A Trip To Fort Jackson State Forest - Part 1

I had to drive to Potsdam in the morning and noticed. along the route, that autumn foliage on the banks of the St. Regis River was especially beautiful. So I collected the pooches when I got home and set out for a closer look. I drove to the Fort Jackson State Forest, nearly a mile into the forest, parked and let the dogs out:

Much of the forest floor was covered with a soft carpet of green moss:

The autumn color was not as spectacular as what I'd seen, but it was still beautiful. We walked along the quiet lanes through a section of young hardwoods:

Seamus was a very happy dog:

The lane grew shadier as the hardwoods became older and taller:

I remembered accessing the river from this path, so I kept on walking:

I stopped to photograph some Red Maple leaves, always the most brilliantly colored and variegated:

The forest type changed as we walked, and we soon found ourselves in a Red Pine forest:

It was a good day:

Back into a section of hardwoods:

And then the lane took us through more pines - sometimes White Pines and sometimes Red Pines:

I noticed that the Red Pines tended to grow on dry, sandy soil and White Pines tended to grow on moister, richer soil and were more often mixed with hardwoods. It was all quite beautiful, but we seemed to have walked much too far - farther than I remembered the river being. I'll post Part 2 tomorrow: