Chapter 3 - Hike To Grasse Pond, Debar Mountain Wild Forest

The dogs and I had hiked in to the Grasse Pond lean-to in the Debar Mountain Wild Forest and were making our way back to the trail head:

I never grow tired of seeing the dogs happy and excited as the explore the wonders along a forest trail, especially one as flat and easy to walk as this one:

I remembered that these dead looking, brown sticks were a parasitic plant, but didn't remember which one. I looked it up when I got home and decided that they were Beechdrops, a plant which lives on the nutrients it steals from Beech trees. In this case, I think they were the dried stems from last year's plants:

And a gorgeous, red button-capped mushroom:

And a flat capped mushroom whose colors and textures reminded me of toast with butter and raspberry jam:

We hiked onward through this wonderland of natural beauty:

This was surely one of the most pleasant hikes we've taken in a long time:

The Bunchberries were covered with scarlet berries and brightened the pathway:

And I focused my attention to the smaller plants and lichens which formed a wonderful miniature landscape of color, texture and wonderment:

The hike back from Grasse Pond seemed so much longer than the hike going in that I'd begun to worry we'd taken a wrong turn. But I knew we were on the right trail when we arrived at the bridge over the Osgood River. The dogs went in for a drink, a bit of play and a cooling off:

The sun was making it difficult for me to get photos, so I walked around some bushes to stand on a different part of the shoreline. I quickly sank down to my knees in the closest thing to quicksand I've ever encountered, and then fell backwards. I managed to keep one arm and the camera above the mud, but the rest of me was a brown, muddy mess:

I snapped a photo of the dried flower heads of Joe-Pye Weed as we got back onto the trail to finish our hike. I tried to clean myself of mud before getting back into the car but was largely unsuccessful. So we just drove home. But it had been an exciting morning and we'd seen lots of natural Adirondack beauty: