Time for a Climb

Last Saturday was relatively warm and sunny so I decided to go for a climb. I chose Pitcher Mountain in Stoddard because it is one of the few places in the area where you can find a place to park before you climb. Many haven’t been plowed.

I wasn’t sure if I’d make it without snowshoes but the trail looked to be good and packed down and even though the snow drifts were waist deep in places, I was able to get by with just gaiters and Yak Trax. It was slow going though and I had to stop frequently to catch my breath.

I noticed that deer and other animals had been using the snow packed trail too, and deer had been browsing the bushes and trees along the sides as this young maple shows.  The buds of some maples look a lot like oak buds but oaks have alternate branching. Since this tree has opposite branching it must be a maple.

Rabbits were using the packed snow trail too even though they were light enough to hop on top of the snow without sinking in.

It looked like the rabbits had been eating the bark off all of the staghorn sumacs. I wonder if that means that they’re having trouble finding food.

The snow was deep enough in places to make walking close to impossible if I had stepped off the packed trail. I decided that I didn’t want to wade through that much snow, so I stayed on it. I saw places where deer had stepped off the trail and sank into the soft snow probably up to their bellies. I felt bad for them-they must be having a very hard winter this year.  At least the snow isn’t crusty on top so it shouldn’t be cutting their legs all up.

When I reached what I call the meadow I saw why there were snow drifts along the trail; the wind had scoured parts of these pastures almost down to bare grass, blowing it all toward the trail. I keep hoping that I’ll see the Scottish highland cattle that wander these pastures, but I never have. They probably don’t want to wade through the deep snow either.

In the book Country Editor’s Boy Hal Borland speaks of the high plains of Colorado, and how when he was a boy there was an unbroken view to the horizon in any direction. There wasn’t a tree or hill or building to add any interest, he said, and I wondered as I stopped and saw this view if this is what it was like. For someone like me who lives in a forest, seeing a view like this is like seeing the surface of another planet. I’m not sure how long I could stand it.

 

The fire tower hasn’t blown off the mountain yet. Since I learned that this tower was built as a replacement for the original 1915 wooden tower that burned down in April of 1940 in the most destructive forest fire that this area has ever seen, I see it as a kind of monument to irony.

You could see that plenty of wind had blown through here but on this day there was only a slight breeze, so it wasn’t too bad. It could have been much worse.

After all the snow we’ve had this year I thought the fire warden’s cabin would be either flattened or buried but it looked as if someone had shoveled it out and had been shoveling the roof as well. Now that’s a job that I wouldn’t want, no matter what it paid.

 

For a change it wasn’t hazy at all and the views were good. Mount Monadnock was clearly visible over the meadow to the right.

I don’t know the name of this hill but I wish I did because it’s a beauty. Someday I’m going to have to get a topographical map of this area and earn the names of all of these hills.

 

The sun and wind had done their work on the many rocks found on the summit so there were plenty of lichens to see. The yellow orange ones are common gold speck lichen (Candelariella vitellina) and the black and white ones are tile lichens tile lichens (Lecidea tessellate.)

The biggest surprise of the day was this scattered rock posy lichen (Rhizoplaca subdiscrepans.) For years I knew of one nickel sized example and then last year I found another and then another, and now I seem to be seeing them everywhere.

The going was much slipperier and tougher on the way down than it had been on the way up and I wished that I could just curl into a ball and roll down the mountain side. By the time I reached the bottom I knew that I wasn’t going to be good for much of anything else that day, and I was glad that I had nothing left to do.

Perhaps there’s no better act of simplification than climbing a mountain. For an afternoon, a day, or a week, it’s a way of reducing a complicated life into a simple goal. All you have to do is take one step at a time, place one foot in front of the other, and refuse to turn back until you’ve given everything you have. ~Ken Ilgunas

Thanks for stopping in. Don’t forget to turn the clocks one hour ahead tonight!

