At the Mountains of Madness. 6-10-2018

Did I really get up the morning after a gig and drive 2 hours to climb a mountain? Well, yes. It was going to be sunny and in the 70s and we wanted to get back to a spot that our dear friend Teá had taken us to last year. My friends Ryan and Big D had been there the week before and had had good luck seeing animals so why the hell not? We got there at about noon and headed in.

We walked the trail past a stream with Green Frogs plucking away like mad but never saw them. Then we saw a sign pointing to the summit. A mere 1.1 miles up. Easy as pie. On the way to the incline, Andrea flipped a lovely Redback, our first animal of the trip. Check out those gams.


This wasn't the ascent Teá had showed us last year. 1.1 miles isn't very far but we were going up on the steep side and we, being the old fucks that we are, had to take frequent breaks. That's OK- people far younger than we were taking plenty of breaks, too. About 3/4 of the way up, Andrea saw a plump American Toad. We corralled it for pictures and made the mistake of asking a kid if he wanted to see it. He was very enamored of it and I had to get my voucher shot in his hands.

He was actually pretty cool with it. He was gentle and his mum made sure he treated it well.

It took a while and plenty of energy to make it to the summit but we were almost there. I said something to the effect of "we'd better get some reward for this effort"! Ryan and Big D had seen many Milksnakes here the week before, so we hoped we would see at least one. I flipped a flat rock on the side of the path and we saw got our reward.

Another rock had two or three under it. There was no way to safely extricate this golden girl but I held on long enough to get a picture of her coloring. What a beauty.

We realized we were in a sweet spot and tried to NOT get greedy.

After all, some were crawling and some were being hamburgers between rocks and some were just tails.

This was extremely exciting but we had to remind ourselves... numbers aren't important, keeping the habitat and animals undisturbed is. We left this "sweet spot" alone without digging through any deeper. Restraint was needed. We flipped some low hanging fruit in other spots with no success. It's funny, that one spot is definitely the honey hole. They all looked like they were ready to shed and the few we handled looked to possibly be gravid. It will be interesting to see if this spot is full of youngsters this Fall.

So, we made it to the summit and stayed long enough for the obligatory scenic shot.

Then we headed back down.

Passing the sweet spot, we saw a noggin pop up and another hamburger.

The path down was much less steep and it was easier on the knees. The woods were green with filtered sunlight and birds were singing. My socks spoke for me.

It was fairly moist in the shady woods, making us think of salamanders. I said something about wanting to see a Spotted Sal and finally see a 2018 newt. We flipped a few Redbacks, confirming our notion that it might get good for cuadata.

That last one was even under birch!

Andrea saw a hop and found the first Wood Frog we'd seen in a long while.

It was also under a birch log that we got a huge surprise... a small Spotted Salamander. Ask and ye shall receive!

Do not besmirch the birch.

This Redback's red back was wine colored. The photo doesn't quite do it justice but it was a stunner.

I went to flip a log and it broke. Darn it! But... but... it had four Efts in it. We broke the seal on Red-spotted Newts both literally and figuratively... in a big way. First of Year!

We repaired the break as best we could with the newts' safety in mind.

You could have knocked me over with a feather... another Spotted, also only about 3 inches long.

We were having a really good day, despite our lack of sleep. Andrea admitted, however, that she'd like to see more reptiles. Fair enough. Does this 2 foot-plus Garter fit the bill? We tried to calm her down in Andrea's hat.

Gorgeous specimen. Orange cheeks.

Since Teá had introduced us to this place, it's only fitting that we end with an animal in her wheel-house, what I think is a Red-spotted Purple, though it hasn't any red spots. (Nor it is really purple.)

A fun and rewarding, if tiring, day. It had more meaning to us that I have shown here. We also did it to prove that we can, in fact, still do a hike like this with little sleep. At my advanced age, I would give up the band if it was impeding my ability to do what I love. And that is to immerse myself in nature.