7/28/12 Northern Headwaters

Rain predicted again but we decided to hike anyway ( it did not rain) . We started from the new parking lot for the Whitten Hill trail head  and walked to the Northern Headwaters loop. We come across these old rock walls fairly often but they are usually not this well preserved.

We then added the Hemlock Hollow Trail which we had not done before and that took us down to the road and to Headwaters trail head where we found some insects among the tall grasses and weeds

  The streams we crossed were either completely dry or had only small pools where Kelley could get a drink but not cool off so we took the Goose Ridge Trail to an area where I remembered there were a couple of small streams she could actually get into ( assuming they weren't dry too). She seemed very glad that they had water and we spent a little time there letting her enjoying it.

Next to one of the streams was a fairly large bush on which every leaf had been skeletonized by small black worms. There were not many in evidence  but they had done their work

On the log bridge was a small damselfly

We took the Mink Run Spur back to the main trail and continued the loop. The Sheepscot is little more than a stream at this point

A little further on we met four people who warned us about a hornet's nest ahead . One of the women had kicked it and they all had visible bites on their legs. We did not encounter the hornets.

A pleasant hike   2  3/4 hours