The Town Of Duane Nature Walk - Part 1

We were sunny, with temperatures in the forties, and I decided to drive the dogs down for a hike to Debar Pond, about 30 miles from home. As I traveled, I began to see snow and downed trees from the previous night. The snow got deeper as I continued on into the town of Duane, New York. I found the one lane dirt road into Debar Pond passable and drove in almost a mile until I came upon a big truck blocking the way, with a road crew clearing downed trees. So I backed out to a place where I could turn my car around and began heading home. When I saw this sign, I stopped and let the dogs out:

The map made the trails system look interesting and not too challenging. I wore only sneakers on my feet but they were already wet, so I decided to give it a try:

The dogs, needless to say, were overjoyed to hit the ground and began running wildly through the wintry forest. As usual, I spent the early part of the hike yelling "Stop!," "No!" and "Get back here!" But also as usual, they calmed down after a bit and we all got to relax and enjoy our walk:

The snow on the ground was four to twelve inches deep and no one had walked the trail before us. Little Jack was so excited that he ran back and forth as well as in circles:

The woods were quiet and lovely, the dogs happy:

The trail veered close to the road where we passed the back side of a historic church. I made a mental note to find out more about it later:

Except for when I hollered at the dogs, everything was quiet and still:

Seamus was especially animated and energetic. I told him once that he was a lot easier to deal with when he was obese. But he sure looked noble, standing beneath the trees:

I chuckled when I noticed that in this photo, Jack was going the opposite direction of the others. That was common, though, as all the dogs, but especially Jack, were running in different directions:

And there was a real sense of exploring a beautiful, mysterious wild forest:

About the only leaves still on the trees were Beech, and they were a beautiful coppery orange:

I came to a connector trail and turned right. We kept hiking until I began to see more connector trails and realized that I was not at all sure where we were. What I was seeing did not match my memory of the map at the trail head. But it wasn't a big area, so we kept walking. I'll post Part 2 tomorrow: