Autumn Color: In Saratoga's Woods and On the Waterways

Sometimes I can't believe how lucky I am.  While much of the world is in terrible turmoil, from savage warfare or scorching wildfires, shattering earthquakes or ravaging hurricanes, death-dealing famines or years-long droughts, here I live in peace and plenty, the weather so far only moderately affected by climate change, among people who mostly solve their differences without killing each other's children.  I also live in one of the most beautiful places on earth, surrounded by millions of acres of forest and mountains made lovely by lakes and rivers and tumbling streams.  And all I have to gripe about is how dull our autumn foliage seems to be this year.  Well, shame on me!  In fact, our autumn is plenty beautiful, as I discovered this past week, while visiting two favorite Saratoga County woods and waterways.  Here's some of the evidence to prove it.

Moreau Lake, Back Bay Trail

One place I'm always sure to visit in autumn is Moreau Lake State Park,  where masses of Black Huckleberry shrubs line the north shore of the lake.  These shrubs are famous for their vividly scarlet foliage in the fall.  But darn it all, they sure looked pretty drab this year!

But just a few steps beyond this disappointing scene, I gazed upon this spectacular sight across Moreau Lake's back bay:  Red Maples in all their autumn glory!  Okay, then, off I headed to walk the trail around the back bay.

Oh my, how gorgeous, to walk beneath these boughs as bright as fire!

And the trailside woods was a lovely crazy-quilt of vibrant color.

What a surprise! In contrast to the disappointingly drab ones out on the sunlit shore, back here in the shaded woods the Black Huckleberry shrubs were as vivid as any I'd ever seen.

When I reached the north shore of the bay, I was delighted to find I could walk along close to the water,  since all summer long, the lake's water level had risen right up to the woods.  My friend Sue Pierce and I call this stretch of the shoreline "the Odonata Shore," because it is always alive with dragonflies and damselflies, but we hadn't been able to walk here yet this year.

And look who was here to welcome me back to our Odonata Shore!  The scarlet abdomen and black-lace wings suggest to me that this was the dragonfly called Autumn Meadowhawk.

Yes, indeed, the trees here were spectacular, but I also enjoyed smaller beauties scattered across the forest floor. These fluffy tufts atop the still-green leaves of Whorled Aster were even prettier than its rather scraggly white flowers had been when in bloom.

The leaves on this sapling Round-leaved Dogwood were a remarkable shade of pinky coral.

I couldn't remember whether this plant was Spreading Dogbane or the related Indian Hemp, but whichever it was, its golden-yellow leaves on scarlet stems were strikingly colorful.

Here was one more delightful find along this shore, although few people would ever notice it, it being invisibly small as well as not at all colorful.  This is one of New York's rarest plants, a miniature flatsedge called Small-flowered Dwarf Bulrush (Cyperus subsquarrosus), rated as an Endangered species in our state but abundant on Moreau Lake's shores.

Nearing the end of my circuit around the back bay, I stepped out onto this handicapped-accessible fishing pier to take in one last view of this gorgeous scene. How wonderful that this view of the bay can be enjoyed by even those who must use a wheelchair to access it!

The Hudson River at Moreau

This stretch of the Hudson below the Spier Falls Dam is lovely in every season and every weather. But this day for paddling here with my friends Sue Pierce and Ruth Brooks was so gorgeous it made me weep for joy.  Perhaps a few of those tears were sad because it was our last paddle of the year with Ruth before she leaves for her winter home in Florida. But mostly it was joy I felt, for friends so dear, a day so warm and pleasant, and a place so gorgeous to enjoy these blessings together.

It is truly impossible to imagine a scene more beautiful or welcoming to paddlers than this one was, with the river so still it perfectly mirrored the surrounding forested mountains in all their autumn glory.

We were in no hurry to charge up or down the river, but were delighted to drift along close to the shore, in and out of coves, or mosey around the tiny islands that dot the river in this stretch.

Here, too, the Black Huckleberry shrubs were showing off their vivid autumn color, their beauty so perfectly mirrored in the still water.

This day was warm and partly cloudy, with occasional bright sunlight suddenly flooding the scene with added brilliance!

Deep in this shady cove, Ruth (a serious student of mosses) found much to engage her interest on this moss-carpeted bank.

So lush and lovely and oh, so green!

I knew the names of only a few of those mosses, including this favorite of mine, called Bartramia pomiforma.  It's also known as Apple Moss, because of its apple-shaped spore capsules.

This same shady cove was home to tree-trunks that had fallen into shallow water, eventually to serve as nursery logs for many mosses, lichens, and fungi.  This Orange Jelly fungus looked so vivid amid the gray-green spires of a Cladonia lichen.

To enjoy our picnic lunches, we paddled into a tiny cove made bright by the golden leaves of American Beech, punctuated by a scarlet bough of Flowering Dogwood.  Here we climbed out of our canoes and stretched our legs on the mossy bank, enjoying the warmth of this balmy day, our views of the beautiful river mirroring the surrounding mountains, and the pleasure of each other's companionship.  Such blessings are to be treasured, indeed!

We'd seen so few mushrooms along the banks, but here was an old stump adorned by tiers of beautifully striped Turkey Tail Fungus.

Paddling back to our launch site and our good-byes to our dear friend Ruth, we were blessed with one more remarkable gift, a single perfect bloom of Closed Gentian, still fresh and royally blue, when all other gentian flowers had darkened and withered. May this be an omen of goodness for Ruth, who soon returns to her Sanibel Island winter home still not yet completely restored from last fall's horrific hurricane damage.

Heading home, I pulled off the road to take one more long gaze of this mirror-calm river and its fall-foliage-beautified banks.  What an image of peace and well-being! Would that all who are suffering so terribly in our world could come to know such well-being and peace.