Part 1 - St. Regis River Canoe Carry From Blue Mountain Road

I was up at the farm on Easter Sunday and awake early, ready for something deeply spiritual. I therefore drove myself and the four youngest dogs down to Blue Mountain Road to do some walking in the beautiful Santa Clara Tract just north of Paul Smiths and south of my farm. I was toying with the idea of hiking up St. Regis Mountain but my legs were feeling a bit weak, so I stopped first at the canoe carry from Blue Mountain Road to the St. Regis River. There was no other car on the entire road, much less using the trail. We hopped out and started down the path:

The forest was rife with Balsam Firs and the ground was carpeted with Reindeer Lichen and mosses of many sorts. It was spectacular:

 I passed by a lovely pond to our left but didn't see any access trail so kept on walking toward the St. Regis River:

Rounding a small bend, I inched a bit closer to snap a better photo of this unnamed pond:

But the dogs seemed to know that our destination was directly ahead. I suppose they can see the trail as well as I can and have noses which can detect which way other people have walked before:

I passed many nice examples of Running Clubmoss:

And on through the Adirondack forest:

We emerged into a clearing which, I'd read, used to be the site of a sportsman's club of some sort. It was beautiful and the St. Regis River lay just ahead:

Off to the left the St. Regis looked calm and wide, more like a pond than a river:

There was one fire pit, evidence that it'd be OK to camp here some day. I might do that myself some evening when the weather is warm and the bugs are not too bad:

I walked closer to the southern view of the river and wondered if that might be St. Regis Mountain rising up on the horizon:

Then we walked right up to the northern stretch which was calm and not at all wide. Seamus considered a fine place to wade right in, get himself wet and have a cool drink of the water. The other dogs liked the drink of water part but didn't want anything but their toes wet. I'll post more tomorrow: