How Deep? - Day 184

  This day was about 2/3 road walk. But once I got back in the woods "things" started to appear. The red-belted polypore is often found in the Adirondacks. It's easy to identify, and handsome. As in trees, the bands indicate a year's growth. Fomitopsis pinacola.

A small but handsome garter snake.

And the best experience of the day was to see a bird behavior that I also saw a few days ago, but this time I got a picture. (Again, not a great picture, but you can see what I'm describing) Sometimes, instead of flushing or attacking, mother birds will do what is called a "rodent run" to lure predators away from the nest. I had heard of this, but never saw it before. This is a mother grouse. She bent over so her back was arched and her head low to the ground. She slithered through the tiny saplings on the forest floor and made a strange little mewling sound. Indeed, when I first saw this, I couldn't figure out what I was seeing and thought it was a baby porcupine.

But the title of the blog post, "How Deep?," refers to the crossing of the North Branch of Trout Brook. I confess that when I reached this spot I was highly dismayed. I always seem to have hopes that the trail miles will be clear walking and without severe difficulties. I should know better, right?

You can see the bridge abutments out in the middle of the water. Trees had fallen and created a dam, turning the creek into a wide pond. You couldn't see the ends of it for farther than I wanted to bushwhack- the forst was pretty dense.

So after whining a bit, I got to it and put on the sandals and rolled up the pantlegs. I stowed all the electronics in the dry bag. I started across. Not so fast. The bottom was soft and mucky, but that wasn't really the issue. I walked out along where the bridge had been. Fortunately, I was paying attention. One more step and I would have been wet to my chest! I waded downstream a ways and finally was able to get across to some of the fallen trees. Then I walked on those to the far shore.

Of course, then I had to dry my feet, put the shoes back on and get my gear back where I wanted it. How wet did I get? Well, not quite to my crotch. I guess I shouldn't have bothered rolling up the pants.

I expected the trail on the other side of the missing bridge to be awful, but apparently people had come in from the other direction to do some clearing. There was evidence of recent trail work. I was really happy about that. I made my planned goal- to camp near Big Pond.

Miles today: 14.5. Total miles so far: 2344.1

See Across the Hudson River