Part 6, Windham Mountain

This, as I've said, was undoubtedly the longest 6.6 miles I've ever hiked. It seemed to me that we should have arrived at the summit a very long time ago. But we kept hiking uphill, over sharp rocks and hard tree roots:

The "Silly Sisters" were still having a grand old time, running in big circles and wrestling and chasing each other:

But Seamus and I were getting mighty tired as we entered into another spruce grove:

Seamus took a drink:

And then he plopped himself down in the water, exhausted:

But of course we had to press on. Daphne and Clover have now taught Fergus to climb rocks with them. These boulders would, I believe, be good examples of glacial erratics, debris left behind as the glaciers retreated:

I passed this amazing fungus on the side of a tree. It was quite ornate and intricate. But I've searched Google Images and found no hint at what it may have been. As is so often the case, I just had to content myself with admiring its beauty:

I was contemplating giving up and turning around. But just then the trail turned sharply uphill and the forest to the right of the trail dropped off precipitously - so steeply, in fact, that it was letting in much sunlight and I began to worry about the possibility of a landslide:

But all the extra sunlight had at least one very beneficial effect:

Up ahead I thought I could see sunlight and hoped that meant we were reaching the summit:

And to our right I began to see glimpses of the nearby Catskill mountains. Now I just had to keep going, though I was also secretly afraid that this was as good a view as this mountain provided. I'll post more tomorrow: