Near perfect day- sunny, breezy, 62 degrees at start 72 at finish. We had recently come at the Hogback Overlook access from the Frye Mt. area and found logging and a confused trail situation. Today's goal was to approach from the other side to see what we could see.
We started from the parking on Halldale Rd. , climbed to Northern Headwaters and then down Hemlock Hollow to the Hogback connector ( this newer map has the trails listed separately by number) . There were lots of insects in the sunny sections but they were skittish and the breeze made close ups difficult-- Kelley din't help either but I got a couple.
We walked past the first trail up Hogback- on an old woods road- until we came to some huge trees down and blocking the way. We could see there had been logging beyond and gave up on going further. Heading back I realized we were on the wrong path- I didn't think we had made any turns but the road was rising ( I've marked the one I think we were on) . I guessed it would take us to the overlook and it did.
We had lunch and hiked back down to the connector but took it to the Bog Brook Trail to return a different way.
Found these huge fungi- largest I've seen - the largest was 26 " across
Kelley was happier on this trail- the Hogback section had been fairly dry and we now had small streams she could get into.
Found this moth in the parking lot
We didn't accomplish our goal to clarify the trail situation but it had been a beautiful day in the woods.
3 1/2 hours
Lovely moth and butterfly pics! I never seem to catch these guys staying still long enough to photograph.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Linda- they have been skittish and it was breezy- you don't see the mountain of out of focus pics I got
DeleteLove the photo of the swallowtail butterfly. I always like seeing that tree fungus. It's interesting to see the different colors they can be.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, Kim
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