Walking up river and a native orchid

First off, good job Chaz by creating this blog. Maybe someday someone besides us will read it- haha!

Well, with my first post I wanted to tell you about a little hike me and my wife Heather took on Monday along the Moose River. We started at the parking lot for Rock Island (which is where we put in for our Spring Class V rafting trips on the Moose River) on the Moose River Road south of Old Forge, NY. We had planned a short walk up river to this section of the river known as the Wall- it's a small class 2 ripple rapid this time of year but it has provided Chaz and myself with countless hours and days of entertainment in the past. There's also a nice big eddy on river right that serves as a big swimming pool when the water is warm enough. The picture at the above right is a view up river of the Wall. You can see there are giant rocks that have been worn away over the centuries by swift moving water-the Moose has a bunch of very big glacier deposited rocks in it which makes for big waves, big holes and big fun when the water is high enough. Anyway, my point is that this section of river is a lot of fun, it's perfect for swimming or a picnic or just relaxing and catching some rays.

Me and Heather made our way up river. When we had left it was about 80 degrees and sunny but by the time we got to the Wall it was much cooler and the clouds were rolling in- a storm was definitely coming in (which is good, we need some rain pretty bad). We did a little wading around and I took a dip in the river- it was my first intentional swim of the year and it was very cold. My 'swim' wasn't really a swim, just a quick in and out dip. By the time I was out of the river I barely had time to put my shorts back on before it started to drizzle so Heather and I began our hike back to the car.

On our way back I spotted a Pink Lady's Slipper, also known as Cypripedium acaule (thank you wikipedia!). This native orchid is beautiful and I had to snap a quick photo with my phone- here it is at the right. The Pink Lady's Slipper is relativly common in the forests of the Eastern United States but it is being victimized by uneducated pickers and habitat loss. It is listed by the United States Department of Agriculture as "Exploitably Vulnerable" in New York and it is on the New York State Protected Plants List. The flower is illegal to pick.

Anyway, by the time Heather and I made it back to the car it was raining and thundering pretty hard, but it was a good time. We drove down the road and stopped to have a look at a couple of the drops of the Lower Moose. Sadly, the rain has not had much of an effect on the river levels so let's pray for more to come.