For the past two weeks my weekly hikes with my friend Sheila explored the western part of the Park. Last week we followed Trail #56 from its start, at the Eardley-Masham Rd. near Ramsay Lake, to Taylor Lake. This week we checked out the lookout. The ecosystem has quite a different feel from that in the more popular central part of the Park near Kingsmere and Meech Lakes. Here the forest is more open being populated with Beech and Oak trees with a much grander feeling coniferous ceiling. On our first hike the last of the Beech and Oak leaves were still on the trees so we felt surrounded by a warm glorious bronze colour as we hiked along. This week they had all fallen. During both hikes I was captivated by the variety of moss and lichen growth on the ground: I couldn’t keep my eyes away from the ground it was so rich in variety of colour and shape and pattern. So today Kody and I returned simply to indulge in the patterns on the ground.
The photo at the top of this post is of Kidder Lake. I am such a suck for photos of reflections in water and this photo was taken just before the sun warmed the air causing a slight disturbance on the water surface. The remaining photos are of various lichen and mosses along the trail.
