Marie and I met at the Launt Pond campground on Bear Spring Mountain on Sunday evening. The scenery in the area is stunning! This picture is a view up the valley of the East Branch of the Delaware River, near Walton, NY. This was taken from the road, not while hiking.
I love the steepness and closeness of the hills. This is the western edge of the Catskills, which are usually called mountains.
We set up the campsite in a site right on the small lake. During the week- before the holiday, we had the campsite to ourselves.
On Monday, we spotted one car, and went to where we ended last year's hike, FLT Hiking - Masonville to Shear Rd. Heading into the woods!
The day's walking was all in close woods. I like the intimacy of that, but it eliminates vistas. There are always other perks. We love the little red efts. We saw 25 of them over the course of the hike, but this was the first.
One of our favorite trees is the Striped Maple, or Moosewood. This is the flower.
The woods of New York are littered with broken down stone walls and foundations of former homes and barns. This is one of the most complete we saw. It's always interesting to think about who lived here. The homes are usually near the tops of hills, and sometimes you can determine the old roads to them because they are lined with stone walls or rows of maples that were planted. I ponder how hard it must have been for the horses to pull wagons up those steep hills. The clearings the settler must have made for crops, gardens, or pastures have long since grown over with woods.
Sometimes newer structures are welcome too. This is an Eagle Scout project- a bridge over Cold Spring Creek. We were happy to keep our dry feet. This was built by Derrick Mott.
This was a relatively short day with only 6.7 miles. As it turned out, we would have had plenty of time to hike more, but we didn't want to crowd ourselves, so we planned for a short first day.
I'll give you one more day for guesses on the baby birds from yesterday.
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5 comments:
That place looks just beautiful. That first picture is what it looks like where I live.
I would have considered that a gruelling walk, yet through beautiful and interesting surroundings.
I love the lush green.
What a beautiful area that is. I have never heard of a red eft before. Interesting little creature.
Ratty- you have hills like that! Awesome
vanilla- you ain't seen nothin' yet!
rainfield- I posted one just for you today
Ann- I may have to talk about its odd lifecycle one of these days
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