Experiencing a change in climate, landscape, way of life and mode of travel, I crisscrossed the corn fields of Vermont to end up in the aptly called Lazy LIons Campground in the midst of nowhere, met some great guys there, learned to eat S'mores and found out where custom granite tombstones are made in a place aptly called "Forever".
My First Leanto and the Ironwood Trail
Moving House
And Moving Through the Forest
Trails in the Champlain Islands
Moving house; Ironwood Trail, Grand isle; nature trail North Hero
To read more about my N. America Sola Camping Trip Start here, go to Table of Contents, or follow the links below:
When travelling, often one day is the antithesis of its previous. From the cultivated apple orchards and the sushi restaurants of yesterday, this was a day of rough weather and re-immersion in the natural.
17.9 Saturday, Grand Isle State park Campground
Moving House
It was supposed to rain. There was terrible wind. I decided it was time to move to a lean-to before crowds would come and book them all for the weekend. The leantos were named after trees. “Maple” was still available.
I paid the extra 7$ for the night, but still had the problem of moving the tent. I asked a French lady, who happened to pass by to help me carry the tent without dismantling it. It was very windy and the tent was too bulky for me to carry alone. She pretended to not understand what I asked her, and perhaps she indeed did not get it. Nonetheless I admit, I kind of imposed this task on her, put her on the spot so to speak.
The net result was not grand. As we were carrying the hoisted tent, she carelessly let the rain jacket hit some tree branches, and it tore. I only saw the damage later. Yet, the tent arrived at its destination. She still seemed clueless, as she walked away…
I learned I cannot force feminism on ladies who are not used to doing manual work. Some things that are automatic for guys don’t come natural for many women.
Later, at the campgreound office, I was helped to a piece of super strong duct tape to patch the tear. Thank goodness, and Easton, the tent came with some ready-made patches.
Stabilizing the tent against the little hurricane that was whirling out of the lake and over the cliffs, was no easy task. I pre-prepared stones to ground it, and hoped the tent would not fly into the lake by the time I got the car. I now replaced the rocks with my 1-gallon water bottles and with the heavy mattress, and things seemed secure.
Ironwood Trail
It did not rain, though. Was a bit wet in the morning, but nothing significant. It was time to do the Ironwood Trail, Grand Isle. I started near the recycling center by the office, then crossed East Shore Road to get to the second part.
The trail was delightful, but a bit frustrating not to have the interpretive brochure. There were numbered stations all along the trail without explanations. Due to that, I repeated the walk the next day, making the rangers print out the brochure especially for me out of the orignial file. Apparently, I was the only one asking for it.
There were, indeed, ironwood trees on the trail, but also Eastern Cedars, maples and sensitive ferns. A surprising patch of wetlands hosted primitive-looking horsetails, giving together with the ferns a feel of an ancient forest. I thought, given a chance, evolution could actually repeat itself and the existing ferns would develop again into fern trees. And why not? There are hundreds of fern species in North America alone and about 10,000 world-wide.
I thought, given a chance, evolution could actually repeat itself and the existing ferns would develop again into fern trees.
In the next photo you can actually see a tree trunk skeleton in the process of turning back into Mother Earth.
North Hero Nature Trail
I continued to North Hero Island, where I found another nature trail. This one was a bit spooky, no people around, and somewhat less organized, but it had the explanations right next to the trees:
I gave myself a sign to distinguish birch from beech. The double E connotes the double O of “smooth”. While the birch has a bark that peels and sometimes looks like paper as in “paper birch”, the double –E beech is double-O smooth. Otherwise they both have leaves with parallel vein patterns which are hard to tell apart.
And then – out of the green, a wind started to build up – and suddently the whole forest “caught on”, rustling, shaking, bending, gesticulating to the invisible force that took hold of it:
On the other side of that forest reserve, agricultural interference was just a fence away. You forget it when immersed in that wonder of the forest wind, but all these “preserves” and “reservations” are just what they are called, while civilization is quickly eating it up lurking behind the fences.
When back in the campground I decided to re-visit La Motte the next and last day I planned to stay in Champlain, a decision that brought an interesting turn of events.
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