Wonderful Debar Pond - Part 1

It had been several years since I visited Debar Pond and I decided it was time for another visit. I brought along a friend and my five dogs. We drove into the forest on a long, one lane dirt road. It was lined with what I thought were Foxglove plants in bloom. Then we parked and began walking:

That's when I discovered that the flowers I'd seen had not been Foxgloves at all, but some kind of Bellflower:

I looked them up when I got home and learned that they were Creeping Bellflower, not because their stems were low to the ground (they were all about three feet tall or more) but because their roots send out runners. Furthermore, I learned that they were a garden escapee, not a native wildflower. There were many hundreds of them, all along the road:

We walked the dirt lane toward Debar Pond and passed by this ancient White Pine. It had to have been at least eight feet diameter at its base:

Normally I have Debar Pond all to myself, but this time there was a group of about ten people with big dogs, so we put my dogs on leashes. My friend took the three little dogs and I took Seamus and Fergus:

As we approached the former home site, we passed many abandoned barns and this picturesque greenhouse/potting shed:

And a garden filled with red Bee Balm (Monarda):

We arrived at the abandoned mansion, an Adirondack Great Camp on the shore of lovely Debar Pond. If I remember my history correctly, this was once the home of an eccentric and wealthy German hops farmer. Now it is empty and owned by New York State:

Alas, the serene nature of the site was turned into a boisterous day for about ten people and four big dogs. Some of the dogs were worrisome around my small dogs, so we walked uphill, away from the pond and toward the old mansion. This white dog, named Aspen, came running with us and ignored his owner's calls:

We arrived at the mansion and turned to look out over the pond and mountains:

And then we continued on a trail into the forest, where my dogs could do some swimming without worrying about the big dogs:

Big ol' Seamus waded out too far and then his back legs kept collapsing. He didn't seem able to stand up, and I was just about to wade in after him when he managed to make it back to shore:

Yes, he then went back out where he'd been before - and little Daphne swam out to join him. But we had much more to see. I'll post Part 2 tomorrow: