 2021 - Solo (Chris only) Howland Island National Wildlife Refuge - near Montezuma (East of Rochester ~40 miles) - About 6 miles, some modest amount of elevation gain

 Today was a gorgeous day. Temps hit the 70's and it was bright but a little overcast.  The forecast for tonight and tomorrow is rain and storms and then after a possible break Saturday, more rain Sunday.  I also have a few hours of work I have to do Sunday afternoon so I asked if I could take off for a few hours mid day today.  I drove I-90 East to get there as quickly as I could and I started my walk very close to noon.  I don't know if I wasn't paying attention to the directions or if there was something weird with the starting point Alltrails sent to Google maps but I ended up parking just on the south side of the river before a 1 lane wooden bridge because I thought that was where the trails started.  Actually it was half a mile or so past the bridge where the road actually ends (or really its blocked by a gate) at a parking lot.  So I added about 1 mile on by doing that.  The Alltrails map I downloaded had some 9 mile loop marked out.  I didn't intend to do 9 miles but originally I thought I would do some certain part of the loop and then back track.  Once I got to walking around though I decided I'd rather head off to a point on the map called 'Hard Point' and then meander back towards the car.  This provided a good long walk and took me off the main road (which is basically a trail since only NWR staff can drive on it) and past many ponds and hills that I imagine are infrequently visited.  I saw only two other walkers today beyond the gate and they were just starting their walk as I walk headed out.

The wildlife refuge was more interesting than I imagined and also not as flat as it looked at first.  There are *so* many different ponds scattered throughout the 3700 acres of the island.  Apparently the island was created by the building of the Erie canal which used many miles of the Seneca river which was very straight and convenient except around this area.  So this is the old river bed and some man made ponds?  I'm not sure I got the details right but here's one description of it.

 Surprisingly, considering the warm temps and ample standing water, there weren't many bugs around.  I think they haven't hatched out yet.  I even saw one tiny piece of what looked like ice over one small pond.  That's probably gone by the weekend.

 










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