At The Foot Of Gore Mountain

I drove out of Riparius (see previous posts), continuing on Route 8 and then turning northwest on Route 28. When I arrived at the Adirondack Town of North Creek (home of the Gore Mountain ski resort), I stopped at the town park:

The signs called this the Jacques Grumblatt Memorial Beach. I'd stopped here once before last year and discovered the amazing Orange Peel Fungus. I hoped I'd find it again, but the dogs needed a rest stop in any case:

I drove past the beach, past the pavilion and back to the forested area. That's where I'd found the Orange Peel Fungus last year and it was an ideal spot for the dogs to do their running:

There was no fungus to be found, but I did note that the wild strawberries were blooming:

Madeline got "stuck" on a smell near the car and then couldn't figure out where we'd gone to. I gave her a holler and she then came running:

These pretty flowers were everywhere and I snapped a photo to identify later. Alas, the details of the flower were insufficient and I couldn't tell which leaves belonged to which plant. So I'll just caption this, "Oh, look at the pretty white flowers:"

Life is grand when you can run full speed through the wild strawberries:

It was a lovely day for happy dogs to explore:

We turned and began heading back to the car:

But when we got there, I decided to continue on to the earthen dam and see the water:

It was an altogether wonderful sight as Clover walked near the water's edge with mountain peaks in the background:

I loaded the dogs back into the car and we drove out of the park, passing this trail head on the way. The lettering was falling off and I couldn't tell which hike it was. I've since searched the internet and decided that it was the Schaefer trail, which is 4.8 miles long and leads to the summit of Gore Mountain. But we were on our way to the farm and I pulled back onto the highway to continue the journey:

Route 28 Along the Hudson River And North

Just after passing through the town of North Creek NY, Route 28 began taking us along the shores of the Hudson River. The Hudson River up in the Adirondacks is quite different from the polluted, dammed (some would say "damned") waterway known to New Yorkers in the south of the state. The Hudson River up here is a pristine, rushing waterway passing through Adirondack wilderness lands:

There were many places to pull off of the road and view the scenery close up, so of course I did just that:

You can see in this photo how close the highway skirts the riverbank:

All along the road were canoe liveries and white water rafting companies. It was apparent that this stretch of river is a popular recreation site for adventurous tourists and locals:

And it certainly was beautiful:

A stone monument read, "In memory of the river men and foresters who made the the Hudson River Drive from forest to factory, 1850 - 1950. This river was the scene of many log drives:

We then continued on our way, heading north on Route 30 and passing this beautiful old barn:

A Mountain Chapel on the shores of Lake Durant which we passed along the way:

We continued north on Route 30, an attractive, scenic highway. On a Sunday morning there was very little traffic:

The Adirondack scenery was indeed superb. This was so far a most enjoyable trip. I'll post more tomorrow:

Driving Up To The Farm In Early October

I took a new route up to the farm on my last visit, beginning by exiting the Northway at Route 8, exit 25, and driving to Route 28. It was a rainy day with low clouds drifting through the autumn leaves in the mountains but I found no place to stop and let the dogs out until I reached the North Creek Town Park right next to Gore Mountain Ski Center. It was early on a Sunday morning, so we had it all to ourselves:

I drove down to the end of the road and parked near a brushy, unmowed section. All six dogs spilled out of the car and we all went exploring:

Daphne and Clover began by running circles, their usual routine. Oh, to have such limitless energy!:

Wally was very slow and I had to call him continuously because his eyesight is so poor. He follows us mostly by sound:

Winky, being the crabby curmudgeon and independent character he is, took a turn up a dirt road and I had to go retrieve him lest I lose track of him:

An attractive Adirondack stream bubbled its way along the length of the park and I guessed that it must have been North Creek, after which the town had been named. You can just see it in this photo:

As I walked through the weeds I stopped abruptly at what at first looked like gold coins strewn across the ground. They turned out to be bright orange, disc shaped fungi:

I've looked on the internet hoping to identify this interesting mushroom which ranged from about 3/4" to 3" in diameter. I read that they are called Orange Peel fungus, or Aleuria aurantia:

It was a nice break from the car and a pleasure to stretch our legs, but we were on our way to the farm. I collected all the dogs back into the car, counted noses several times to be absolutely SURE I hadn't forgotten one of them and resumed our drive northwest on Route 28 through the Adirondacks: