Hiking in Campbell Falls State Park (CT)

On Sunday, July 4 itself, we were on our own, rather than venturing out with Nan and George.  After the Rubber Ducky Race at our campground, we decided to do a couple of short hikes nearby in order to get a sense of the Southern Berkshire Mountains in Connecticut.

Our first hike was to Campbell Falls, in a nearby state park:

The daylilies have long since peaked in Virginia and Pennsylvania, but they were in their glory here in Connecticut.  David got lost in them:

Just in case you never considered daylilies beautiful, just take a look at this beauty:

This has been a very rainy season in the Northeast, and our trail showed it, with damp trail and trees, and exploding green leaves everywhere:

Even this Ent was astonished at the verdancy:

We hiked to Campbell Falls from a trailhead about 1 mile downstream.  Our path was a little less frequently traveled, and we followed braided paths through large boulders that might have been dropped by ancient glaciers:

Everywhere, the fungi and lichen popped up to astonish us.  This was the first we had seen of what appeared to be lichen growing in the duff on the forest floor:

After 1.5 miles or so, we reached Campbell Falls:

 The falls were full and fast after the recent torrential rains that, as a local said, dropped "two months of rain on us in one day."

David got as close as he could to capture photos and video of the falls:

We poked about the falls a while, at our lunch, and chatted with other visiting hikers.  On our way back to our trailhead, we encountered this survey stone marking the state line between Connecticut and Massachusets, which happen to share this state park.  David enjoyed standing in both states at once:

Above the falls, at the parking lot in Massachusetts, we found that the road bridge over the falls had been constructed with stone.  The work was quite remarkable:

After admiring the stream above the falls, we headed back into the Connecticut portion of the park.  Kathy spotted these fungi, which, with log and stone, constructed an abstract pattern pleasing to the eye:

The state park was almost rain-forest in nature, and this moss-covered stump demonstrated the truth of that:

Another stump nestled in with the ferns, to similar effect:

Kathy has "berry radar," and it went off as we neared our original trailhead.  She zeroed in on this clump of unharvested raspberries, quickly picking a picnic feast for dessert for our lunch:

Back at the trailhead, we repaired to a picnic table and ate our lunch (with berries) while watching this cheeky squirrel conduct its daily rounds -- at this point perched on one end of a flat boulder marking the edge of our parking lot:

One hike down today, one hike to go.  Check on the second one in the next blog entry.