A Perfect Day For Walking Instead of Paddling

Sunny and warm today, but with a wind too brisk for pleasant paddling.  So I went for a walk along the Hudson instead, following the course my canoe would have taken, but keeping to the wooded banks.

Here's where I would have launched my canoe, at a place I call Shelter Cove, since no matter how strong the wind may be blowing out on the open river, back here it is almost always calm.

The Hemlocks provide a dark foil for the explosive red of Highbush Blueberry leaves.

Those blueberry leaves light up like flames when backlit by the sun.

The river here flows around an island and into quiet coves.  West Mountain rises beyond the far side.

American Beeches hold the light and warmth of the sun in their golden and coppery leaves.

On the forest floor, the purple-veined leaves of Foamflower  make for lovely companions to the fallen leaves of Bigtooth Aspen.

 The shimmering water amplifies the luminous hues of surrounding trees.

A Perfect Day for Paddling

What a perfect day for a paddle:  the air soft and warm as in spring, the sky bright blue from horizon to horizon, the forested mountains along the Hudson ablaze with autumn's glory!

 Every bend of the river was like turning a kaleidoscope, with scenes of constantly changing vivid colors.

Although a dense morning fog had yielded to clear blue sky, the overhanging twigs and branches -- including these alder catkins -- still held crystalline drops from the fog's deposits.

Some of the riverside alders held these dense fluffy clumps of Wooly Alder Aphids, tiny insects that extrude a white waxy substance that looks like fur.

The vivid foliage of Red Maple, Witch Hazel, and Lowbush Blueberry brightened the shaded banks.

I loved drifting under the overhanging American Beeches and gazing up at the sky through their golden and coppery boughs.

Oh look!  One tiny little Bluet was still bravely blooming long after almost all other flowers have called it quits for the year.

The leaves of Maple-leaved Viburnum turn a pink as pretty as any posy's,  and today they added their own distinctive hues to the mix of colors along the banks.

After several hours of paddling the river, pushing upstream against a swirling current and then drifting swiftly downstream again, riding a river swollen from days of heavy rain,  I headed home along Spier Falls Road.  I passed the little waterfall that had been just a trickle tinkling and dripping down the rocky mountainside last week (see my post "First Frost" from October 13) and found it today a roaring torrent, plunging with rambunctious vigor from boulder to boulder.

All along Spier Falls Road, the rocky hillsides were alive with the sounds of rushing, dancing, dripping, and splashing water.

Update: An amazing coincidence:  this poem by Julie Cadwallader Staub was read by Garrison Keillor on NPR's  "Writer's Almanac" this Sunday morning.  I may be quite a bit beyond the age one could call midlife, but the sentiment still applies.

Midlife

by Julie Cadwallader-Staub

This is as far as the light
of my understanding
has carried me:
an October morning
a canoe built by hand
a quiet current

above me the trees arc
green and golden
against a cloudy sky

below me the river responds
with perfect reflection
a hundred feet deep
a hundred feet high.

To take a cup of this river
to drink its purple and gray
its golden and green

to see
a bend in the river up ahead
and still
say
yes.

A Beautiful Day on the Battlefield

Another beautiful autumn day, almost as warm as summer.  I was able to coax my husband to come for a walk with me, promising that I wouldn't stop every five minutes to take photographs.   But where should we go on this blue-sky day?  How about the Saratoga Battlefield (officially: the Saratoga National Historical Site)?  Its broad open fields over rolling hills leading down to the Hudson River offer majestic views of forest and meadow, as well as of the mountains rising beyond the river.

The park people keep these meadows mowed to resemble the farmland existing here in 1777, when American fighters for independence met and defeated a major British army force in the Battle of Saratoga, now considered a turning point in the Revolutionary War.  According to historians, the American victory here renewed patriots' hopes for independence and secured essential foreign recognition and support, leading to the ultimate vanquishing of British forces and the founding of a new independent nation.

 It's hard to believe, on such calm and beautiful days as this, that these fields once resounded with the roar of cannons and the screams of wounded and dying men.  Today, the only sounds we could hear were occasional trills of tree crickets and the sighing sound of wind as it set the poplars' leaves atremble.

