Part 2 - St. Regis River Canoe Carry From Blue Mountain Road

I've seen the several branches of the St. Regis River in multiple places and they have presented a myriad of different views, sometimes roiling rapids, sometimes great dammed ponds, sometimes waterfalls, sometimes quiet wilderness streams. At this point it was the latter version, a quietly meandering waterway traveling through a Boreal Forest filled with fragrant White Pines and Balsams. I was enchanted by it all:

And so was Seamus, who thought it was a fine place to go for a swim. Well, actually, he just waded:

It was such a fine, sunny day that we all spent a bit of time luxuriating in the grassy meadow adjacent to the river:

And then we headed back toward our parked car:

My legs had been feeling weak and, though I couldn't be sure, suspected it was due to those darn cholesterol lowering drugs they'd tried on me. I still felt a bit weak-kneed as we walked, so decided to do one more short, level hike before tackling St. Regis Mountain:

When we passed by the lovely wilderness pond again, I just couldn't resist. I veered off through the woods to go see it. The forest floor was covered with mosses and lichens:

There was a curious combination of large, old trees and young saplings. All in all, though, it was a pleasant experience and quite wild. The soil was mostly sand and it felt much like walking along a beach:

Little Daphne bounced and played, coming to a rest only momentarily on a bed of pine needles:

The Reindeer Lichens seemed to be of more than one variety. Here you can see a darker, more coarsely branched variety on the left and a lighter, more filigreed variety on the right. Or was one just a younger version? I've since looked it up and learned that there are several dozen species:

I couldn't find any place to get right up to the water's edge so we kept pressing through the brush looking for access:

Finally I contented myself with this view from about 20 feet away. To get any closer I'd have had to hop across grassy tufts and get quite wet. No, this was a fine view and I'd just leave it at that:

When we reached our parked car I already knew which trail to take next. According to our trail guide it was "almost directly across the road." But I'll post about that tomorrow: