Saugerties Lighthouse

  There are 8 remaining lighthouses along the Hudson River. More than 24 were built from 1826 to 1921, coinciding with the rise in night use of passenger steamboats. This is Saugerties Lighthouse, built in 1869 to replace an earlier light at this location from 1835.

This is looking down the Hudson River toward New York. I'm not sure I've ever taken a hike before where you had to check the tide table before setting out. The Hudson River is actually a tidal estuary, affected by the tides as far north as Albany. At the trailhead to this short walk, the tide table is posted with the days and times that the trail is underwater!

There are two items of note here. First is the bouy with something on top. It's an osprey nest. If you look closely, you'll see a baby's head.

Squint even harder, and you'll see a bridge just to the right of center. That's the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge that Marie and I walked across in March 2023.

I learned a new plant, but it's a bad one. This is Water Chestnut, Trapa natans. It was brought to the US in 1884 by a plant collector. Of course it escaped into the Hudson River. It forms large mats that clog waterways. Animals do eat the large seed pods.

This is a fun plant, but I haven't seen it for a while. It's Dodder, Cuscuta sp., a parasitic plant that looks like someone draped orange silly string over other plants. It has to tap into the vasuclar system of another plant for nourishment. It will sometimes bloom, and I have pictures of that from back when my pix were 35mm.

Also, we saw what appeared to be an ordinary squirrel. However, on closer inspection it appears to have been crosed with a lemur. Just kidding, but I don't think I've ever seen one with stripes on its legs like this.

In other news: We sent for our FLT 50 and FLT Branch Trail patches. We bought paint. If it ever stops raining (not constant, but enough to keep things wet), we have a DIY project to do.

The reason I'm blogging late is that one of Ed and Marie's very shy kitties (two rescue cats) decided to sit on my lap for a long time. Previously, (like for several years previously) she has not even let me touch her. The other cat won't let anyone touch him. I mean, when a shy cat parks on your lap, you just can't get up and blog.

Miles hiked so far in 2024: 351.1.

Trail to Saugerties (NY) Lighthouse and back, 1 mile

See Sort of a Foodie Day

Fun with Elaine

  Marie and I spent all day today with my friend Elaine. We did a lot of the sort of chasing of memories that I did a few days ago. First stop was our old waterfall friend, Taughannock. Highest free fall waterfall east of the Rockies at 215 feet. We did some more driving around town. This is the library where I got my first library card at age 4. I had to prove to them that I could read before they would issue it. Challenge met. I got my card. Then we went to see an osprey nest. Mom was on the nest. She did some flying around while we were there. And dad was about a quarter mile away. Then we drove past a house Elaine used to live in and some other places near there, including this hill. Butcher Hill. It's about a mile long. The pastor at our church when we were in junior high was great with youth. This hill is not plowed in winter, and he took the whole youth group out there and put lanterns along the edges of the hill. We would sled, toboggan, etc down the entire mile and then walk back up. You could manage 4 or 5 rides in an evening if you were quick. There was a bonfire at the top with hot chocolate and marshmallows. Great times. Finally we ended with a short walk on the same trail Marie and I hiked yesterday. Here I am with Elaine. Then we went for ice cream! It was a long, social day. I'm hitting the sack.

See Interloken and Interlaken

Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge

 
We did go back today to the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. It's a great place to visit, although this is the wrong time of year to see the birds they have become noted for.



By something of a fluke, they've become an additional wintering place for Whooping Cranes. Although there are now about 600 of these birds (up from the all time low of 16 birds, which led to the immense effort to save the species), they are still individually numbered and tracked.

Of course, right now, they've all headed north. But I came one step closer to seeing one other than on film. This is 12-02. That means he was the twelfth chick hatched in 2002. He was found dead in 2016, and it was determined that he died of an infection. He was mounted for display.


The visitors' center is filled with mounted wildlife of all kinds, in dioramas that place them in the correct ecosystems. Two of the best are things you might find on the forest floor/wetland. Salamanders, snakes, frogs, turtles, etc. Here's a small section of one with a gray lizard and a cottonmouth snake.



There's a separate large observation building with glass walls that overlook the marsh. In December and January, the water level is raised and this entire area is covered with cranes and pelicans and ducks.



Today, we saw a heron, a cormorant, some geese, a raccoon, a yellow butterfly that I couldn't catch with the camera, and an egret.



The egret caught two fish, and I got it swallowing one of them. See the lump going down its throat? Sorry these pictures aren't great, but I had the lens all the way out, handheld, through glass.



There were osprey nest platforms on several of the power line towers. Had to catch those shots at 50 mph on a bridge. But you can see the birds.



The evening was a great people experience with friends, but I think I'll save that post for another day rather than mix it with the wildlife refuge.

	See Alabama Wildlife- 1
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NCT Vermont Extension- Crown Pt Bridge to Trail Around Middlebury

 
My excitement level was really high as we drove to the Crown Point Bridge on Thursday, May 29. I hadn't yet seen the new bridge, just opened in 2011. This is a truly strategic, historic location on Lake Champlain, and we'll come back here after the hike- there's lots to show you. But for today, it's "just" the place where we'll begin hiking east.



Officially, the North Country Trail still ends/begins at this bridge in New York. But, hopefully, a bill is being introduced in Congress this year that will add this Vermont extension to connect the trail with the Appalachian Trail. The new bridge has pedestrian walkways on each side. Here we go.



Once over the bridge we turned south, and had many chances to shoot lovely views of graceful span.



We had remained flexible in how to divide the hiking days up. There was a possibility of some trail over Snake Mountain, but our contact in Middlebury said they'd just had a bad storm and portions were seriously washed out, and it wasn't marked. So we chose the road walk around the base of the mountain. Here's the north end of the snake- we're actually headed for the south end, but this was the visible slope that we could keep in sight. That distinctive scarp was easy to keep track of.



Along the way we had a nice view of an osprey. It had a nest on a platform, but seemed pretty fond of the chimney cover on this house.



Finally, we got close enough to Snake Mountain that it was just a presence, not a distinguishable shape.



One of the strangest things, to me, was that this day was on a fairly level area between the Green Mountains (our destination), and the Adirondacks (some of my favorites). The Daks were a shock, every time I looked west where there was a break in the trees. This is one of the nicest views. I don't have much sense of the peaks from this angle, but I'm pretty sure the big hump in the back right is Giant which I have not climbed. I don't think you can even see Mt. Marcy (the highest peak) from this perspective because it's farther west. One of the peaks right near the middle is Dix, which Marie, Mathilda and I (and Chips) went over in 1996.



With a sunny day, some favorite mountains at my back, and new ones to be explored ahead of me, my soul was singing. Flowers were just the grace notes. Here are some wild geraniums.



We hiked 14 miles and arrived at the car, placed where the Trail Around Middlebury crosses Rt 23. Pavement is hard on the feet, but with all those miles we felt no guilt at ordering a yummy dinner! We got a BLT and a big salad and split them. The Bridge Restaurant, just on the Vermont side of the bridge, appropriately enough, is highly recommended. Good food, very reasonable prices.



So, this map isn't too exciting, but just for the record, here it is. It does show how relatively level this section is.

	See We Hiked
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