The River Loop Trail In St. Regis Falls - Part 2

The dogs and I were hiking the River Loop Trail (see Part 1, yesterday) and had arrived at the banks of the St. Regis River, currently roaring with the spring runoff. Daphne climbed down onto a thin sheet of ice and I began yelling for her to get back up with me before she broke through and plunged into the rapids. She did so, and all was well:

And then we continued on. Clover climbed up on a glacial erratic, queen of all she surveyed:

At this point we were in a Cedar and Hemlock forest, typical of most river valleys around here:

Jack had probably never been so happy in all his life. He behaved pretty well too, though I could see that he imitated everything Clover did. That made me more determined than ever to keep Clover reined in and not running too far ahead:

The trail eventually took us back uphill to the elevated woodland where we had been before, circling around to the trail which had brought us to the river:

It was a gorgeous day and the dogs were happy:

Clover and Jack raced each other through the forest:

Clover ran like a tiny Greyhound and Jack couldn't quite keep up, but he sure tried:

We hiked through several different forest types:

Some sections had trail markers every twenty feet or so, but other sections were sparsely marked and I had to walk slowly and make sure I didn't lose the trail:

But soon we were back on the main trail, headed back to our parked car. The dogs had begun to slow down at this point, having run almost continuously since we'd begun:

The dogs saw the road and our car ahead at just about the same time I did. They wanted to run to it but I made them heel - all of them except Jack who had no idea what "Heel" meant and didn't care, either. But he was waiting for us at the car when we got there: