Hiking the Hemlock Trail

So here is a video from our first hike of the year. The weather this weekend was Fabulous, and Delia was at her Grandma Constance's house, and I wanted to get outside... So Keith and I drove up to Coopers Rock and found this trail, which we hadn't yet hiked. It is marked by a sign and a wide place to pull off along the berm of Rt 73. Plenty of other folks had the same idea, we met several other hikers along the trail.
We took the uphill leg first, and I was glad. It wasn't terribly steep, but by the time we started downhill again we were sweating. There were plenty of fantastic moss covered rocks, but the trees on that side are mostly deciduous, so things felt a little bare. And the sun really made it through those naked trees to warm us up. It was the first time I was warm enough to take off my sweater AND my flannel shirt and just walk around in a t-shirt.
As the trail turned downhill we walked into a kind of tunnel of hemlocks. I don't know if you're aware of this but that kind of shady rocky forest is prime gnome habitat. We looked, but although I'm pretty sure we found an entrance to one of their underground burrows, we failed to meet any gnomes.
We skidded down a pretty steep bank to check out the water, and almost (but not quite) wiped out on the way down. The stream was so inviting, I wanted to ditch the trail completely and just wade it all the way down the hill. Although my new boots turned out to be plenty waterproof in 3 inches of water, I didn't really want to wade in much deeper, as the water was COLD. Probably runoff from melting snow, there were still pockets of ice in some shady corners even though the air temperature was over 70. Most of the pictures that I took seem to be of water, although really only about half of the trail followed the creek. Must have been too busy huffing up the hill to take any pictures earlier in the hike. :)
I would definitely take Delia on a hike here (although I'm afraid she'll complain the whole way), the trail was not very difficult. I bet Naomi would like it, because there are TONS of fallen trees to climb, at least two of which jut dangerously out over the stream. There were also people fishing in several different spots, so I imagine the University stocks it with trout (since it is about a mile from the University trout pond).

I made this little movie with the iMovie software that came on my new computer. I am just barely figuring out what it can do. It didn't come with an instruction manual, but with helpful videos (which I did watch, or, well, I watched most of them anyway). The Help files are pretty good too. The absolute most frustrating thing about the program though, is navigating the screen. The movie is laid out in little 5 second clips across half of the screen. Every time I drive the little arrow pointer thinger across the screen, it invariable moves something. I can't seem to just "mouse over" anything without affecting it. I finished this little movie to my ever lowering standard of satisfaction about an hour ago. I figured out how to save it (funny thing about the Mac, it scarcely has a "Save As" button - it seems to save every little thing as I do it), I must "export" it instead. So as I drive my little pointer up across the screen to the menu bar, I must've moused over something wrong, because it moved some purple bar and half of my movie didn't have sound when I finally could watch it.... Now, long time later, I think it is ready to go, and I am ready for a nice stiff drink. Technology is GRAND!