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Stuck In Reverse

Have you heard about Punxsutawney Phil, the weather predicting ground hog? He has been indicted in Ohio for fraud because of his “misrepresentation of spring.” The indictment alleges that he acted with “prior calculation and design” to cause people to believe that spring would arrive early.

Of course, his handlers claim that poor Phil is being railroaded. “There are several defenses,” they claim, including the fact that, since Feb. 2, “there have been spring like temperature spikes. “

Exactly-spring like temperature spikes followed by winter like temperature dips. Or, two steps backward for every step forward. Historically, the rodent’s predictions are accurate only 30% of the time, so we have only ourselves to blame if we jumped for joy at his early spring prediction this year.

Cincinnati prosecutor Mike Gmoser doesn’t see it that way though, and is calling for the death penalty, citing “aggravating circumstances.”  Here is a man who is obviously very sick of winter! I wonder what he’ll do about the National Climatic Data Center and the National Weather Service-who also called for an early spring.

 

This is what the Ashuelot River looked like on Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17^th.  Nice and spring-like.

 

The river was so happy to see some sunshine that it was chuckling and pretending to be the ocean.

 

Here is what the river looked like 2 days later on Tuesday, March 19th after about 9 inches of snow fell.  (This shot is in color.) Oh well, the temperature is above freezing each day so it is all melting away again, slowly. Fortunately, I had spent some time in the woods before it snowed.

The dusty rose-pink leaves of our native heart leaf foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia) will soon turn green, but for now they really stand out among the brown leaves and snow on the forest floor. This plant loses its green color in the fall when other leaves are changing, but it hangs on to its leaves all winter, green or not. It gets its common name from the shape of its leaves and from the many small white flowers that look like foam.

 

Brocade Moss (Hypnum imponens) forms extensive mats and looks as if it has been embroidered on what it is growing on. This moss is easy to spot due to its greenish golden color along with yellow and orange highlights and rust colored stems. A close look at the small, overlapping leaves shows that they look like they have been braided along the stem. This moss likes moist areas.

Common gold speck lichen (Candelariella vitellina) grows just about anywhere, but I usually find it growing on parts of stones that don’t receive any direct rain. Some say its color resembles egg yolks and others say powdered mustard. It looks pale, sulfur yellow to me, and sometimes looks a little green.  This is a crustose lichen which grows like a crust on its substrate.

Common gold speck lichen is easy to spot growing on stone walls. This picture shows how it grows in sheltered places that aren’t likely to receive any direct rain.

I found this golden moon glow lichen (Dimelaena oreina) growing on polished granite in full sun. It was small-no bigger than a dime-but noticeable because of the way the dark, disc shaped fruiting bodies (Apothecia) in the center shade into the greenish yellow outer edges. One unusual aspect of this lichen is its squamulose form. A squamulose lichen falls somewhere between the leafy foliose lichens and crusty crustose lichens and has “squamules,” which in this case are the tiny, curled lobes around its outer edges.

 

Native blue flag iris (Iris versicolor) shoots were green and growing along the river bank before the snow fell.  This is a tough plant so it’s doubtful that snow will hurt it. The flowers have 3 sepals and 3 petals and are deep blue (sometimes purple) and showy with yellow or white highlights at the base of the sepals. This plant was very valuable medicinally to Native Americans and it is said that many tribes grew it close to their villages.

Last year I saw a maple tree with this circular pattern repeated in the bark all up and down the trunk. This year I found the same pattern on a different tree. After a year of searching books and websites I finally found a naturalist who identifies these circular patterns as normal markings on young red maple trees (Acer rubrum.) As the tree ages the circles are obscured by other lines and ridges.  My question is: After decades of roaming in the forest why have I only seen this twice?

When it comes to thorns the honey locust tree (Gleditsia triacanthos) has to be king of the forest in this area. The three pronged thorns on these trees are hard enough to pierce before they break off. They can be 6 inches long or more under optimal conditions and are very sharp. During the Civil War Confederate soldiers used the thorns to hold their uniforms together, which led to the common name of Confederate pin tree.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. ~ Carl Sagan

Thanks for coming by.

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