I couldn't figure out what shrubs these were that colored this meadow dark red.  They set me thinking of all the blood that was shed in this war and in all the subsequent wars that never seem to end.  Sometimes I think that our nation was cursed to have been born out of war, since we seem to have acquired an insatiable thirst for blood, as well as a trust in the power of weaponry to address the problems of the world.

Thoughts too dark for such a glorious day!  Our trail was just as splendid as we made our return to the park's visitors' center.

Back at the visitors' center we met and talked with two men, dressed in period attire, who were cleaning the weapons they'd fired today in a demonstration for school children.   This gentleman, Kevin Morrow, is a volunteer with the park and the husband of one of the park rangers.  He is wearing the uniform of the Second Albany County Militia, an outfit that his wife helped sew for him.

Andrew DeMartino, a seasonal ranger at the park, is wearing part of the uniform of Cook's Connecticut Militia.  He had shed the uniform's jacket while cleaning his weapon, the barrel of which was blackened inside with gunpowder.

Moreau's Many Marvelous Options

These are the days we hikers wait for all year. The air is crisp and cold in the morning, with a warming sun that coaxes us to shed our jackets by noon.  The woods are ablaze with red and gold, and the paths are covered with fallen leaves that release a sweet oaken fragrance as we hike along, neither bothered by bugs nor sticky with sweat.  And, oh, what options we have for autumn walks at Moreau Lake State Park!  If one route doesn't work out, there are many more trails to choose from.

Sue and I had planned to hike the Palmertown Mountain Ridge in the park, so we met this morning at the summit trailhead near a powerline clearcut.  But it didn't take long for us to change our plans. The parking lot was filled with pickup trucks, a sign that many hunters were up in the mountains today.  Then a gunshot booming from not far away clinched the decision for us.  Let's choose a trail somewhere in the park where we're sure we won't get shot at.  And we had an embarrassment of riches to choose from, with over 4000 acres of forest, mountains, lake, ponds, streams, and riverbanks awaiting our explorations.

First, though, we did explore the powerline clearcut a while, delighting in the rich variety of mosses and lichens that carpet the boulders here.  Low Blueberry bushes, their bright-red leaves lit up by the morning sun, glowed as if they were on fire.

Masses of Pale Corydalis had found a niche in the cracks of some boulders, their lacy blue-green foliage sparkling with dew.

While much of Moreau Lake State Park is open to hunters, the trails around the lake and close to the camping sites are considered a safety zone, so that's where Sue and I decided to hike.   We chose the Red Oak Ridge Trail, which runs midway up the mountains that stand on the western side of the lake.

It was on this trail that we earlier found the tiny orchid called Autumn Coralroot, so we searched to see if we could find it again.  And wonder of wonders, so we did! It sure would have been hard to see if we hadn't known exactly where to look.

This little mushroom, although very small (see the Hickory nut shell behind it), was easy to spot because of its luminous yellow color.

The same could be said for these blazing red mushrooms, the largest of which was only a little bigger than a pea.

More little mushrooms and a couple of golden Bigtooth Aspen leaves.

Several little streams tumble down the mountain to cross the Red Oak Ridge Trail, most of them reduced to only a trickle this time of year.  But this one actually contained enough water to splash and shimmer along its way.
 

We lingered a while to enjoy its lively music and enchanting reflections.

Near the stream we found this moss-covered log adorned with clusters of Wolf's Milk slime mold, which is peachy pink when young but turns gray like the clump on the right as it ages.

Sue had to leave for work by noon, but I lingered on, reluctant to leave the woods on this glorious day, and headed next to Mud Pond, another beautiful area of Moreau Lake State Park.

Sue had told me about a cluster of Pinesap she'd seen, dressed in its autumn scarlet, that stood along one of our "secret" trails, so I went to see if I could find it.  And I did.  How could I miss it, lit by a ray of sun and glowing in the dark woods?

