The Gift of Fall – Part 1

Seeing as these will start to publish on the day before Christmas, I thought I’d call this short series The Gift of Fall. It’s a tale of four segments of the Ice Age Trail; some I’ve walked before and some new, but all had something beautiful in store even if they weren’t all equally captivating.

Averill-Kelly Creek Wilderness segment

Confession time.

I didn’t love this trail. It was my first time walking this end of it and I lost patience after a while because it’s basically a forest road.

I can put up with for walking this kind of trail for a while, but it has to be a short while.

Even with cute little features like this bridge, I find the relentlessly flat and mostly straight trajectories pretty dull and unengaging.

Quaint and inviting, sure, but I would rather have the twisting and turning, rising and falling of a forest track designed for feet and not wheels. That’s what lights up my brain in the forest. Similar to my love of kayaking slow rivers – there is mystery around every bend. The tingle of anticipation of discovery. Did you say that like Dr. Frankenfurter? I did! Never can say it like a normal person.

If it wasn’t fall and I didn’t feel the annual pressure to take advantage of every second of color, I might not have persisted as long as I did. Even so, I tried to get off trail a bit and see what presented itself. Carefully though since it is all private land and the landowner already has some restrictions around where the public can and cannot go. I’d noticed a couple of trail cameras already and figured there had to be more so I didn’t want to cause a problem with the IAT alliance.

Luckily I found some mushrooms now and then like these two Galerina marginata species on the side of a log. They are so cute and orange (these remind me of tiny apricots), but deadly as heck. Commonly they are known as Funeral bell, Autumn skullcap and Deadly skullcap. Don’t let their adorable nature fool you. This is a stack of about 8-10 shots, I forget. The larger one in front is about 2 cm across.

Just when I thought things were going to get interesting, the track turned, straightened and joined yet another ATV trail or logging road. The color was super intense though. I had to actually turn the saturation down for this one and some others. Really special time and I was happy to be out, even if the trail itself isn’t my favorite.

It looks like a wide footpath, but there are tire ruts under there. Eh, just not my preferred type of trail.

Ok another mushroom. Although I see these all the time, I don’t recall ever photographing one before. The scientific name is Fomes fomentarius, but the common name is Tinder fungus. It has been used throughout history as tinder for fire making. It’s portable, durable and highly flammable. It does have to dry out, but it’s always around so you could replenish your kit when you ran low. Otzi, the famous preserved man who lived about 6,000 years ago, had tinder fungus in his toolkit when he died in the high Alps. Cool huh?

So that’s it for this trail. Three more coming up! All with most excellent fall color and the usual stuff I like to find in the woods. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah (which is over, sorry) or Solstice or whatever you celebrate this time of year, especially the outdoors!