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necessary change in elevation
Monday, August 19 2024
location: 940 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
I took a recreational 150 mg dose of pseudoephedrine this morning and then puttered around at all my favorite Adirondack chores. I paddled the canoe over to the vicinity of the public dock to retrieve yet more loose stones from the bottom to further build out the "ice wall" (a wall of stone that separates winter ice into a chink near the shore and a chunk out in the lake, thereby putting less stress on the part of the dock that remains in the lake all winter). While I was over at the public dock, I happened to notice that one needs to step up when walking onto the dock from the shore, and that distressed something in me that likes for walkways to only be stepped when there is a necessary change in elevation (a feeling that is dictating some of the improvements I;ve been making on the Mossy Rock Trail). But the landscape sloped up from the dock, meaning one the dip between the landscape and the dock's upper surface was only about two feet wide. So I gathered rocks from the bottom or the lake and used these to fill in that dip. I didn't have great Tetris-style matches for the rocks and didn't want to put much time into this effort, so I then mortared in the gaps between the rocks with gravely sand (which is plentiful at the public dock).
Meanwhile the dogs were waiting patiently for me at the dock, so when I returned, I took them for a walk down the Woodworth Lake Outflow Creek. As I approached the creek's bifurcation, I noticed that a cardinal flower was in bloom. I'd photographed this flower exactly a year ago back when I didn't know the creek beside it was bifurcating less than twenty feet away. From there, the dogs and I climbed up the cliffs along our parcel's west boundary with Adirondack State Park. Not long after I got home, a downpour began.
Later this afternoon, I did some more work on the Mossy Rock Path, especially the two places along it where the terrain is steep enough to justify steps. Fortunately, steep places tend to also be rocky (even in the Adirondacks, where most of the rocks small enough the lift are hidden beneath the soil), so I usually don't have to go far to find rocks when I am building a crude stone staircase. (A set of steps I built last year on the old dock trail — the Barbara Roberts Memorial Steps — did require me to bring in rocks from elsewhere because there were absolutely no available stones nearby.)
At around sunset, Charlotte was clearly aggitating for a walk, so off we went up the driveway. Neville even came. When we got to Woodworth Lake Road, Charlotte wanted to go east (down towards the lake), so that was where we went. But at the little spur down to the public dock, I turned and went down it. We ended up walking back to our dock along the shoreline, cutting through both Ibrahim's and Shane's parcels.
Woodworth Lake from our dock today.
Click to enlarge.
A probably deadly Amanita mushroom on the trail from our dock to the outflow creek.
Click to enlarge.
A blooming cardinal flower near the bifurcation.
Click to enlarge.
Neville near the bifurcation.
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Royal ferns on the banks of West Bifurcation Creek.
Click to enlarge.
A clavarioid fungus between the West Bifurcation Creek and the cliffs below the cabin.
Click to enlarge.
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