Noblewood Park: Old Friends and a New Place to Explore on the Shore of Lake Champlain

Some places sure are worth a two-hour drive to reach, especially when they involve a reunion with dear friends at a gorgeous location.  That was my husband's and my experience yesterday when we drove up to the Essex Ferry Dock on the shore of Lake Champlain, where our friends Lewis and Madelyn had just arrived from their Vermont home across the lake. From there, we drove together a few miles north to a lakeshore park called Noblewood, where we picnicked high on a bluff overlooking the gorgeous expanse of Lake Champlain, with a glimpse of Vermont's Green Mountains on the far shore.

Noblewood Park is a natural area at the outlet of the Boquet River on Lake Champlain. This 69-acre property is owned by the Town of Willsboro and protected by a conservation easement held by The Nature Conservancy’s Adirondack Chapter.  Among Noblewood's attractions is a sandy beach on the lake, which we visited after our lunch and where we were amazed by the sparkly-black and the reddish  sands at the water's edge.  I'm sure that the sands' colors resulted from the region's geology, although I do not know what particular rocks would have contributed to these hues.

UPDATE: While searching the internet for information that might explain the colors of these sands, I came across excerpts from Peter Kalm's account of his explorations of Lake Champlain in 1749. (Kalm was a protege of the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, who sent him to North America to collect botanical specimens.) He determined that the black sand contained iron and was attracted to magnets, while the red sand was composed of pounded garnets. This makes sense to me, since both the black-colored iron ore called magnetite and abundant deposits of ruby-red garnet occur in this region of New York State. Here's a link to the site where I found Kalm's account.

Adjacent to the sandy beach was a much rockier shoreline, with matted heaps of uprooted aquatic plants covering the rocks closest to the water. At first glance,  I was struck by what looked to be the whitest rocks I had ever seen. In a different season, I might have thought they were dusted with snow or covered with frost.

But a closer look at these shoreline rocks revealed that their whiteness was the result of their being covered by a pale, many-branched vegetation, possibly the same aquatic vegetation that lay heaped in masses nearby.

I found these branching patterns to be quite lovely. In some ways, they reminded me of the engravings on ivory called Scrimshaw, only in reverse, with white on dark instead of black on white.

I was particularly hoping to visit the part of Noblewood Park where the Boquet River flows into Lake Champlain, and after some twists and turns of the park's internal trails, we came out upon the river's shore. Much further upstream, the Boquet is a tumbling and twisting Adirondack river known for its rapids and waterfalls and famous as a fisherman's favorite trout stream. But here at Willsboro, well east of the high peaks and where the land levels off to meet Champlain's shore, the Boquet flows wide and serene.

Our first glimpse of the river revealed a beautiful Great Egret wading its shallows. Our presence, however, prompted the egret to quickly fly away.

As we emerged from the shaded forested trails to stand on the Boquet's banks, we were dazzled by the blue brightness of river, lake, and sky.

Here, the riverbank curved before it protruded into the lake with a sandy-shored point.

I could have stayed here all day.  I certainly hope to return some year in the growing season, to explore these shores for the plants that thrive in such a distinctive habitat.

We encountered very few blooming flowers this day, with the exception of several different species of goldenrods and asters, both in the woods as well as out here on the shore. This lovely cluster of Panicled Aster was blooming amid the grasses that covered the sandbar where the river met the lake.

And this cluster of Nodding Bur Marigold was happy to have its feet wet right on the Boquet's shore.

  

I was surprised not to find lots of mushrooms along the wooded trails, considering how rainy the past week had been. But the gigantic size of some Shaggy Mane mushrooms made up for that lack of fungal numbers just by these being so enormous.  I also found a few of these mushrooms well past maturity, their curling-back caps already slimed with inky black liquid.

As I mentioned at the start of this post, the drive to Noblewood Park from our home in Saratoga Springs is rather a long one. But who could complain about a long drive, when the highway leads through some of the most beautiful landscape in the country?  Especially during the most beautiful season of Autumn.  I know that this photo would not rate a calendar page, taken as it was through a dirty windshield while traveling 70 miles an hour. But it does reveal something of the beauty already present as the leaves start to turn, as well as a hint to the true gorgeousness yet to come in the few short weeks ahead, when every hillside and mountain will be covered with a crazy-quilt of brilliant autumn color.  Don't miss it!