This little Red Maple didn't need to be lit by the sun to glow in the woods.

Witch Hazel was fully unfurled today, and I pressed my nose into its flowers to breathe in its delicious fragrance, very subtle, slightly sweet and faintly citrus, reminiscent of clean laundry that's been dried outside in the sun.

There were still more areas of the park to explore, and more hours of the day left to do so, so I headed next to Spier Falls Road to walk along the Hudson River.

WOW!  Most of our Red Maples have wimped out this fall, dropping their shriveled and browning leaves before  turning their customary glorious red, but here was one that was living up to its reputation for autumn splendor.

And here was another, backlit by a lowering sun, leaning over the calm blue river.

Instead of taking the highway home, I chose Old Saratoga Road, a  scenic route through fields and forests and mountains.  As I stopped to marvel at this mountainside ablaze with chrysanthemum colors, I recalled that Moreau Lake State Park was in the process of acquiring this very tract.  Imagine!  There will someday be even more trails, cut through these beautiful mountainous woods, providing ever more options for hikers and hunters alike.

First Frost!

Brrrr!  Down into the 20s last night.  We canceled our plans for a paddle, Sue and Nancy and I, and decided to hike a mountain trail in Moreau Lake State Park instead.  But first we stopped off at the powerline clearcut above Mud Pond, thinking we might find a few Frostweed curls on this frozen morning.   The frost-adorned sumacs and blueberries and mosses that first met our eyes encouraged us to believe that we just might find some Frostweed exhibiting the very process that gives this plant its common name.  (Scientific name: Helianthemum canadense)

And so we did!  Almost every single Frostweed plant in this open sandy area had produced these curls of frozen vapor at the base of their stems. This phenomenon will be repeated each calm frosty morning until the plant has depleted all of its moisture, so we can expect to find these fragile frothy extrusions on other mornings yet this fall.  IF we get there before the sun does, that is, since the curls promptly disappear with the sun's warming touch

There were other interesting finds on the clearcut this morning, and we were lucky to have bryologist Nancy Slack along to identify many of the lichens and mosses that carpet this open area.  Although she couldn't remember offhand the name of this very tiny orange lichen, she could at least assure us that it was indeed a lichen.  I was amazed that we even found it, it was so tiny.  Sue is the one whose amazing eyesight can espy such miniatures as this, hardly bigger than the heads of pins.

Sue and I found it hard to believe that a Sphagnum moss would be growing out here in this dry sandy spot, but Nancy assured us that this puffy pink stuff was indeed a Sphagnum, S. capillifolium.  She also told us that its presence indicated there must be a source of moisture nearby.

We were having so much fun finding such a variety of mosses, we decided to bypass our mountain trail and instead show Nancy the wonderful rockgardens of mosses that rise from the road across from the Spier Falls Dam.  These rocky cliffs are watered by tiny springs that dampen the surface in every season, creating a perfect habitat for mosses and other plants, including white clouds of Early Saxifrage that adorn these rocks each spring.

Just a bit beyond the mossgarden cliffs, we could hear a little waterfall splashing down the mountain side,  and its moss-covered watercourse tempted us to explore it further.

We followed the course of the stream quite a ways up the mountain,  delighting in the beauty of the woods and the mossy banks.

Each water-splashed streamside rock was covered with a marvelous mix of mosses, liverworts, and lichens.  There's Hedwigia here and Dicranum, too (both mosses), and that patch of verdigris-colored frilly stuff is a foliose lichen called Flavoparmelia.

A patch of large bright-green Sphagnum girgensonii  provided a sharp contrast in color and texture to the small dark Scapania liverwort clinging to the same damp rock.

I don't recall ever finding American Yew (Taxus canadensis) in the Moreau woods before, but here it was growing along this little stream that tumbled down the mountain.

What a day of delights!  What a world of wonders waits just off the shoulder of the road!  Sure, I love to travel to new places and have new adventures in lands unfamiliar to me, but oh, how lucky I am to have such a wealth of woods and waterways close to my home -- and such dear companions to share my delight with me.  Every day brings new joy.