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| The weather on the East coast has been unusually warm for the beginning of November. My pal Payaso suggested a spontaneous trip to the wilds of New Jersey. This fuzzy whatzit is one of the first things we encountered along the Tinsley Trail in the Stokes State Forest. I've never seen anything like it. It was too high to touch, but I don't know if I would if I could. It reminded me of something that would hop off and start eating your face in a horror movie, or maybe the furry butt of some cute Disney alien. But I'm guessing it is some sort of tree fungus. Anyone have an I. D. for me? |
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| A more common variety of tree fungus. |
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| We came to a stream and wet our feet. The water was a bit numbing, but the air temperature was about 75 F. |
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This is not NYC. But the only wildlife I saw was a chipmunk and a tiny black and white woodpecker. I think it was a female Nutall's Woodpecker |
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| It was nice having so much sky while we hiked. In Summer this view would have been mostly obscured by the leaves. |
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| Having some car trouble, we didn't arrive at the trail until a bit after two o'clock. There were a couple of nice vistas along the circular four mile path we charted with the help of the ranger. |
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| The trail passed along this stretch of land posted extensively against hunters and trespassers. At the head of the trail we were warned that hunting season was still on and that we should wear orange. But I didn't hear any shooting while there. In fact it was entirely quiet, a great relief from the constant noise of Houston Street. |
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| It looks like this trail might be a bit more bustling on the weekends. We were there on a Monday. |
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| The trail often crossed swampy areas, this spooky tree was in the middle of one of these patches. |
 
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| Here's Payaso pretending to sleep in an Appalachian Trail Shelter. We went off the trail to check it out. As we were poking around in it a couple of thru-hikers approached (the only people we saw on the trail all afternoon). They were traveling south, intending to end up in Georgia. We chatted for a bit, but I was watching the sun disappear, and we were still about a mile-and-a-half from the car. We had to get a move on. |
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| I'm not sure if we re-joined the path at the same point left it before sidetracking to the shelter, so we may have headed off in an unplanned direction. We soon found ourselves in the moonlight straining our eyes to see trail blazes and up to our ankles in water, like in this patch of swamp I'd photographed earlier. |
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| These key chain LED lights were the only light we had. They helped us keep our footing and were useful in determining the color the trail blazes, but were a bit too dim to illuminate distant trail markers. So it was lucky for us that we had about three quarters of a moon to navigate by. After about fifteen minutes of mucking about we figured the trail must be at a higher elevation, soon found it and it was relatively easy going from that point on. I love these lights, I was glad to have one handy during this past Summer's blackout as well. |
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Unlike the kids in the Blair Witch Project, I didn't think to document our night wander until we got back to the car. Here, I think, Payaso is wondering if we were locked in the parking lot for the night. We weren't, the parking lot is left open all night. And we were never in any real danger. We had warm enough clothes with us, and I doubt that the temperature would have gone below fifty degrees that night. Though, it would have made a more entertaining story to have to spend the night. |
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