Black And Long Ponds - Part 1

My sister usually visits me each autumn and the visits are mostly brief, so I try to make good use of our time together. This year we took the dogs south to the Black Pond trail in the Adirondacks. We parked and began at this small section of Black Pond. It was lovely, but I knew there was much more up ahead along the trail:

We saw some ducks, apparently a family group which was traveling north up the lake at about the same speed as we were walking. We used a zoom lens for a better look and identified them as Common Mergansers, diving ducks. We got a chance to see them in a communal feeding frenzy, apparently when they'd located a school of fish:

We approached the first of several lean-tos:

We walked to the lean-to and stood, taking in the wild beauty of Black Pond:

And then we continued on our way up the trail. The trail is mostly level, but not entirely flat and easy to walk for a guy like me with leg braces and awkward gait:

The trail never left the shoreline, and the dogs were able to take a drink whenever they pleased:

There were patches of Balsam Fir trees, and we knew when we entered one of them by the heavy Balsam perfume:

Parts of the trail were easy even for me:

And there were planks across the marshy places:

Seamus waded in up to his chest to get a drink and cool himself off:

The little dogs liked the water also, though they picked shallower spots and only got their feet wet:

We saw evidence of beaver activity, though most of it looked old:

The trail ran between a tall esker on the left, and the pond on the right. An esker, by the way, is a gravel ridge, left behind by melting glaciers:

My sister stopped beside a Winterberry Holly, laden with scarlet fruit. We were headed north along the shore of Black Pond and there was much more yet to see. I'll post Part 2 tomorrow: