A Squirrel with a Serious Case of the Munchies

While tripping gaily through Highland Forest last weekend we stumbled upon the following:

Huh?  Here's a close-up:

That is a massive pile of 100% pine cone scales and denuded pine cones.  And if you look closely, you can see that the whole pile is riddled with holes as though someone is living in it:

The neighboring pine trees?  Not a scale nor cone under a one of them.  Take, for example, this tree immediately adjacent:

Two of the possible conclusions I can draw from this are that 1) there is one enormous squirrel with a steroid problem who favors that tree, or 2) someone's been growing marijuana at Highland Forest and this squirrel has the munchies.

Practically speaking, would a squirrel burrow in the pine cone detritus?  I wouldn't really think so - but I have a hard time believing this is all from a chipmunk.  A whole family of squirrels or chipmunks lives up that tree and only ever eats while in its branches?  What else eats pine cones?

Seriously - this one has me a bit baffled.  Anybody ever seen the likes before??

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Fall 2009 Theme = MUD

Every single hike we've gone on this fall has involved absurd quantities of mud. 

Huge sections of the Adirondacks trails looked like this:

And this:

And you've seen the picture of Lucy with the mud.  Or really, the mud with Lucy.

I mean, I expect absurd quantities of mud in the spring as a consequence of all the snow melt.  But this much in October?  Really?  I've actually talked to a few avid Adirondack hikers who said the trails were worse this fall than they'd ever remembered seeing at this time of year.  Others, however, just shrugged and said, "yeah, I guess there was a bit of mud".  That's Adirondack 46ers for you - they no longer notice such trifling inconveniences as having their boots slucked right off their feet by three-foot deep bogs where the trail should be. 

Who is right regarding this fall's rainfall?  While I've spent plenty of time in the Adirondacks, I've never gone regularly enough in every season to judge whether this year's October mud fest was unusual.  I mean, deceptively deep pits of mud that flow over the tops of my boots and suck so hard that I can't get my feet back out?  Perhaps that's just part of the high peaks experience, kind of like the Fireswamp has lightning sand and ROUSes.*

This past weekend at Highland Forest was really amazing, though, and convinced me that this really IS an exceptionally muddy fall.  Or else that we're picking exceptionally muddy days for every single hike.  I've hiked at Highland in every season, and never, never seen the trails so consistently impassable.  We had to trek through the underbrush and got lost a few times in order to avoid having to swim or build a birchbark canoe on the spot.

For example:

And:

And:

In case you cannot tell from the photo, the trail lies straight forward through - ugh - that.

It helps not at all that I have a remarkable talent for mud.  If there is a tree lying across the trail and Spouse leaps over it, his foot will land neatly on the one small hummock of grass on the other side.  I, on the other hand, will invariably slap my foot into the deepest part of the stickiest ooziest bit of mud, right up to the ankle.  Which leaves me looking like this:

One thing is for sure:  this fall has cured our dogs of their neatness fetish.  They used to avoid mud with cat-like precision, and stubbornly refuse to take another step if it meant a little squishing between their toes.  Now they just plow forward, completely oblivious to the cold moist ickiness sucking at their bellies, or the great gobbets of greasy brown they are flinging back at us.  Of course, where they go, we must follow, as we're attached.  We can no longer guide them toward the high ground without a great deal of tugging and convincing.  Some kind of happy medium is always an impossibility with those two bullheaded beasts.

Oh well.  Have I mentioned my abiding love of Gore-Tex boots and gaiters?

A plea:  okay, so allegedly this area of the country can expect between 32 and 64 inches of rain annually.  That's a mighty big range.  I can't seem to find rainfall statistics for this fall that will tell me anything useful.  Anyone have any insight or good web sites to share?


*if that sounds familiar but you didn't already figure out why, it's a reference to the Princess Bride.

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Highland glories

Sunday was a lovely day, so Spouse and I decided to do our best to wear out the hounds at Highland Forest.

I love Highland - I've been going there since I was a kid in all seasons for all sorts of activities.  It's great for hiking, cross-country skiing or snow shoeing, winter camping with girl scouts, mountain biking, and horseback riding.  There are lots of different trails through different types of terrain, and it seems as though there's hardly ever anyone there.  If you haven't yet caught on, when it comes to the great outdoors I'm completely anti-social.  I like quiet and solitude, aside from the people I'm actually hiking with.

The sun was shining, and while most of the leaves were on the ground there were enough touches of gold to make the woods look positively luminous.

We made a fatal mistake right at the start, though.  We forgot the haltis (funky harnesses that go around the dogs' snouts rather than their necks so they can't pull as hard).  Despite countless hours of effort and lots of obedience classes, our hounds perform poorly on leashes and yank like crazy whenever they catch an interesting scent.  Oh, wait, they're hounds - there's always an interesting scent.  With a low center of gravity and a lot of strength pulling in unison, they'll happily drag their human down the street, Marmaduke style.  The haltis don't solve the problem (their neck muscles are too strong for anything to work completely), but they certainly help.

Our fearless leaders:

We walked (and squelched) nearly 8 miles in total, up and down hills, but the hounds never got in the least bit tired and yanked and yoinked the entire time.  They irritated my husband so much that about 3/4 of the way through the walk he crossly pronounced that the dogs have two modes: annoying and asleep.

Here we are taking a break from the yanking in a lean-to.  I love Lucy's little face peeking out:

It was simply lovely though.  The light was so pretty, and the temperature comfortable with just jeans and long sleeves.  A few pictures to leave you with:

And, because I can never seem to resist a good climbing tree:

 

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