Day 8: Barn Rock (Split Rock Mountain Wilderness Area (again))
On Friday we headed back to the Split Rock Mountain Wilderness Area. We were going to hike the Granite Trail from my guidebook but due to the problem of all the changed trail names & trail route changes. We ended up hiking out to Barn Rock instead. The trail took us from Lake shore road all the way to the shore of Lake Champlain and up to the top of a huge rock maybe 60 ft high right next to the lake. There were a couple guys who were rock climbing on barn rock. Another (non-rock-climber) guy jumped off the rock but lived through his apparent suicide attempt. (Really I think he was just a nut.)
We saw tons & tons of red efts on the trail. It rained on Thursday night so they were all out enjoying eft-friendly weather. Once you see one eft you’re bound to see another one every 10 feet. In case you don’t know anything about efts, they’re a really interesting type of salamander/newt. The adults are entirely aquatic greenish brown salamanders, they lay eggs in the water, the eggs hatch and swim around and eventually turn into Red Efts which are (I think) completely land based. They leave home to escape the tyrrany of their parents and wander around until they find a new pond where they’ll turn into aquatic salamanders. I recently read that this might be an adaptation to take advantage of beaver ponds which are there for a while and then gone, but a new one might spring up elsewhere.
We also saw a ribbon snake (identified several days post-hike). The ribbon snake startled me while it tried to escape our stares and I almost fell down. I’m really not afraid of snakes but they like to move very suddenly.
On the way back a large branch almost fell on me. We were walking along and I heard some loud crashes above me in the trees. I thought it might be some kind of large-ish animal moving around up there. Brian yelled “run,” and I did. When I stopped running & turned around a fairly thick tree branch was laying across the trail about a foot from where I had been standing. Somehow I always thought trees were supposed to fall when no one was around to hear them.