Season's Finale

This is IT, folks!  That's what the forecasters are telling us today about fall foliage season, urging us to get out there NOW if we want to feast on autumn's glory, since the colors are fading fast.  Well, I never need anyone else's urging to get outdoors, but I did hear it might rain tomorrow, so off to the river I went today.  And yes, it was really lovely!

 I entered the Hudson where it flows behind an island above the Sherman Island Dam, with West Mountain rising behind the hills on the far side of the river.  When I first set out, clouds covered the sky, but the forested hillsides and riverbanks seemed to glow with their own golden light.

By the time I had explored the coves that lie behind the island and then headed out toward the open river, the sky had cleared to a brilliant blue, and sunlight set those forested hillsides truly ablaze!

Yes, that autumn color was lovely, but this year it seems to be mostly yellows, oranges, and russets, with very little of the blazing red that in other years has punctuated this colorful mix.  But here and there, tucked back in the river's quiet coves, I did find a few spectacular flashes of scarlet, such as this low-hanging bough of a young Red Maple.

In another cove, this lipstick-red tree blazed forth from its surrounding thicket of golden beeches and emerald pines, its spectacle doubled by its reflection in the dark still water.

As I paddled closer, I noted the drooping oval leaves and silvery-gray buds that identified this tree as a Flowering Dogwood.  I had never before noticed this tree tucked in back here,  but I will be sure to return to view it next spring, when its boughs will be filled with beautiful white flowers.  We don't find many Flowering Dogwoods in our Saratoga County woods, since this is almost the northern limit of its natural range.  But as in the cases of Sassafras and Black Tupelo, this river valley appears to provide enough of a moderated microclimate to allow these more southern species to actually thrive.

Before leaving the river, I stopped to climb up onto my favorite island, where moss-covered rocks are set among surrounding trees, creating a shaded chamber as peaceful and lovely as any chapel.  I often sit in this quiet place, breathing the fragrance of oak and pine and offering prayers of gratefulness that such a place is mine to inhabit.

Here in this enchanted space, even the bare rocks offer a place for dainty flowers to grow.  And what a treat it was, to find this Pale Corydalis still in bloom, plump little pink-and-yellow blossoms dangling among its lacy green foliage.

Chestnut Oaks thrive here, too, and today their leaves were glowing with vivid colors.  Yellow, orange, green, red and violet -- all the colors of autumn contained on each single leaf!

Autumn Light

In Autumn, even when the day is dark, the world seems lit from within.  Some scenes from a walk along Spier Falls Road:

Three Days, Three Adirondack Lakes

Pyramid Lake in Essex County
Each Columbus Day Weekend finds me up at Pyramid Life Center on Pyramid Lake, an absolute jewel of an Adirondack lake that offers breathtaking vistas at every hour of the day.  Because I was there to help this retreat center prepare its facilities for the winter, I didn't spend much time paddling the lake, but I carried my camera along in my pocket to capture the stunning vistas that caught my eye as I went about my tasks.

Both Saturday and Sunday mornings dawned frosty cold, and I rose at dawn while the light was blue and rising mist obscured the tops of the mountains.

As the rising sun cleared the horizon,  the mist dissipated and the brilliant colors of the island's trees emerged.

These sun-warmed Adirondack chairs invited us busy workers to stop for a moment, sit for a while,  and marvel at nature's glory.

From every place along the shore, the lake offered vistas of dazzling beauty.

On Sunday, our work completed, a friend and I hiked to a ledge high over the lake, from which we could see the majestic Pharaoh Mountain reigning over the lesser peaks.

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Eagle Lake in Essex County

On Sunday, my friend Sue Pierce came up to meet me at Pyramid Lake, and we drove together just a few miles east to paddle on Eagle Lake.

Eagle Lake is distinguished by steep rocky cliffs that line its shores and which today offered us some slight protection from a brisk wind that drove down the center of the lake.

Big puffy mounds of sphagnum moss grow on these cliffs, along with a marvelous mix of ferns and  lichens and baby conifers and other species of moss.

As we rounded this corner of the lake to pass under a bridge and out onto the larger portion of Eagle Lake, we marveled at the colorful leaves of oak trees along this shore.  It seemed very early for oak leaves to be turning such colors,  since oaks are usually the last of our trees to do so.  But these oaks were as brilliantly colored as any maples.

As we emerged from the shadow of the bridge we passed under, we were dazzled by the spectacular colors of the forested shore around the lake.  Eagle Lake has a dramatic shoreline and several rocky islands we might have explored, but the continuing wind in our faces discouraged our further explorations.  When we turned around, that same wind, now at our backs, propelled us along at a lively pace, and we just sat back, rested our paddles, and thoroughly enjoyed the ride.

* * * 

Lens Lake in Warren County

Since my friend Sue had Monday off from work, we decided to continue our paddling adventures today and headed up to Lens Lake near Stony Creek to explore the lake's convoluted shoreline and admire the autumn colors of its surrounding mountains.  We made sure to bundle up in fleece jackets and gloves, since the day was cold with no sun to warm us, and a chilly wind was rippling the lake's pristine waters.

The most remarkable feature of this quiet lake is the presence of many extensive bog mats thick with brilliantly colored sphagnum moss and studded with Pitcher Plants, Cottongrass, Cranberries, and other plants typical of an acidic bog habitat.

Although many trees high up on the mountainsides had already lost their leaves, the trees that grow along the shore still held onto their gorgeous colors.

On most of the bog mats, tiny Tamarack trees had found a foothold, and were now in the process of turning from summertime green to autumn gold.  Tamaracks are the only one of our coniferous trees to demonstrate this deciduous trait, dropping their needles completely each fall and growing entirely new ones in the spring.

I love how this Tamarack's gold stands out from its dark-green conifer neighbors. I took this photo at Lens Lake two years ago, and although on Monday I searched the entire shore I had paddled then, I could not find this tree again.  So I'm posting this old photo again, because I longed to see it.

Although a chill wind continued to blow out on the open lake, we found some refuge among quiet coves, where glassy waters reflected stately pines.

It was here in one of those coves, its banks lined with Sheep Laurel, Labrador Tea, and Leatherleaf, that Sue spied several laurel shrubs with freshly opened flowers.  This is a shrub that normally blooms in June, so yes, this was quite an unexpected pleasure.  Just one of the many delights that had brought us pleasure today on this beautiful lake, despite the dark chill of the day.

Sue had an unexpected pleasure all her own when she was visited by a family of River Otters frolicking in the water around her canoe.  Unfortunately for me, I was around a bend of the bogmats when these amusing mammals showed themselves to Sue, even raising their heads well out of the water before snorting an alarm and splashing quickly out of sight.  Sue showed me some still photos as well as a short video she captured, and I'm hoping she will soon share these on her own beautiful blog, Water-lily.

Low Water at Mud Pond

It not only looks like autumn now, it has started to feel like it, too.  Following many days of continued warmth, a definite chill was in the air today, causing me to grab a fleece jacket before setting out for a walk around Mud Pond at Moreau Lake State Park.  I didn't have to wear it long, though, for a warming sun shone down on me, exposed as I was as I walked along close to the water, rather than taking the trail that leads through the woods.  I was able to keep to the shoreline today because of low water levels, lower than I have seen on this pond for a long, long time.

Despite these low water levels, hundreds of Canada Geese still landed here to rest and feed on their migratory flights.  Their constant honking among themselves was the music that accompanied me the whole time I was here.

Walking along on the muddy shoreline beneath the banks, I had to scramble over many trunks of fallen trees, almost every one of which served as a sunbathing spot for a bright-red Autumn Meadowhawk dragonfly.

Or two!

Imagine how pretty these next two views of the shoreline would have been, if the water had been high enough to provide for a perfect reflection.

But then, the views were really very pretty just as they were!

When I reached the far side of the pond, where a (now dry) creek forms a delta, I found the mudflats carpeted with lush green plants.

Sometimes I find these mudflats carpeted with a chubby green liverwort called Ricciocarpus, but today I discovered that the source of all this greenery was a low-growing Everlasting called Low Cudweed, spreading across the mud in unprecedented profusion.  It amazes me how the plant population varies on these flats from year to year.  This year, the liverwort was nowhere to be found.

I did find these chubby pink pods of Ditch Stonecrop, however.  Their dazzling color this time of year would make this denizen of damp shores hard to miss.

Almost back to where I had parked my car, I passed through thickets of young American Hazelnut shrubs that had turned a very attractive coral-red.

At first glance, I feared that those Sawfly larvae I found on the dogwoods yesterday had developed a taste for these leaves, too.  But a closer look revealed that those pale worm-like appendages were the Hazel's own male catkins, not leaf-devouring caterpillars.  These catkins will hang on the shrubs all winter, opening to shed their pollen in spring when tiny red female flowers will also stud the branches.

I couldn't resist taking yet another photo of the intensely colored leaves of Maple-leaved Viburnum.  Believe me, I did not enhance the saturation of this photo.  These leaves actually glow this vivid color all on their own, even in the shade of the woods.

This Red Maple leaf, however, DID receive some color enhancement.  Not by Photoshop, though, but by the lowering rays of the afternoon sun.  Beautiful!  Like stained glass.

Autumn Color Closer to Home

Well, I'm not sorry I traveled up north yesterday, since I'm always happy to visit my beloved Hudson River along its upper reaches.  But since it was autumn color I was looking for, I could have stayed much closer to home and visited my equally beloved Moreau Lake State Park.  I went there today to take a brisk walk around the lake, and there I found spectacular vistas of beautiful foliage at every turn of the shore.  The day was warm, the sky was blue with scurrying clouds that trailed their shadows across the hills, and the water was low enough that I could walk entirely around the lake on the sandy shore.  Come, walk the shore with me.

Beneath the pines at the north end of the lake, Huckleberry shrubs have begun to put on their spectacular scarlet display.

At the edge of the woods, Sassafras boughs held leaves the color of fire.

Several Sassafras trees still bore a few pendant clusters of blue-black fruits, although most of the fruits had long been plucked from their bright-red pedicels by hungry birds.

Maple-leaved Viburnum announced its presence along this bank with its leaves of a pink unlike any other color in the autumn woods.

Further back in the woods, these low boughs of Sugar Maple displayed a dappled pattern that mimics the play of sunlight and shade of its forested habitat.

Although I could see trailing Vs of migrating Canada Geese across the sky, these local residents were not about to answer the haunting calls of their fellows high above.  They looked as if they were content to remain on this beaver lodge in the middle of the lake's back bay.

There weren't many flowers in bloom along the shore, except for a few dwindling asters and some patches of still-blooming Wild Mint with its clusters of tiny purple flowers circling the stems.  I plucked a few leaves to inhale their refreshing aroma.

A few of the asters continue to hold out the promise of food for visiting bees and other pollinators.  This bee, however, was very quiet and didn't move when I poked in close to examine it.  I wonder if it was just napping, or was it nearing the end of its life?

Here was another creature taking its nourishment, but I wasn't too happy to find it.  This is the leaf-devouring instar of the Dogwood Sawfly larva, and this powdery-white individual, along with thousands of others, had skeletonized the leaves of nearly every dogwood shrub along a cove of the lake.  I have read that this doesn't really harm the dogwoods, since the infestation occurs at the end of the dogwoods' growing season when the leaves are already dropping, but still, the damage is unsightly.  This photo also shows the cast-off skins of other larvae that have molted to their final instar.  In this final stage before pupating, the larvae do not eat but have dropped to the ground to seek for winter quarters in rotting wood.  They will pupate in the spring.

Looking back over these photos I've posted, I notice that although we are seeing lots of brilliant colors now, much of the forest is still quite green.  Many days remain for witnessing the display of autumn's glory.  Be sure to get out and enjoy it, and there's no better place to do that than Moreau Lake State Park.  At present there is no fee to enter the park on weekdays, and after Columbus Day (coming up!),  entry will be free every day until next spring.