Santa Clara St. Regis Canoe Carry - Part 1

The weather was perfect and I decided to drive down into the Santa Clara Tract lands of the Adirondacks to walk the dogs on the St. Regis canoe carry trail. I knew that it was a short, easy and scenic trail:

Our first stop along the way was at this gem of a pond, surrounded by peat bog:

There were the usual peat bog plants, such as Bog Rosemary and Lowbush Blueberries:

And of course Sphagnum Moss and Reindeer Lichens:

The ground, away from the floating sphagnum, was almost pure sand. Little Jack trotted along with enthusiasm:

Princess Pines usually stay green through the winter, so I think these were turning yellow due to too little rain:

Seamus has been on his diet long enough to have lost considerable weight. He was feeling young and frisky again:

We returned to the main trail, getting one more nice view of the pond as we headed toward the St. Regis River:

It was a gorgeous day. I accidentally snapped this photo of myself and was surprised when I later saw that it was usable. I looked happy because I was:

Daphne took a few exploratory excursions along the way. The smell of Pines and Balsam Firs was in the air:

Just as I'd planned, this would be a brief walk in lovely scenery to a beautiful destination:

We were almost to the river, but I'll post about that in Part 2, tomorrow:

Exploring Slush Pond - Part 2

The dogs and I were exploring the floating peat bog and Slush Pond (see also Part 1, posted yesterday):

There were lots of Pitcher Plants, some of them ruby red. Some of the sphagnum moss, as you can see, was similarly red:

Seamus explored the water's edge:

And Daphne checked out every sight and every smell:

This tiny pink wildflower was new to me, though I could tell it was a Laurel. It turned out to be Pale Laurel, Kalmia polifolia, in the same genus as the more familiar Mountain Laurel and Sheep Laurel:

Daphne and Clover got a little too close to the water for my comfort, but neither one fell in this time:

There were also these tiny pink bell shaped flowers, growing on plants whose leaves reminded me of Rosemary. Indeed, they were called Bog Rosemary, Andromeda polifolia. It resembles the herb, Rosemary, but is not related. You can also see both red and yellow sphagnum in this photo:

While I looked closely at tiny plants, the dogs were bounding across the bog and giving everything the sniff test:

This is a close-up of the very tiny Cranberry plant. It was much too early in the year for berries, but maybe we'll return in the autumn to find some:

But the mosquitoes were biting me and it was time to head back to the car:

I took a slightly different route, just for the fun of it, and that suited Seamus just fine:

We all piled back into the car and I squashed as many mosquitoes as I could before we began our return home. Jack, Daphne and Clover settled down on the seat next to me for the drive: