Little Houses in the Backwoods

Moreau Lake State Park just keeps getting better and better! It was already a wonderful north-woodsy park, with thousands of acres offering lakes, ponds, river, waterfalls, miles of forested mountain trails, a swimming beach and commodious campground, and even a couple of seasonal cottages.  And now the park will offer a whole new camping experience, with the addition of six rustic cabins nestled back in the woods and available to campers year round.  And for a couple of these little cabins, campers can even bring their dogs.

Curious to see what these cabins looked like, yesterday I hiked the park's campground road all the way to where it ends in Loop G, quite a distance back in the woods from the park's main entrance. And there I found two of the charming little cabins, still under construction but far enough along to allow me a sense of what delightful shelters they will be.  There are two sizes of the six cabins, three of them sleeping four and the others sleeping six.

Here is the larger cabin:

And here is the smaller one:

All of the cabins will be furnished with electricity, refrigerators, wood stoves, and comfortable furniture including rustic arm chairs and beds with mattresses.  Each cabin will also have its own outdoor fireplace and grill, and the park will stock each cabin with firewood, visiting regularly to replenish the supply.  There is no plumbing in the cabins, but composting outhouses will be provided in winter, while during the warmer months when all of the camping facilities are open, occupants of these cabins will have access to nearby full-service bathhouses with flush toilets and hot showers, like the one pictured below. There are also drinking-water spigots located throughout the campground, although these will not be functional during the winter.

There is a second bathhouse, located closest to the park's main entrance, that eventually will remain heated and functional during the winter, once winter camping becomes established next year.  But winter campers will have to snowshoe or ski quite a distance to the new cabins along unplowed roads, adding to the back-country experience. The winter rates will be significantly lower than summer rates, with the 4-person cabins renting for $40 a night, and the 6-person cabins renting for $60.  Park Manager Peter Iskenderian told me that he's already receiving requests to reserve the cabins, which should be available to rent by Memorial Day, 2017.


I can just imagine what a pleasant camping experience these cabins will provide, even in winter. Being able to stand up and walk around, instead of climbing into a tent on hands and knees and dragging the snow in with you! Sleeping on a real bed with a mattress, instead of shifting about on an air mattress trying to avoid the rocks of the forest floor!  Keeping toasty-warm on a winter night with the woodstove blazing, instead of trying to breathe through a sleeping-bag hood pulled tight around your head!  Heck, I might even be tempted back to camping, myself!

Although the cabins will not offer lake views, they are nestled well back in the forest among tall hardwoods and pines, and a nearby trail leads promptly to the lake.  Here is a map of the lake and campgrounds, with a yellow triangle in the upper right corner showing the approximate location of the new cabins.

Returning from the campground, I took the trail down to the lake and walked the frozen surface back to the park's main entrance.  Although rain falling on snow yesterday had covered the ice with thick slush,  park staffers assured me the ice was plenty thick enough to bear my weight.  The day had been gray, but I could see the cloud cover moving away, revealing patches of blue sky.  The beautiful days of winter are just beginning!

Holiday Hiatus

Two weeks without posting a blog!  Where the heck have I been?  Well, there were holiday preparations, then holiday travel, then holiday house guests, and finally, the holiday head cold -- all conspiring to keep me out of the woods for the holiday duration.  And despite the family fun and festive frolics of the holiday season, there were days I really missed being out-of-doors.  For example, we had the most beautiful snowstorm of any I remember in years -- big puffy snowflakes that clung to the trees and piled up in pillowy mounds on the ground --  and all I could do was gaze at it out my window:

But today I was free to venture outdoors.  No more house guests or house work or head cold to keep me at home.
And guess what?  It rained!

Ah, but what matter?  When I live in such a beautiful part of the world, a little rain only adds to the beauty.  So I donned my rubber boots and my raincoat and ventured out along the river, where water droplets shone like tiny Christmas lights in the trees,  the ice crystals lining the banks were glistening like tinsel, and the mist that shrouded the mountains only magnified their majesty,
 

I look forward now to what the new year will bring.  And I also look back to recall some great times in the year just past.  One of the greatest times was when five botanist friends from far-flung states came to visit for several days and joined my friend Sue and me in exploring some favorite northern New York woodlands and waterways.  Did we have fun?  Well, what do you think? Here's my blogpost recounting our many adventures, and here's a photo of us delighting in one of our botanical finds.

Speaking of botanical finds, who would think of a Dandelion as a plant to be sought-after and collected?  It's true, no self-respecting professional botanist would deign to collect and mount this ubiquitous weed, which is why there has been no record of its presence in Saratoga County.  But there will be in the future, since this amateur wildflower nerd (me!) volunteered this past summer to help fill in those plants still missing from from the New York Flora Association Plant Atlas for my home county.  I'll never find them all -- the state botanist sent me a list of ONE THOUSAND, ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SIX unrecorded plants! -- but I did manage to collect about a hundred of them this past year.  And I hope to collect about that many again when the spring flowers come into bloom.  Here's a blogpost recounting the start of my search last July, a search that added delightful purpose to my wildflower hunts all summer and into the fall.

Not all of my floral finds this year were ubiquitous weeds.  In fact, this pretty white violet  -- the Primrose-leaved Violet (Viola primulifolia var. primulifolia) -- is one of the rarest plants in all of New York, and I found it growing along the Hudson River in Warren County, far distant from any other place this native violet has been found in New York State.  I was actually a bit annoyed when I first found it, since it wasn't the violet I had been searching for and didn't find.  But luckily I took a picture of it and asked some experts what it might be, since I didn't recognize it.  Another fabulous floral find!  My fellow wildflower nerds will know how much this means to me, and why I recount its finding as one of the highlights of my year.  Here's my blogpost recounting the day I found it.

When I look back over my nature adventures of the past year, it's hard to choose just a few highlights, since I live among so many splendors, and every day of the year offers a multitude of delights to the naturalist. But I would have to say that one of the crowning events of my nature year was receiving permission from New York State Parks to explore the tiny boggy islands of Lake Bonita in order to survey the special plants that grow there, including some beautiful orchids.  This lovely unspoiled lake was only recently acquired by Moreau Lake State Park, and the park has forbidden boating in order to maintain the lake's pristine quality.  So it was an incredible privilege to be granted a special "scientific research permit" to paddle there, and to be able to enlist the assistance of Sue Pierce and Nancy Slack  (shown here in their canoes) to conduct the plant surveys. To see some of the remarkable plants we found, you can visit two blog posts:  one when I first paddled the lake with state park natural-resource steward Casey Holzworth and another when Sue and Nancy came along as research assistants.

The Sun Returns As Winter Begins

 Today, Winter Solstice, the shortest and darkest day of the year, the sun begins its journey back to warm us. Moment by moment, day by day, its light will shine brighter, its rays grow stronger, its presence last measurable minutes longer.  And yet, each day, as the winter goes on, the cold will grow deeper, along (so I hope) with the snow.

I do love winter.  Especially ones with deep cold and deeper snow.  I want the lakes and the river bays to freeze thick and hard, so that I can safely cross their frozen expanses and make my way back into the swamps and marshes and bogs too muddy for exploring in summer.  I want the snow deep and soft in the woods, so that I can marvel at how many creatures pass there, coyotes and minks and foxes and fishers and bobcats and more, animals I would never know lived in these woods, if not for their tracks and trails.  I want nights so cold and clear I can see all the way to heaven, with stars so bright they pierce the eye, and sub-zero days with deep-blue skies and frost-spangled air that glitters with sequined snowflakes.

So yes, I do celebrate the return of the light and the promise it holds of warmer seasons to come.  But I also delight in all of the beauties of winter.  Without that cold, I could never find hoarfrost stars exploding from the surface of clear black ice.

Splashing creeks are lovely in every season, but only in the coldest winters can I find crystal chandeliers overhanging the banks.

The warmer seasons gift us with a riot of colors, from the earliest spring flowers through midsummer's multicolored meadows to autumn's glorious foliage. By contrast, winter offers mostly a monotone palette of blacks, grays, and whites.  All the more powerful, then, is the brilliant red of Winterberries, glowing through the snow.  What a jolt of joy to behold!

Wishing all my readers comparable jolts of joy as we celebrate this holiday season, whether you spend it cozy and warm by an indoor fire, or warmed by the effort of huffing and puffing through snowbanks.  Happy Solstice to All!  And a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year, too.

Beautiful Ice

A beautiful day, at last!  The weather has not been conducive to outdoor adventures this past week, what with snowstorms and subzero temps and wind and then rain to ruin what had been a lovely heap of snow.  But today was just perfect for winter walking: sunshine, blue sky, no wind, and temps well into the 20s. Time to head up to Moreau Lake and see what was up with the ice.

Well, the first thing I learned was that the ice was still too thin to venture out on.

But at least the lake appeared frozen from shore to shore.  I pulled on my Yaktrax and set out to walk around the lake, keeping to where the ice appeared thick enough to bear my weight and the water no more than ankle deep should my foot plunge through.

Judging from what I could see of the cracks, most of the ice close to shore was plenty thick enough to walk on.  And most of it was spotted with these odd pockmarks, formed, no doubt, by rain falling on slushy snow-covered ice.  It all froze solid, then, when the temperature fell once more.  Today, all the snowed-on ice had smoothed to a hard slick surface.  If I hadn't worn grippers on my feet, I surely would have slipped and fallen.

Here and there it was evident that the ice-cover had opened up and refrozen with absolutely glass-clear ice, allowing me to clearly see the sandy lake bottom.

This looked like open water, but it was actually crystal-clear ice, allowing the sunlight to pass through its rippled structure.

Where the ice was opaque, it was frequently marked with clear black-ice "spiders," or in this case, black-ice "eyes."

Along the north shore, where the sun warmed the sand all day long, the ice had retreated from shore and then refrozen with much thinner, clearer ice.  I left the ice in these sections to make my way along the snow-covered shore.

I was careful to stay off the ice as I approached where I knew a stream emptied into the lake.  And today there was actually water rippling and splashing along the stream bed.  Since the stream had been dry for most of the autumn, this was quite a surprise.

Stream beds are wonderful places to look for beautiful ice formations, such as these sturdy crystalline pillars that formed from droplets splashing up onto an overhanging bank.  The feather was an added embellishment!

These delicate swirls in the thinnest plates of ice would shatter at a touch, they were so fragile. I've never figured out exactly how they form.  They are so exquisitely thin, it's almost as if they formed from vapor, rather than liquid water.

And here were some frozen bubbles! Such a marvel to behold!  Such beautiful treasures sure make it worth venturing out in the cold to see.

Yes, I was glad I ventured out into the cold, but I was also glad to step inside the warming hut and comfort my freezing face for a few moments.  This hut with its blazing fireplace is such a welcome addition to Moreau Lake State Park, offering a cozy retreat for chilled skiers, snowshoers, and winter hikers.  On weekends, I believe there is hot cocoa offered here, as well.

A big table and chairs provide a relaxing place for eating a lunch or a snack, as well as offering gorgeous views of the ice-covered lake.

This was my gorgeous view as I rounded the last bend of the shore toward home. Late afternoon light has touched the lakeshore trees with gold, and the mirroring ice reflects an abstract image of winter's beauty. Imagine how sweet it would be to glide across that smooth ice on skates.  Let's hope it stays this smooth as it thickens and hardens to depths safe enough to skate on.

Mysterious Ice!

Well, I heard a lot of grumbles this week about how cold it was getting.  But I and some of my fellow nature-nut pals were delighted to learn that the temperature had plunged into the teens last night. Time to get over to Moreau Lake and see what the ice was doing.

Here are Sue and another of our friends, Johanna, walking the sandy shore on this gorgeous blue-sky but frigid day.  The main part of the lake was lovely under that wide blue sky, but so far we found little ice had formed on its wind-rippled waters.

But when we reached the back bay of the lake, beyond the bridge, here we could see that ice had covered the bay's waters, almost from shore to shore, with an interesting change in texture and color from one part to another. Transparent black ice lay next to the shore and a clouded ice lay further out.

Oh! But look at these perfect circles that had formed on the ice!  Never in all of our icy explorations over the years had we seen such a thing!  What the heck could have caused them?

We did note that each circle was centered with a black-ice "spider," a phenomenon formed when water wells up through weak spots in the ice cover.  We had seen these "spiders" many times over the years, but never surrounded by such perfect circles.  We guessed that the circles could have been formed by water spreading from each upwelling.  But why would the water form such perfect circles, especially when other evidence suggested that wind had been blowing across the ice and sweeping the snow across the surface? Why didn't the wind distort the patterns around the source of each upwelling?  My Google searches so far have not yielded any answers regarding this mystery.


Puzzled, we just stood in awe of these mysterious patterns in the ice.

We were also in awe of the beauty.

Woodsy Rewards

I almost didn't  join my friends in the Thursday Naturalists today.  The day was gray and cold and damp, and I couldn't recall anything special about the Ushers Road State Forest near Clifton Park, and darn, but my knee was hurting!  But eventually, friendship won out over reluctance, and soon I was setting off with my pals to explore this 120-acre woodland preserve along its well-groomed and level trails.

I don't think we'd progressed more than 20 yards when the first of many rewards appeared:  the withered stalks of the little orchid called Autumn Coralroot.  Frankly, I don't know how I managed to see its skimpy brown stalks, and probably wouldn't have if they had not stood out against the patches of white snow.  This orchid is hard enough to see when in full bloom in September, being the color of dead leaves even then, except for some tiny purple spots on its itty-bitty single petal.  I was quite excited to see a good number of them here in this woods and will look for them again when they bloom next September.

