Part 1, St. Regis River Canoe Carry

The afternoon was hot and humid. The dogs and I had just hiked the Quebec Brook trail, but I knew of another short, easy, scenic hike just a couple of miles down the road. I let the dogs out of the car amidst wildflowers galore:

And then we followed the trail into the forest:

The "soil" looked like pure sand to me, but the Boreal forest grew on it. On the other hand, the trail was easy on my injured ankles and the dogs were ecstatic to be out in nature once again:

Clover and Madeline sniffed around in the mosses and lichens with a large pond nearby, just behind those trees:

The shores of this pond are so marshy that one can't get near it, but I got close enough to take a quick photo. This is just about as wild as a pond and forest can get:

The Pale Laurels were still in bloom here, weeks behind other places. We continued on down the trail toward the St. Regis River. This trail was intended as a canoe carry:

I stopped for a close-up of British Soldier Lichens, so tiny that the mosses were bigger and pine needles looked like sticks beside them:

Happy dogs, spectacular scenery, peace and quiet:

Fergus was very happy:

The Papillons tended to hang out together:

We finally arrived at the great clearing. Just ahead lay St. Regis Mountain and the St. Regis River:


And slowly moving across the sand was a very large Eastern Painted Turtle. I didn't want to disturb it by picking it up for a closer look, especially as I had the dogs with me. This was probably a female looking for a sandy spot to lay her eggs. We passed her by and she was gone when we returned. We were almost to the water's edge, but I'll post about that tomorrow: