Time for a Climb

I’ve been doing more kayaking than climbing so far this summer so, since it is already August and I haven’t been there since April, I thought I’d visit the High Blue trail in Walpole, New Hampshire.

Just as you get on the trail there is a dead birch tree that fell and which someone has cut up into logs. This tree must have been shot through with the mycelium of the icicle tooth fungus (Hericium coralloides), because not only do they grow on what’s left of the tree but they also grow on every log that was cut from it. This example was about the size of a baseball.

All along the trail hobblebushes (Viburnum lantanoides) warned that fall was coming.

 

I was surprised to see that the meadow hadn’t been cut for hay. On this day it was full of butterflies that had eye spots on their wings, but not one of them would hold still long enough for a good photo.

 

After the meadow the trail narrows and the canopy closes in, so I always keep an eye out for things that like to grow in dark places.

Slime molds love dark places because sunshine can quickly dry them out. This one looks orange to me but my color finding software tells me that it’s dark yellow. I’ve never noticed this color before in a slime mold but research tells me that Leocarpus fragilis starts its life bright yellow, then turns orange yellow, and then brown before releasing dark, purple brown spores. And all of it can happen literally overnight.

You wouldn’t expect to find a pond on a mountain top but there is one up here. It’s not very big but I’m sure it’s big enough for all of the wildlife in the area to drink from.

The sign lets you know that you have arrived in case you missed the view. The photo of it is just for the record.

The view was as blue as always-or at least it was in this photo that I took with my phone camera.

It always seems quite hazy up here so I put a polarizing filter on my camera to see if it would make a difference. The only real difference is the yellowish cast seen in this and a couple of other photos in this post. I don’t like it, but it was hard to tell that it was happening at the time. The direction that the light is coming from makes a big difference when using a polarizing filter so maybe that’s what caused it.

The polarizer did nothing to cut through the haze. In fact, you can see less detail on Stratton Mountain in Vermont than you can when the view isn’t filtered.

I sat here for a while enjoying the view and heard a strange bird calling. It was in the woods above and behind me and, though I couldn’t see it I could hear its low and guttural call that sounded like awk or ork made three times in a row, then a pause, and then three times again. I’ve never heard it and though I’ve listened to recordings of every forest bird call I can think of, I couldn’t match it. It sounds closest to the “advertising call” of a green heron. You can hear that call on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s website by clicking here. My questions are, if it was a green heron what was he doing in a tree on a mountaintop, and what was he advertising?

This same thing happened to me last year at about this time with a different bird call that I’ve never been able to identify, but that bird was flying in circles, catching thermals. The closest I could come to matching that sound was the black necked crane which lives only in China and Tibet, so I think I’ll just stick with plants.

Whorled wood asters (Oclemena acuminata) bloomed along the trail. This shade lover is also known as the sharp-leaved aster and mountain aster. These foot tall plants often grow in large colonies and their blooms are a familiar sight along trails in late summer.

The flowers of the whorled wood aster always look a bit wonky, as if a chubby fingered first grader had tried to glue the petals on and didn’t get their spacing quite right. Another thing I’ve noticed about this plant is how it’s often difficult to tell if a flower is just coming into bloom or if it is finishing its bloom period.

All of the fan club mosses (Diphasiastrum digitatum or Lycopodium digitatum) that I saw on this hike had yellow tipped branches. Yellowing in plants can mean any one of several things, from too much water to too little, nutrient deficiency, lack of chlorophyll, insect damage, etc.  Since they’ve been around for about 300 million years and make up much of the coal that we burn today, I’d say that I probably don’t have to worry about them. They know far better than I do what is right for them.

One thing I love about exploring nature is how there is a surprise around every corner. On this hike the surprise came in the form of these woodland agrimony flowers (Agrimonia striata,) which I’ve never seen before. The small, bright yellow flowers grow in long spikes (racemes). Research shows that the plant is threatened in New York and Maryland and I wonder if it is rare here. I’m surprised that I’ve never seen it before.  The Anglo-Saxons thought that agrimony healed wounds, snake bites, and warts.

The ground we walk on, the plants and creatures, the clouds above constantly dissolving into new formations – each gift of nature possessing its own radiant energy, bound together by cosmic harmony. ~Ruth Bernhard

Thanks for stopping in.

