Vacation Day 2: Split Rock Mountain Wilderness Area
We didn’t really have any plans but I brought every Adirondack guidebook I could find (as long as it was published in the last 10 years). We got up and mixed up some of our coffee concentrate and had a tasty breakfast of trail mix while we searched through the books for our destination of the day.
We settled on Split Rock Mountain Wilderness Area. It sounded kind of interesting an it was right on Lake Champlain a little bit north of Westport. We hiked the Split Rock Mountain trail and came back on the blue trail. I’m using the names from the guidebook–they had obviously all been changed since the publication of the guidebook. On the blue trail we saw lots of grouse. Except for one grouse to say that I saw them would be a dramatic exaggeration. Maybe it would be more correct to say, a large number of grouse scared the crap out of me when they suddenly & loudly burst into the air just feet away from where we were.
The weather was clear and cool & the views were nice from the terminus of the Split Rock Mountain trail.
I learned that you have to take some stick-tights seriously. The stick-tights we have at home are just annoying but I got some on my pants fighting my way down the overgrown blue trail and didn’t bother to pick them all off right away. By the time I got back to the car I had an abrasion on my thigh that I could have gotten from skidding across pavement in shorts.
The Split Rock Mountain Wilderness area is in the historical range of the Easter Timber Rattlesnake. We kept our eyes open but didn’t see any. I’m sure that they’re extremely rare & I’m pretty doubtful about the note that someone had written in the trail register that they saw one in the parking lot. Maybe I would have bought it if it was stamped with an official herpetologist’s seal.
We had tomato soup (with shredded cheese stirred in) & grilled cheese for dinner. (I think.)