A "soft" day in the ADKs

Someone once told me that the kind of day we're having today - heavy mist falling through a bright sky - was called a "soft" day by the Irish...now that we're getting more rain than Ireland, I'm starting to adopt terms from cultures based on prodigious rainfall (like the inuits supposedly having 37 words for snow).



We all got up early, and so were a bit stir-crazy by the time the light broke through, and the rain eased off a bit at 9:30 on Sunday. We decided to go out for a newly listed geocache that was adjacent to a retired railroad bed, so that we could continue on a walk after finding (hopefully...) the cache.



Wet as it was, we had to look all over the place to find the cache, as my GPS receiver seemed to be adversely effected by the rain and wet on/in/above the trees and bushes between me and the container...Ben and Gail and I were in constant motion, to keep away from the bugs as well...yes...Gail has come back, and was out enjoying the mist despite her lingering cold.



We eventually found the geocache, in the foundations of an old railroad station (I had to walk through about six inch deep water to get the container). We signed the log, traded for a matchbox car for Ben, and replaced it in the original location.






Using my totally fantastic tripod (it's really too cool to simply call it a tripod, but there isn't another word) hung up in a tree, I was able to take a group shot of our geocaching crew next to a car that must have been abandonned in the woods 50 or more years ago. What the shot doesn't show is my scrambling/diving/ducking to make it through the trees and underbrush to join Gail and Ben for the picture.



We continued our walk along the railbed past streams and swamps in the wet and bright day, with Ben running ahead to point out all of the cool things we always find when we are out in the ADKs.



He found a hole where a turtle had laid its eggs, which had subsequently been dug up by some predator which also marked the spot with a poop filled with egg-shell fragments and fur and tiny bones.



The number of shades of green probably doesn't come across in these pictures, but there are thousands of different colors of green in the Adirondacks, thanks to the 5 weeks of rain that we've had...Ben asked about the new growth tips on all of the trees we passed, and we compared (and sniffed) some of the new tips off of a balsam tree by the railbed.



After crossing one bridge about 1/2 mile in, and checking on a cache of mine a bit further on that someone had reported missing (it wasn't), we turned around to head home for warm lunch...wet and cold, but still having fun.



Ben asked to ride back the rest of the way on my shoulders, and we had a great time looking at the swamps and trees and occasionally turning over a log in search of salamanders (we didn't find any this time).



The light that managed to find its way through the cloud cover and mist lit the groundcover with a subtle and luminous quality that would have made the day worth it even if we hadn't had a great time and a wonderful walk on this, another, perfect Adirondack day.