Close Encounter

Last night was a beautiful night for a beautiful hike. The heat of the day was gone and there was a constant cool breeze the whole time.

I hiked up behind the house, past the lookout on Yellow and up the Y/G crossover to Green, then left to Red Triangle, right to Blue, left up and over to the Tower Path, right and back around on the Tower Path, then down the Red Triangle to Violet, right on the Red Circle to Blue and then left to follow it out to Chestnut where Evan picked me up. I started around 7 PM and ended 2 hours later.

When I had gotten back to the Red Circle and started up Blue around 8 PM, I got to the lookouts where you can see over the central valley of trees with peeks of Long Island Sound over the low spots (one of my favorite places on the Giant). The trail turns back into the woods and that's where it happened.

As I rounded a corner, there was a deer right in the middle of the trail ahead. I stopped and looked at it and it turned its head almost backwards to stare at me over its back. I said "hello" and it turned back to continue nibbling on the bush just off the trail. I didn't want to disturb it but I wanted to continue so I walked toward it slowly and it moved off the trail. It kept looking at me but then turning to eat more of the bush.

When I got up alongside of it, I swear I could have touched it if I stretched my arm toward it. I think I said "hi" again or something and it jumped a little but it stayed right there. I continued on the trail and it kept watching me but continued eating.

You see more wildlife when you hike in the evening. So far they've all been friendly.