Just a Nice Walk Along the Road

It wasn't ten below nor pouring rain nor blowing a gale.  It was just a nice winter day yesterday, with a little sun and temps in the 40s, and I wanted to go for a walk.  Not a mountain hike nor a snowshoe trek, just a swing-my-legs-easy kind of walk where my feet didn't crash through frozen crust nor slip on glassy ice.  So I headed over to Spier Falls Road at Moreau, where the Hudson River runs close by one side of the road and mountains rise sharply from the other,  and the shoulders are wide enough that I can safely ease off the road when huge lumber trucks come barreling by. And it's really quite beautiful there.

Thanks to springs and snowmelt that constantly water the mountainside rocks, massive mounds of ice build up over the winter.

Some of the cascading icicles turn the most beautiful tinge of blue.

Where this mountainside was quarried back in the early 1900s to provide material to build the Spier Falls Dam across the road, tier upon tier of cascading ice has transformed the site into a majestic fairy castle. Or ice-climbing challenge, depending on your perspective!

A warming late-February sun has loosened winter's grip on this little rill.  I stood a while just to hear the splash and tinkle of water dancing from rock to rock -- a sound that signals that Spring will soon be here!