The forecast was a bit iffy, but the front came ferociously and quickly on the night before, and cleared out nicely by Sunday morning. The weather was cool and sunny. The state had recently mowed the trail, which gave us a wide dry path to walk with all the plants and flowers along the edge, which worked out well.

Our plan was to walk at half-speed, and take 4 hours for the loop, and we met that time almost exactly. We parked along River Road at the trailhead, and hiked up (south) on the Honey Hollow Trail / Catamount Trail. We followed the Catamount Trail onto a smaller logging road, until eventually we came to the second big logging road.

We followed that downhill to the Honey Hollow Road. We took the road down to the River Road, and back to the cars. We had people that knew something about each of ferns, wildflowers, and trees, so we could all teach each other things as we walked. (There were very few mushrooms, which worked out well, since I don’t think any of us knew mushrooms!) In September, the wildflowers include a lot of asters and goldenrods, and they were certainly a lot of what we saw. We also searched for a 10 foot tall ‘Tall Blue Lettuce’, but did not find any taller than 9.5’.

This was one of those hikes where everything worked out about as well as it could be hoped – a really excellent outing for those interested in the botany of the area.

Mary Keenan, Elaine Minadeo, Andrew Pedersen, Lelia Pedersen, Danielle Graham, Maury Kost, Phyllis Rubenstein, Chuck Bond, Judy Bond, Maveret McClellan, Sheri Larsen, Richard Larsen (Leader)