 

 

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High Blue Trail in Winter

 

Last week we had one sunny afternoon when the temperature climbed to almost freezing. A walk at lunchtime convinced me that I needed to take some time to rid myself of the cabin fever I could feel coming on, so off I went to Walpole to climb the High Blue Trail in Warner Forest.

I told myself after I climbed Mount Caesar in Swanzey last winter that I’d never climb in winter again but, even though the trail leads uphill it is an easy, gentle climb and there are plenty of interesting things to see on the way. Many feet had passed this way before mine so the trail was well packed but not icy.

There are some large hayfields along the way that make great wintering places for white tailed deer. There is strong sunshine, plenty of browse, and plenty of forest to hide in.

It’s hard to imagine it now but 100 years ago most of the hillsides in this region would have been cleared of trees, and would have looked just like this hay field. Farming the thin, rocky soil was a hard way to make a living though, so in the mid-1800s when textile and furniture mills started offering better pay for easier work, many farms were abandoned and reverted back to forest.  Now New Hampshire is the second most forested state in the nation with 4.8 million acres-nearly 85 % of the total acreage forested. Only the state of Maine has more trees. This is why, for those of us who live here, a pasture like the one in the photo is a rare and welcome sight.

Deer put on as much as 30 pounds of fat in the fall and though they browse on twigs like that in the photo, winter food is usually not very nutritious and they burn the extra fat. If everything goes according to plan they will be much thinner but still healthy in spring.

Deer prints were everywhere.

This is a game trail. Not a single print in the photo is human, so a lot of deer and other animals follow it. Trails like this crisscross the woods in every direction.

 

I saw a stump that got into a fight with a pileated woodpecker and lost. This happened before the latest snowfall, otherwise there would be shredded tree all over the top of the snow.

These bracket fungi were very dark and I suspected that they weren’t turkey tails (Trametes versicolor). After looking through my mushroom books I think they might be smoky polypores (Bjerkandera adusta). I didn’t want to kneel in the snow so I broke one of my own rules and didn’t look at the undersides.  The adust part of the scientific name means “scorched” or “appearing burned” and a peek at the burnt looking, dark gray, pore bearing surface would have helped confirm my suspicions.

There was no doubt that these were turkey tails (Trametes versicolor). The good thing about looking for the identity of things in books is, you only have to do it once or twice for each new thing you find. After a while as you learn what things are, the books become less necessary.

 

I always try to visit this stonework when I come here. I used to build dry stone walls and it’s always fun to try to understand what the builder might have been thinking as he chose the stones. Flat stones with at least one square corner don’t just roll out of the forest and stop at your feet. I’m sure many of these were plowed up in the fields that were here.

 

The view from the granite ledge overlook is always very blue just as the name implies, but it can also be very hazy as it was this day. I could just make out the ski trails on Stratton Mountain, off across the Connecticut River valley in Vermont. In winter the wind out of the North West makes you pay for this view, so I didn’t stay long.

I always take a shot of this sign, just for the record.

 

There are places in these woods where large outcrops of granite are covered with rock tripe lichens (Umbilicaria mammulata). The Umbilicaria part of the scientific name comes from the Latin umbilicus, meaning navel. This is where another common name, navel lichen, comes from and points to how these lichens attach themselves to stone with a single attachment point that looks like a navel.  The puckered area in the center of the lichen in the photo shows its attachment point. These lichens can grow as big as lettuce leaves and Native Americans taught early settlers how to prepare and eat them to keep from starving. George Washington’s troops are said to have eaten rock tripe while trying to survive the winter at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in 1777.

I read a book recently, written by a man in Massachusetts who said he took great delight in running through the woods without following any trails. I wouldn’t advise doing that here. Since these woods used to be pasture land there are still miles of barbed wire running through them and it’s often hard to see.

As you come back down the trail and re-enter the hayfield there is a good view of Mount Monadnock directly ahead of you. This view is almost completely covered by foliage in the summer so it’s another thing that makes coming up here in winter worthwhile.

He who would study nature in its wildness and variety, must plunge into the forest, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and dare the precipice. ~ Washington Irving

Thanks for coming by.

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