Hiked by: Tim and Valerie on Saturday, June 28, 2008 via Carter-Moriah trail.
Conditions: The weather forecast was for more of what's been going on for a couple weeks. Chance of rain during the day, with thunderstorms developing in the PM. High humidity and gray skies. We decided to try the Carter-Moriah trail to Mt Moriah.
The first surprise was the parking lot. There is no parking lot. There is someone's garden, and some grass with a "No Parking" sign on it. We ended up parked along the side of the garden, with the other cars, but feeling a bit bad about it. If we'd known, we would have taken the Stony Brook trail instead.
The first couple miles were great. Relatively smooth trail all the way to the first lookout. We saw some beautiful fungus on a fallen log. We identified it as Mycena Leaiana.
At the first lookout, we got some hazy views and saw some beautiful Sheep Laurel (we think). The first two miles took us just an hour, so we thought we were in good shape.
Along the path, we saw a lot of different wildflowers. Wood sorrel, bunchberry and Clintonia were among them. It was very interesting to see the regression of the season as we worked our way up the mountain. At the bottom, the Clintonia was already past flowering, and had its berries although they were green, not blue. About half-way up, we got these beautiful pictures of it in bloom. Nearer the top, it had not yet bloomed at all. The bunchberry was similar - near the top, the flowers were still non-existent or very new.
The trail offered a variety of terrain... there were a lot of ledges to scale, but there was also a lot of muddy bog to cross. The bugs were pretty nasty due to the gray skies, high humidity and no wind.
When we first found this very white Lady's Slipper, we thought it might be some rare form, but now, we think it must just be a very pale pink one. We found it next to this other pink one.
The trail description warned of multiple false summits. Somehow, that didn't make them any easier. Miles 2-4.5 were very tough mentally. Again, the bugs, humidity, clouds, wet rocks and bogs all conspired to bring us down a notch.
As we neared the top, we finally got a little breath of wind. There were very few views from the summit, but we spoke to a nice man from Albany who was an ADK 46er and was now working on his NH48. After a few minutes for a snack break, we started the trip down. It sprinkled a bit during our descent. The highlight of the trip was a Blackburnian warbler who flew right into a nearby tree, then about 10 feet over our heads. Our one attempt at a photo was completely unsuccessful before he was gone. We also saw swallowtails and white admiral butterflies, a veery, a yellow-bellied sapsucker.