The very opposite of hard-to-see in the winter woods are our three evergreen ferns, and all three species of them were adding their lovely color to the woods we walked today. Top left in this photo is Intermediate Wood Fern, top right is Marginal Wood Fern, and at the bottom is Christmas Fern.  Note that the Intermediate Wood Fern has more intricately-cut pinnules (subleaflets) than does the Marginal Wood Fern, and the Christmas Fern has individual pinnae (leaflets) that resemble tiny Christmas stockings.

The two Wood Fern species are easy to distinguish when the little spore packets called sori are present on the backs of the pinnules.  See how the sori are right up to the edges (margins) of the pinnules on the Marginal Wood Fern.

While on the Intermediate Wood Fern, the sori are positioned mid-way between the center veins and the edges of the pinnules.

Not one of us could identify this baby fern.  But even fern experts have difficulty identifying juveniles.  We just admired its adorable cuteness.

Our most colorful finds today were the remarkable variety of fungi, including the Stereum fungus (Stereum hirsutum) decorating this log that Kay is photographing.

Stereum really does deserve a closer look, with its ruffly and colorfully striped caps that, unlike those of the similar-appearing Turkey Tail, have neither gills nor teeth nor visible pores.

Here's another pretty bracket fungus,  this one the toothed fungus called Purple-toothed Polypore (Trichaptum biforme), distinguished by the purple rim and undersides of its buff-colored caps.

Here was another purple fungus, this one appearing to burst right out of a split in the tree trunk.  The closest match I could find in my mushroom guides is a sac fungus called Ascocoryne sarcoides, or Purple Jellydisc.

My Barron's guide (Mushrooms of Northeast North America) describes the fruitbodies of Ascocoryne sarcoides as "up to 1cm across, gelatinous, and violet to purple or reddish-purple.  Young fruitbodies appear as purple lobes bursting out of the wood.  Lobes absorb water and expand to form cups or discs, which swell and coalesce to form a gelatinous mass."  Sounds like a match to me!

I still haven't found the name of these tiny, fragile, pale-green mushrooms growing at the base of a White Pine.  So dainty, so shiny, so elegant, like the finest celadon porcelain!

I put my finger in the photo to show how tiny they are.

Those tiny, pale-green mushrooms would have been easy to miss, but not these vivid Orange Jelly Fungi decorating a fallen log, which we could spy from many yards away.  Note, too, the clipped-off tufts of hemlock twigs, which were littering the floor of this hemlock stand.  No doubt they are evidence of the Red Squirrels grooming their paths through the tree-tops, nipping off any twigs that might impede their progress.

From that nearly-pure stand of hemlocks we next moved into a section of woods populated by towering White Pines that soared over our heads to disappear against the sky.  I always feel I have entered a sacred space when I walk beneath such giants.

The forest floor beneath those pines was decorated with some of the prettiest plants of the woods:  the red-berried Wintergreen, the glossy-leaved Goldthread, and the delicate ferny moss called Delicate Fern Moss.

There were so many other beautiful mosses and lichens and liverworts, I could have stayed in this woods all day, trying to get my camera to focus on them.  But time was growing late and we had to pick up our pace.  I did stop, though, to take one quick shot of this exuberant spray of Callicladium moss, which seemed to just explode in rays against this fallen log.  The photo's not truly in focus, but it still expresses something of how happy I am that I did join my friends for a walk in the woods today.

When I got home today and was looking at Facebook,  one of my friends had posted this passage by Hal Borland from his book Twelve Moons of the Year (December, 1966).  Wow!  How accurately he describes my love for the woods, even in December!

On its Own Terms

It wasn't an outdoor poet who coined the phrase "bleak December." It was someone who probably slept late, had sluggish circulation, and was afraid of catching cold. December was bleak because it wasn't June, loud with bees and bright with blossoms.

True, December can be raw and cold and its days sometimes are dark, but it is neither bleak nor colorless, Go outdoors soon after sun-up, which now comes late, and even on a lowering day you probably will find a frosty scene of dazzling beauty. If the day is clear it can be a world transformed by frost or snow, newly created, fragile as spun glass, ephemeral as the passing hour.

Go to the woodland and see how the green of pine and hemlock is twice as bright against leafless elm and ash and maple. Underfoot are those humble ancients, running pine and ground cedar, greener than summer grass; and the creeping partridgeberry is gay not only with evergreen leaves but with dewdrop-size rubies. Sumac has fat clusters of bloodstone-fruit. Black alder stems are decked with garnets. Bittersweet is festive with bangles of coral and carnelian. The barberry bushes are loaded with topaz and rubies.

The meadow grass is bronze and antique gold. Empty milkweed pods are lined with mother-of-pearl. Fraying thistle heads are spun silver. The gray beech tree's crisp leaves are beaten gold.

Taken on its own terms, no December day is really bleak. December wasn't meant to be June.