Wednesday Walk along the Red River

Last weekend my friends and I decided to hike the Red River trail. We first visited these places 12 years ago. It was a very frosty, sunny January day. The scenery looked fantastic, the clouds of steam played in the sunlight and it looked as if we were walking not along the banks of a muddy stream, but through the pages of a fairy tale book.

This time we were not so lucky with the weather, it was overcast and gray, so we couldn't take any impressive pictures, but we enjoyed the walk itself.

I asked my friends to take pictures with me in the landscape, but we ended up with only one picture of me looking at the towers at some industrial site:

It is very difficult to determine where the water in the Red River comes from. This river used to be a continuation of the Ligovsky Canal, but the canal is partially filled in and no longer serves to deliver water. Nevertheless, the river has not dried up.

Perhaps the only source that feeds it is industrial discharges. The water never freezes in this river. Our walk took place at -10°C (14°F), with the river banks drowning in drifts, but nothing resembling even thin ice on the river. Along the way we encountered several flocks of ducks, they were enjoying the warm water and not worrying about the ecology.

The area of the city behind the Red River has been actively built up over the past decade, and we wanted to check out what had changed in these parts. The beginning of the trail was not particularly interesting. The land near the shore was occupied by a parking lot, and we had to walk along the narrow roadside. But in the far side we found almost untouched piece of mixed forest. It was easy and pleasant to walk along the snow-covered road. We reached the Gulf of Finland, the buildings ahead are the new buildings I wrote about above.