Blue Ridge Wilderness Snowshoeing - Wilson Pond Trail

The Wilson Pond Trail (from Route 28, three miles south of Blue Mountain Lake) has become one of my favorites. Along with Wilson Pond, the trail provides general access to the Blue Ridge Wilderness, and it connects with the Northville Lake Placid Trail near Cascade Pond. A half dozen named ponds (all of them small) dot the area, as well as beaver ponds/swamps/meadows of every description. The Blue Ridge Itself is impressive, but it's a long, tough, bushwhack to the top; not something I would try on my own. It's the ponds that I go to see.

The western side of the Blue Ridge Wilderness. Entry from the west is from Route 28, south of Blue Mountain Lake.

A mile from the road the trail splits. The branch to the right heads off towards Wilson Pond, and, to the left, is the connector with the NLPT and Cascade Pond. I've gone the Wilson Pond way a couple of times now so this was to be a trip to Cascade Pond. I ended up going only half-way, just a mile beyond the junction.

DEC lists this route as un-maintained and I'll vouch for that. The trail is reasonably well marked, but, in places, it is a tangle of blow-down. A number of trees had come down in just the prior week when wet snow, accompanied by high winds, had coated every surface. That was followed by eight inches of drier snow that piled on and stuck. Every tree was coated, and the Beeches were especially hard hit. Beeches typically keep their leaves into the winter, and this provided a base on which the snow accumulated. Larger Beeches, weakened by Beech Bark Disease, had come down in numbers, and countless Beech saplings had bent under the weight of the snow to the point that their branches had become froze into the snowpack. Between the deep snow, and the blow-down, this was slow and difficult going.

Walking out into a beaver meadow on my snowshoes I discovered that there was a gap underneath the now. I dropped into the gap. It was wet at the bottom, just a couple of inches of water, but enough to ice up my snowshoes. Note to self, this is to be avoided in the future.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story. Especially, the video below.

Ice fog rising from a beaver pond. I normally associate ice fog with much colder temperatures, it was around 30 degrees (f) when this was taken, but I don't know of any other explanation. It was clearly there, the photo has not been altered in any way.

The same view of the ice fog, zoomed in a bit closer to see it better.

The day ended up overcast and grey, but it started with bright sunshine. 

Tracks in the snow. Probably a short-tailed shrew.