Spring retreat - day three

The drizzle that began in the evening turned to rain showers through the night.  I slept well, though:  warm and comfortable in my dry tent.  When I woke at 6 AM, an enchanted mist hung over the lake.  The damp and diffuse light both muted the colors of the landscape and gave them depth.  The still water formed a perfect mirror for the trees.  In the quiet and intimacy, the calls of small flock of geese echoed around the shoreline.

While eating breakfast at the shoreline, I noticed several mayflies clinging to grass at the water's edge.  Looking more closely, I identified them as Little Blue-winged Olives (Beatis sp.) -- presumably the same mayflies that had generated such interest from minnows as they'd emerged the previous two evenings.  Sadly, I hadn't counted on such an early hatch, and I'd come prepared mainly with streamers, scuds and a variety of nymphs -- mostly caddis nymphs.  No emergers.  Nonetheless, I fished from 9 AM until 3 PM, with only a few scattered showers to dampen my spirits.  Again, I tried every combination of fly, depth, and presentation of which I could think.  Apart from a couple of very optimistic sunfish, I had no success and began to suspect that the lake just didn't hold any trout.

Late in the afternoon, with the rain still holding off, I decided to hike to the top of the hill at the northwest end of the lake -- intrigued by the rock outcrops visible on the slope through the bare trees.  Hiking along the south shore of the lake, I came into a stand of stately, mature beech trees in a shallow valley.  I think that few trees look as beautiful as a mature beech, rising in the forest like a column of smooth, gray stone.  And then, at the bottom of the valley near the lake shore, a real surprise:  a shagbark hickory at what must be almost the northern limit of its range.

A delightful forest of beech, oak, basswood, maple and white pine covered the southeast slope of the hillside.  Impressive rock outcrops broke up the slope, providing footholds for ferns, moss and wildflowers.  Crevices and dark stone recesses lay at the bottom of the larger cliff faces, many of which clearly provided dens for wild animals -- especially porcupines, as evidenced by the accumulation of woody pellets at many of the entrances.

An open, oak woodland covered the top of the hill.  It didn't offer the same prospect as the rock bald atop Blueberry Mountain; but it felt light and airy, and gave good views of Green Lake and the Clyde River Valley.

On the way down the mountain, I followed one of the small brooks that feeds Green Lake.  It ran through a shallow gully into a rich cove, diving underground for a short distance and emerging again as a small spring below a rock outcrop.  Nearby, another outcrop dripped with seepage -- perhaps the beginnings of some future cavern.  More spring wildflower bloomed beside the creek.  Near the bottom, in tangle of brush, a winter wren squirted out its hurried, dipsy song.

It was a good day for plants: red and white trilliums, wild columbine, wood anemone, downy yellow violet, dutchman's britches, early saxifrage, enchanter's nightshade, polypodium, smooth cliff fern (Woodsia glabella), as well as the shagbark hickory and, on the way back along the shoreline, a white oak.

I arrived back at camp at the start of twilight and ate supper in the dark.  The wet weather ended any hope of a fire for the night (or the remainder of the trip).  After washing the dishes, I sat for a while in the car listening to "Ideas" on CBC Radio -- a very interesting episode in a series called, "Beyond Atheism."