Martin Dunham Reservoir Hike - Part 4

My four hiking dogs were accompanying me on an autumn hike around the perimeter of Martin Dunham Reservoir in Grafton, New York on a fine Sunday in October (see previous three posts). The day's weather was alternately sunny and cloudy, but at any time, the leaf colors were beautiful. We had both the trails and the lake to ourselves, so I let the silly puppies run to their hearts' content:

The forest was still and quiet, the lake almost without ripples. But the earthy aroma of fallen leaves filled the air. It was a fine day to be alive and I had the fine company of four very happy dogs:

My spirits were high as I began to consider this one of the finest hikes I'd ever taken:

The dogs were pretty darn elated about it all as well:

Daphne made an exploratory trip to the shoreline:

And Clover considered a brief swim but then decided against it:

The dogs at the shoreline:


Always there was joyful, exuberant puppy racing:

And I was taking so many pictures that I was beginning to wonder how I'd find time to sort and edit them. Well, never mind. The hiking experience was grand:

I began to hear the sound of rushing water as we approached the southern end of the lake and guessed that we were nearing the spillway. I was unsure what we might find so I put the dogs on leashes. We soon arrived at a very deep, rushing feeder stream. This was over four feet deep and moving very fast. It appeared uncrossable, but I'll post more about that tomorrow: