Use this topic for posts that will collect community stars for the Hammond Hill Hoctathon course. You can also ask questions or make comments about this course.
Here’s how it works.
Click the “Post Using This Template” button below to create a new post with a Story heading and boilerplate text.
Replace the boilerplate text with your report for one or both sections. The Story header is key for distinguishing between posts and replies—don’t change it.
Your post must be on the same calendar day as your run as entered in the leaderboard.
Story
To pick up a community star, replace this text with a write-up of what your run was like, a photo you took on the run, a link to your Strava track, or something similar. Don’t delete the Story heading above.
Holy Hoctathon, Batman!
What a gorgeous day it was for a trail run at Hammond Hill on Thursday to kick off my 2026 Challenge! Had the trails all to myself, except for a mountain biker near the finish. The course is in tremendous shape with just a few muddy spots.. Alas, my red newt count is still at zero, perhaps because it is a bit early or it was too chilly yet. Only a couple of trillium just beginning to pop where there is usually a large patch of them. But the view is always there:
It has stone wall sides. Last year I saw something about fire ponds that were built to collect water for fighting forest fires. Not sure if that is the purpose of this. Anyone know?
A Google search brought up this Facebook post from last fall where Ann Leonard responded with the exact information you had! “That mini pond was installed by the CCC as a fire control measure. There are two of them, the other is not far from the top of Ganotacherage fire road.”
“What do YOU want to do for Father’s Day?” Considering I had gotten home at 1:30 am this morning after 27 hours traveling across 6 time zones, the best answer probably should have been “not much”. But as that travel required a lot of sitting, and there hadn’t been much activity during the last 10 days, and the weather was damn near perfect, and the trails were dry and there was just enough of a breeze to keep the bugs away, well, why not run on some of my favorite trails?
So I chose this course because a) I could change my mind after the first wing of the butterfly and just run in; b) I could change my mind about 6 miles in and just run in; and c) if I was going to do this, getting the bulk of the steep climbing out of the way in the first 3 miles would be a big plus.
And thus, this is how I spent my Father’s Day. It was a lovely day on the trails - and I only got my rights and lefts confused once - and realized it as I was turning in the wrong direction, so little harm. Highlight was seeing Charlie Leonard and Darwin out escorting a couple of young horse riders - though I can’t quite recall which trail (Y7 perhaps?). Low point - tripping on a stupid root on B3 with the resulting sprawl in the dirt - which set off the emergency signal on my watch for the second time in a week (only this time I knew what it was; the first time I thought it was some odd bird…)
The more you know!